Women’s History Month
March is Women’s History Month.
The actual celebration of Women’s History Month grew out of a weeklong celebration of women’s contributions to culture, history and society organized by the school district of Sonoma, California, in 1978. Presentations were given at dozens of schools, hundreds of students participated in a “Real Woman” essay contest and a parade was held in downtown Santa Rosa.
A few years later, the idea caught on within communities, school districts and organizations across the country. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first presidential proclamation declaring the week of March 8 as National Women’s History Week. The U.S. Congress followed suit the next year, passing a resolution establishing a national celebration. Six years later, the National Women’s History Project successfully petitioned Congress to expand the event to the entire month of March.
www.history.com/…
While it’s important to feature women’s contributions to our history and culture, this kind of focus is also a way to keep women’s history separate from the main story of the country, as Black History Month, which just ended in February, ignores the fact that the history of African-Americans is intrinsic to the history of the US. The economy of the US was built on the free labor of slaves and women; you can’t understand American history without understanding how women and African-Americans were part of its shaping.
However, any attempt to remedy this is met with denial and hostility (e.g. The 1619 Project). And yet without these threads the fabric of the country doesn’t really hold together. In the introduction to her book The Creation of Patriarchy, Gerda Lerner tells that when she started her graduate studies at Columbia University, she told her advisor she wanted to write about women’s history and was told that there wasn’t enough of it for a dissertation. Yet women have been part of history as long as men, it’s just that men have decided that theirs is the story that counts.
The history of the US (or the world) until all the diverse threads are woven together. But for now, if you want to learn more about Women’s History Month, here are pages from the US government and the Women’s History Museum, giving special events and general information:
womenshistorymonth.gov
www.womenshistory.org/…
On Friday, Joy Reid’s opening segment gave an interesting look at where we are at this particular moment (sorry I have not been able to find video of the segment):
topnewsshow.com/…
It makes sense to give special mention here to officebss, whose WOW-2 series adds to our knowledge of women’s history every week.
Economy — CHIPS Act
The CHIPS act, passed last summer, announced the policies for awarding the funds this week to companies planning to produce semiconductors in the US. To receive a grant, they must meet certain conditions including paying union wages, using green energy — and providing childcare for workers.
Millions of Americans work less than they used to, or not at all, because they can’t find someone to take care of their children. The lack of adequate child care not only keeps parents from trying to earn a paycheck but damages the economy overall. It’s one of the biggest reasons that American companies are struggling to find workers.
President Biden, who has pushed for more affordable child care, unveiled an unusual way to tackle that problem this week. The Department of Commerce announced that it would require computer chip manufacturers to make child care available to their workers when they apply for new federal funding.
The money, which totals $40 billion, comes from a law that Congress passed last year to boost U.S. production of semiconductor chips. It is an attempt to compete with China and make the American economy more self-reliant. Before the announcement, it had nothing to do with child care.
messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/...
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I subscribe to the New York Times and get a daily newsletter with commentary on a particular subject. The above source is that newsletter, which focused on the childcare portion of that bill, with arguments for and against, in typical NYT fashion. But it focuses attention on the importance of childcare to the whole economy that is welcome.
I am adding several sources given in that newsletter because I think they are worth giving on their own merit. First, for the statistical basis for the idea of a “childcare gap” they use this study from the Bipartisan Policy Center:
childcaregap.org/…
And for analysis and commentary, here are two other articles looking at the issues, including the issue of whether behavior modification techniques will actually work with businesses:
www.nytimes.com/...
www.cnbc.com/…
Two Women
Kudos to two women who made history in state legislatures this week. Joanna McClinton became the first woman and the second African-American Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives:
“In my career, I’ve been blessed to achieve other ‘firsts’ in this chamber, and I am equally honored to serve as this historic body’s first woman speaker,” McClinton said. “I stand before you today, humbled and honored to be elected your speaker, and most importantly, my election today makes me more hopeful about the future of our commonwealth and our communities.
“I’m confident if we collaborate rather than criticize, debate rather than disparage and replace shortsighted political gain with sincere cooperation - this body can do better - and will do better. Today can be our fresh start. Each of us is here because our neighbors have placed their trust in us. And that collective trust is what empowers us to act in the interest of our communities and to advance Pennsylvania for the common good.”
www.pahouse.com/...
And state Senator Machaela Cavanaugh declared war on the Nebraska Republican supermajority to prevent passage of a bill denying gender-affirming medical care to transgender children, vowing to filibuster every bill brought before the legislature until the bill is withdrawn:
“If this legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful, painful for everyone,” Cavanaugh said in a meeting Thursday that was recorded by local news outlets, NBC News reports. “If you want to inflict pain upon our children, I am going to inflict pain upon this body, and I have nothing but time, and I am going to use all of it.” She further vowed, “I will burn the session to the ground over this bill.”
She continued her filibuster until the legislature recessed Friday afternoon, then resumed it Tuesday when the body reconvened. She has kept it up through having strep throat.
“At the end of the day, this is going to hurt children,” she told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Monday. “I don’t care how sick I get. I don’t care how tired I am. I am not going to look back on this moment in time and say I didn’t do everything that I possibly could to fight for and protect children, especially our most vulnerable children, which are trans youth.”
www.advocate.com/…
Reproductive Health
Anti-abortion crusader Jessa Dugger Seewald recently revealed that her fifth pregnancy ended in a medically necessary abortion - except that she insists it doesn't count as an abortion.
From Jessica Valenti's "Abortion, Every Day" Substack: A bill in Texas proposes banning websites that give any information on abortion. And after a recent court ruling protecting abortion assistance funds, Texas legislators are trying to criminalize those as well. Tennessee legislators are currently arguing about whether to add an exception to the state's abortion ban when the pregnant person's life is in danger. Missouri is trying to deny Medicaid for post-abortion medical care.
Four states (Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina & Kentucky) have proposed bills charging women who have abortions with homicide.
Maternal mortality rates climbed or stagnated in nearly all regions across the world in 2020, according to a report released by U.N. agencies on Wednesday, marking a major setback in global efforts to combat complications during childbirth or pregnancy.
,,,
The data suggests that deaths rose in areas with less access to timely health services, said study author and World Health Organization epidemiologist Jenny Cresswell.
In two of the eight UN regions – Europe and Northern America, and Latin America and the Caribbean – the maternal mortality rate increased from 2016 to 2020, by 17% and 15%, respectively.
www.medscape.com/...
And if that isn’t reason enough to repeal the Helms amendment, Guttmacher always has the numbers.
www.guttmacher.org/…
Violence and Abuse
The US Marshals Service is teaming up with a Native American tribe based in Northern California for a new push aimed at addressing cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people, a growing crisis that tribes say has not received enough attention.
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The Bureau of Indian Affairs, a federal agency aimed at enhancing life for Native Americans, estimates there are more than 4,200 missing and murdered cases that have gone unsolved. The agency lists out many of the cases and photos of the missing on its website. But despite the numbers, cases involving Indigenous people have largely gone under the radar and advocates have been pushing for additional dedicated law enforcement resources and attention in the news media to the crisis, CNN previously reported.
Authorities say they have long faced a number of challenges that have prevented them from solving cases. Police say in some cases it involves family-on-family crime and relatives refuse to provide information because they don’t want the person responsible to go to jail. In other cases, there is limited evidence, CNN previously reported. Tribal communities generally don’t have doorbell cameras or exterior security cameras that help police investigate cases in urban or suburban areas.
www.cnn.com/...
Funny how they don’t mention race and juristiction issues as significant factors, isn’t it?
Lindsey Lundholm looked out over hundreds of people at the Utah State Capitol last year and felt a deep sense of healing. Abuse survivors, religious leaders and major party politicians were all gathered to rally for an end to a legal loophole that exempts religious clergy from being required to report child sexual abuse once it comes to their attention.
Lundholm, one of the rally’s organizers, recalled telling the crowd how, growing up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Idaho, she told her bishop about her painful abuse only to see it go unreported.
,,,
Proposals to reform laws that exempt clergy from child sex abuse reporting requirements went nowhere in Utah’s statehouse this year, failing to receive even a hearing as lawmakers prepare to adjourn for the year. Efforts were stymied by a coalition of powerful religious groups, continuing a yearslong pattern in which Catholics, Latter-day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses have defended the exemptions as survivors like Lundholm fight for reform.
apnews.com/...
After years of delay, Southern Baptists passed a series of reforms in 2022 aimed at addressing abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
Those reforms included setting up a “Ministry Check” database to track abusive pastors and training churches on how to prevent abuse and to care for abuse survivors.
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Paul Chitwood, president of the IMB, and Kevin Ezell, president of NAMB, told Religion News Service in an email that they support the abuse reform and that the Send Relief funding has been “more than adequate for the Task Force’s implementation expenses to date.”
Culture
Tonight the Seattle Opera will stage the world premiere of A Thousand Splendid Suns, an opera by American composer Sheila Silver and librettist Stephen Kitsakos, based on the novel by Khaled Hosseini. The production is directed by Roya Sadat, who lived under the Taliban’s first regime, in which the opera is set. It is the story of two women living then.
The women, born nearly two decades apart, forge an unlikely bond as they share an abusive husband and navigate struggles facing them and their country. It’s a story of hardships, injustices and loss, but also of deep love, endurance and one big decision that, ultimately, alters both their lives and leads to the survival of only one.
It was supposed to be a story of a bygone era -- until the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 dramatically changed that.
Read the whole article.
As always, thanks to the WoW crew, this week especially mettle fatigue and Tara TASW,