If you read anything I have written, chances are very great that it will be about women. It usually is some observation about what women need; occasionally it is about what women have accomplished. Lesbianism found a strong voice in my mind and writing, as women loving women seems to be just an obvious outcome. And, with a dash of humor, I have to admit men just are not lining up to know more about women with ONE notable exception ~ yes, lesbians are very good at that.
I am compassionate, passionate, empathic, very socially curious and a Black family in the White House is deeply engaging. The radiant treasure is that there are two young girls who will be using the children’s secret garden and rolling eggs in the Spring. The next president of the United States is an extraordinary man whose life story is like no other ~ this is no everyman. My conscience requires me to be enthusiastic about President Obama and his family.
However let us stop and take some inventory about the week of Jan 18 – Jan 25, 2009. The 19th is Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Day and on that Mall, on August 28th 1963 Dr King dreamt of the day that will be January 20, 2009. The Mall will finally be that Resurrection City, rising from the miles walked, meals missed, dogs biting, hoses spewing to a Black man taking on the job of Abraham Lincoln at one end – to George Washington at the other. January 20, 2009 will be a day people died for.
January 22, there will be millions of Americans demonstrating on both sides of the 1972 court decision of Roe v. Wade. Pro-choice people will be commemorating the lives of women who bled to death from amateur abortions to doctors who were assassinated for performing safe and legal abortions. Anti-choice people will be praying, marching and demonstrating on behalf of lives, which they believe are murdered before even breathing air. Each of these “sides” with full hearts and developed intentions will have their day.
In the midst of all this advancement, networking, demonstrating I am called back to that one issue that drives my life; the unrelenting desire for full equality for men and women under the law, pay equity and equal opportunity. The presidential cabinet is 5/15 ~ one third is women. The Senate and House have not made significant strides at all. The US has slipped to 71st in the world in women in leadership.
Obama and his economic team are stating that job creation will the center piece for the new economic super-structure. There is talk of millions of jobs in construction and engineering. As Linda Hirshman has pointed out in the New York Times, Where are the New Jobs for Women?, women make up 9% of construction workers and 12% of engineers. Today, on Hardball, she expanded the discussion to include job creation for more women in healthcare, education, libraries and the arts.
But let me go even further, we must also take into account that women must be paid as their lives require. I am considering that paying women the same as men (instead of the 77 cents for White women and 69 cents for Black and .. and .. and) is not even enough as more and more women are single heads of households. Many women need paid maternity leave and childcare.
As we go round and round about who should hold the Senate seat Hillary Clinton is vacating, what of the thousands of women who are out of work, not being considered as a class in the grand scheme of the economic re-structuring? What happened to the idea that we must seat the first last and the last first? Women need to work, for wages which meet the needs of their lives. Women must be fifty one per cent in every sector, working for equal wages and full benefits.
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