Women’s Support for Clinton Rises in Wake of Perceived Sexism

NY Times | Jan 10, 2008

By JODI KANTOR

If the race wasn’t about gender already, it certainly is now.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has been running for president for nearly a year. But in the past week, women in Iowa mostly rejected her, a few days before women in New Hampshire embraced her. All over the country, viewers scrutinized coverage for signs of chauvinism in the race, and many said they found dismaying examples.

Even Democratic women with no intention of voting for Mrs. Clinton found themselves drawn into the debate and shaken by what briefly seemed like a humiliating end to the most promising female candidacy in American history.

The process seems to have changed a few minds, at least for now.

“I was really pained by the thought that her campaign really was over,” said Amy Rees, a stay-at-home mother in San Francisco who will vote in the California Democratic primary on Feb. 5. “I kept thinking that the truth is, a woman — even a woman of her unquestioned intelligence and preparedness — can’t get even a single primary win. It really stung.”

Ms. Rees had favored Senator Barack Obama of Illinois; now she is thinking of voting for Mrs. Clinton.

Until a few weeks ago, Mrs. Clinton, of New York, hardly seemed like someone in need of defending — from sexism or anything else. She was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. She was a Clinton. And as a former first lady, she was a complicated test case for female achievement.

By losing the first presidential contest, Mrs. Clinton may have succeeded in getting more women to see her as she presents herself: not a dominant figure of power, but a woman trying to break what she has called “the highest and hardest glass ceiling” in America.

“I do want Hillary Rodham Clinton to take the White House, but until she lost Iowa, I didn’t realize how much, or how much it had to do with her being a woman,” said Allison Smith-Estelle, 37, director of a program against domestic violence in Red Lodge, Mont.

What bothered them as much as the Iowa results, said several dozen women in states with coming primaries, was the gleeful reaction to her defeat and what seemed like unfair jabs in the final moments before the New Hampshire voting.

Michelle Six, 36, a lawyer and John Edwards supporter in Los Angeles, said she was horrified to hear Mr. Obama tell Mrs. Clinton she was “likable enough” in a Democratic debate on Saturday. Ms. Six said she found the line condescending, and an echo of other unkind remarks by other men about women over the years.

The likability question, initially raised by a moderator, “wouldn’t be coming up if she wasn’t a woman,” she said.

At work, Ms. Six said, she listened to male colleagues make fun of Mrs. Clinton for choking up at a campaign appearance in New Hampshire. “She’s over,” one chortled, Ms. Six said.

With that, Mrs. Clinton “may just have earned my vote,” Ms. Six said, adding, “I don’t know if I was super-conscious” of the gender factor in the race before then.

In New Hampshire, two hecklers yelled at Mrs. Clinton to iron their shirts — stray comments that angered untold numbers of women after the incident was widely reported. And Mrs. Clinton is the only candidate whose critics complain about the pitch of her voice.

For many women, these moments are deeply personal. Though Sarah Kreps, 31, who is moving to New York, said she would vote for Mr. Obama, seeing Mrs. Clinton debate was a reminder of her time in the Air Force, and the discomfort of being the sole woman in a group of men. The criticisms of Mrs. Clinton’s voice took Ms. Rees back to the time her boss pushed the mute button on a conference call to tell her that her voice was too shrill.

Now that Mrs. Clinton has gone from a solid lead to a tie with Mr. Obama in the latest national Gallup poll, some voters are thinking back to incidents that they say now seem suspect to them: the debate in which Mr. Edwards critiqued the bright jacket Mrs. Clinton was wearing, or the one at which Mrs. Clinton was asked, by a woman, if she preferred diamonds or pearls.

Other women mentioned how they were shocked to see how the only female candidate was perceived by some voters. For Jodi Cohen, 31, a recruiter in Orange County, Calif., it was the relative who recently told her that he admired Bill Clinton but would not vote for his wife because she had stayed with her husband after the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Full Story

Cuban Women Apply for Masonic Rites

 

Maria Deraismes, French feminist author, lecturer and politician, co-founder of Co-Freemasonry along with Georges Martin, through the La Respectable Loge, Le Droit Humain, Maçonnerie Mixte (Worshipful Lodge, Human Rights, Co-Masonry) in Paris.

IPS | Dec 18, 2007

By Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Dec 18 (IPS) – A group of women are looking forward to founding the first women’s Masonic Lodge in Cuba next year, and so put an end to their traditional exclusion from Freemasonry, an esoteric society which is based on the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity.

They are being helped in this endeavour by the Women’s Grand Lodge of Chile, which will send a delegation to Cuba in mid-2008 to initiate several dozen women in Havana and Pinar del Río, 157 kilometres west of the Cuban capital, the head of the Working Committee on Women’s Masonic Lodges in Cuba, Digna Gisela Medina, told IPS.

According to Medina, women have been interested in Freemasonry for centuries, but it is only recently that women’s Lodges have come into being.

“As women achieved their goals and their active participation in society grew, women’s Lodges started to be formed in many countries of the world,” she said.

This has already happened in France, Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, and other countries. “It seems to be an irreversible process, and we think that sooner rather than later, women Masons will be internationally accepted by the Regular Grand Lodges,” she added.

Fabian socialist, feminist and Theosophist 33rd degree Freemason Annie Besant

Masonry is self-described as a progressive, philanthropic institution made up of free-thinking persons of good character who seek self-improvement. People of different religious creeds and atheists coexist within it, as do Masons of different political and philosophical persuasions.

But one of the ancient fundamental precepts of the United Grand Lodge of England, which sponsors Regular Lodges all over the world, is to exclude women from the brotherhood. Initiation of women Masons, therefore, would appear to be irregular and problematic.

José Manuel Collera

However, José Manuel Collera, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Cuba from 2000 to 2003, says that “like many other Masons,” he thinks this rule is now outmoded and should be revoked. “Personally, I have always defended the inclusion of women in Freemasonry,” he told IPS.

In his view, excluding women has caused the order to lose its appeal in the modern world. “Women are the most important element in society; they constitute half of humanity, and they are mothers of the other half. There is no doctrinal, philosophical, esoteric or initiatory reason to prevent a woman from becoming a Mason,” he argued.

Collera acknowledged, however, that Cuban women have had to overcome several hurdles in their quest, especially among some of the most conservative male Masons. “But these are only conflicting currents of thought, not an official position of Freemasonry as a whole,” he said.

In any event, sponsorship by the Women’s Grand Lodge of Chile removes any risk of the male Grand Lodge of Cuba losing its regularity and the recognition of the other Grand Lodges it is in amity with, by transgressing the ancient boundaries and accepting women among its numbers.

Women’s Masonry uses the Scottish rite, also practised by the male Cuban Lodges, so the symbols, rituals and initiations will be the same for men and women, said Medina, 46, who is a specialist in maxillofacial surgery at the Calixto García teaching hospital in Havana.

Among the groups of Masonic aspirants, aged 18 to 60, there are professional women and homemakers, Catholics and state employees. “The important qualities are that they should be virtuous, discreet, hardworking, and of course keen to join the Masons,” said Medina, whose father and husband are Freemasons.

Political activism or belonging to other social organisations are no bar to becoming a Mason, Collera and Medina said.

The Working Committee led by Medina was formed two years ago in Havana, and is made up of about 30 women. In Pinar del Río there are 32 women aspirants, and interest has spread to Caibarién, a town on the north coast of the province of Villa Clara, 268 kilometres from Havana, where a new group of women is getting under way.

There are plans for another Working Committee to be set up in Santiago de Cuba, the country’s second-largest city, which is 847 kilometres southeast of Havana. “We are not interested so much in quantity as in quality,” Medina said.

Statistics from 2004 indicate that there are 29,000 Masons in Cuba, organised in over 300 Lodges. The governing body of the order is the Grand Lodge of Cuba, and both the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, as well as the York Rite, are practised.

According to experts, throughout the history of Cuban Masonry women have always been associated with its activities, lending external support, but until now the felt need of women to enter the inner sanctum of its mysteries has gone unrecognised.

. . .

Related 

Symposium in Cuba to study the history of Freemasonry in Latin America

Hillary Clinton gets Gennifer Flowers’ vote

The Guardian | Dec 8, 2007

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington

Gennifer Flowers, once the other woman in Hillary Clinton’s marriage, is back – only this time she claims she has no intention of wrecking Clinton’s personal life or her run for the White House. Flowers may even be offering her vote.

A nightclub singer who came to national attention during the 1992 elections claiming to have had an affair with Bill Clinton, Flowers says she would consider supporting his wife’s run for the White House.

“I can’t help but want to support my own gender, and she’s as experienced as any of the others – except maybe Joe Biden,” she told the Associated Press. Flowers said she had long wanted to see a woman in the White House, and she remains partial to Democrats. “I just didn’t think it would be her,” she admitted.

She promised that she would not try to raise havoc during the campaign, or revive a defamation suit against Clinton, which judges dismissed. “I don’t have any interest whatsoever in getting back out there and bashing Hillary Clinton,” she said.

It marks a turnaround for Flowers, who nearly wrecked Bill Clinton’s campaign with her allegation of a 12-year affair. He initially denied it, but admitted years later to a single sexual encounter with Flowers in a deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit.

Women to hold purse strings by 2020

Reuters | Aug 5, 2007

By Jennifer Hill

LONDON (Reuters) – More women than men will make financial decisions in the home in just over a decade, according to a report published on Friday.

The fairer sex will have the final say in the majority of financial decisions in homes by 2020, if current trends continue, according to National Savings & Investments.

The government-backed savings provider said that men currently make key financial decisions in 20 percent of households, a decline of 2 percent in the past five years.

Over the same period, the proportion of women having the final say has risen from 10 percent to more than 12 percent.

Based on these trends, the Future Foundation, a think-tank commissioned to undertaken the research, forecast that a shift in power will happen by 2020.

Women are also predicted to be the main earners in one in four households by 2030, up from 14 percent today.

Although women continue to earn less than men — an average of 1,080 pounds per month, compared to 1,486 pounds among men — they are catching up fast, particularly at younger ages.

Women in their 20s earned a wage equivalent to 93 percent of their male counterparts’ wages in 2000, a figure that has risen to 96 percent today.

Women in this age group will overtake men in the earning stakes by 2015, if the trend continues, the report says.

The changing demographics will also boost the nation’s savings habits, it adds.

Around 50 percent of households are expected to be saving regularly by 2057, up from 43 percent today.

That will bring the total volume of savings, excluding pensions, to 150 billion pounds compared to 43 billion pound today and less than one billion pounds 50 years ago, based on 2003 prices.

William Nelson, deputy head of consultancy services at the Future Foundation, said: “We are seeing the emergence of a generation of women who are better educated, more ambitious, and more financially confident than any before them.

“This generation is already more likely to handle day-to-day financial matters than their male partners, and demands to have at least an equal say in the big decisions.”

The analysis is based on a range of sources, including the Expenditure and Food Survey, British Household Panel Study, Family Resources Survey and Future Foundation data.

Related

Feminism, New World Order and Rockefeller’s New War

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Feminism and the CIA

Hollywood director and documentary film maker Aaron Russo has gone in-depth on the astounding admissions of Nick Rockefeller, who personally told him that the elite’s ultimate goal was to create a microchipped population and that the war on terror was a hoax, Rockefeller having predicted an “event” that would trigger the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan eleven months before 9/11. Rockefeller also told Russo that his family’s foundation had created and bankrolled the women’s liberation movement in order to destroy the family and that population reduction was a fundamental aim of the global elite.

 

Women to Take Control of Household Decisions

Finance Daily | Aug 3, 2007

Household roles have altered dramatically in the last 50 years and new research suggests the rate of change my soon accelerate further.

National Savings & Investments has published the findings of its study into savings in the period 1957 to 2057, which analyses past trends and anticipates the future of finances in UK households.

It concludes that major household decisions will generally be made by women in 2057, due to higher earnings and basic social change. Already, men make the major decisions in just 20 per cent of households, down from 22 per cent in 1992. The proportion of women having the final say on big decisions increased from ten per cent to 12 per cent in the same period.

The proportion of households in which women make the big decisions will exceed the proportion in which men are in control by 2020, the report adds.

Women in the UK currently earn an average of £1,080 a month, which compares to £1,486 a month for men. Significantly, however, younger women are closing the gap at pace, which suggests wage equality is not a million miles away.

In 2000, women in their 20s earned a wage equivalent to 93 per cent of the average male wage, but this has now reached 96 per cent. The NS&I report predicts that women in their 20s will have actually overtaken men by 2015.

William Nelson of the Future Foundation observed: “In 2007, we are seeing the emergence of a generation of women who are better educated, more ambitious, and more financially confident than any before them. This generation is already more likely to handle day-to-day financial matters than their male partners, and demands to have at least an equal say in the big decisions.”

Dax Harkins, NS& I’s senior savings strategist, added: “Women have a stronger hand to play than in the past, and will be the key decision makers in many households within a generation.”

Interestingly, however, a recent report from the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) concluded that gender equality “is still generations away”. Unlike the NS&I report, the EOC predicted that the pay gap would take 20 years to close. The pensions gap is seen as even more insurmountable, with the EOC expecting gender inequality for another 45 years.

Related

Feminism, New World Order and Rockefeller’s New War

Gloria Steinem: How the CIA Used Feminism to Destabilize Society

Feminism and the CIA

Hollywood director and documentary film maker Aaron Russo has gone in-depth on the astounding admissions of Nick Rockefeller, who personally told him that the elite’s ultimate goal was to create a microchipped population and that the war on terror was a hoax, Rockefeller having predicted an “event” that would trigger the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan eleven months before 9/11. Rockefeller also told Russo that his family’s foundation had created and bankrolled the women’s liberation movement in order to destroy the family and that population reduction was a fundamental aim of the global elite.

13 yr old boys could face 10 years for slapping girls’ posteriors

• Face ten years in prison and registering as sex offenders for life
• Strip searched and treated as sexual predators at jail
• Parents not allowed to talk to their own kids for 2 days

The arrests, critics said, reflect a trend toward criminalizing adolescent sexual behavior

ABC13.com | Jul 25, 2007

McMINNVILLE, OR – Two middle-school students in Oregon are facing possible time in a juvenile jail and could have to register as sex offenders for smacking girls on the rear end at school.

Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, were arrested in February after they were caught in the halls of Patton Middle School, in McMinnville, Ore., slapping girls on the rear end. Mashburn told ABC News in a phone interview that this was a common way of saying hello practiced by lots of kids at the school, akin to a secret handshake.

The boys spent five days in a juvenile detention facility and were charged with several counts of felony sex abuse for what they and their parents said was merely inappropriate but not criminal behavior.

The local district attorney has since backed off — the felony charges have been dropped and the district attorney said probation would be an appropriate punishment. The Mashburns’ lawyer said prosecutors offered Cory a plea bargain that would not require him to register as a sex offender, which the family plans to reject.

But the boys, if convicted at an Aug. 20 trial, still face the possibility of some jail time or registering for life as sex offenders.

The boys’ families and lawyers said even sentencing them to probation would turn admittedly inappropriate but not uncommon juvenile rowdiness into a crime. If they are convicted of any of the misdemeanor charges against them, they would have to register as sex offenders.

“It’s devastating,” said Mark Lawrence, Cory Mashburn’s lawyer. “To be a registered sex offender is to be designated as the most loathed in our society. These are young boys with bright futures, and the brightness of those futures would be over.”

‘Lots of Kids Do It’

Cory Mashburn said he and Ryan Cornelison slapped each others’ and other kids’ bottoms every Friday. “Lots of kids at school do that,” he said.

Cory and Ryan were brought to the principal’s office Feb. 22, where they were questioned by school officials and a police officer. They were arrested that day and taken in handcuffs to a juvenile detention facility.

Court papers said the boys touched the buttocks of several girls, some of whom said this made them uncomfortable. The papers also said Cory touched a girl’s breasts. But police reports filed with the court said other students, both boys and girls, slapped each other on the bottom.

“It’s like a handshake we do,” one girl said, according to the police report.

The boys were initially charged with five counts of felony sexual abuse. At a court hearing, two of the girls recanted, saying they never felt threatened or inappropriately touched by the boys. The judge released the boys but barred them from returning to school and required that they be under constant adult supervision.

District Attorney Bradley Berry has since dismissed the felony counts. The boys face 10 misdemeanor charges of harassment and sexual abuse. They face a maximum of up to one year in a juvenile jail on each count, though Berry said there was no way the boys would ever serve that much time.

“An appropriate sentence would be probation,” he said. “These are minor misdemeanor charges that reflect repeated contact against multiple victims. We never intended for them to get a long time in detention.”

“We’re not seeking major penalties,” he said. “We’re seeking change in conduct.”

‘We Just Want This to Be Over’

Tracie Mashburn, Cory’s mother, said they will not accept plea and plan to fight the charges.

The arrests, critics said, reflect a trend toward criminalizing adolescent sexual behavior. Between 1998 and 2002, juvenile arrests for sex offenses other than rape or prostitution rose 9 percent — the only kind of juvenile arrests that rose during that time, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

“More and more, they are criminalizing normal adolescent or preadolescent behavior,” said Chuck Aron, co-chairman of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers juvenile justice committee.

Even probation, the Mashburns and their attorney said, would be too severe a punishment.

Julie McFarlane, a supervising attorney at the Juvenile Rights Project in Portland, Ore., said, “Probation for a sex offense is very difficult thing, and there’s a pretty high failure rate.” Failing to meet the terms of probation could mean the boys would be sent to jail.

Depending on the terms of probation, it’s likely that the boys would not be allowed to have sexual contact with anyone or any contact with younger children, McFarlane said. For Cory Mashburn, that would mean he couldn’t be left alone with his younger siblings.

“It’s been awful,” said Cory’s mother. “We just want this to all be over. But it will never go away. We’ll always remember it.”

Berry, the district attorney, said the victims — the girls who were touched — were being overlooked. “What’s been lost in this whole thing are the victims, who have been pressured enormously by these boys’ friends,” he said.

Cory, who said he now realizes what he did was inappropriate, spends his days playing video games and basketball. He said he’s scared. “I could go to jail. I could be registered as a sex offender,” he said. “I think it’s all crazy.”

Full-time work losing luster for moms

AP | Jul 16, 2007

By JOCELYN NOVECK

It seems to happen every few months: a new book or study fuels the “Mommy Wars,” the intense debate over whether moms should stay home with the kids or work outside the home. Each time there’s spirited talk, angst, and some guilt from mothers who fear they’re doing the wrong thing.

Now the guilt seems actually tangible. In an eye-catching national survey from the Pew Research Center released last week, full-time working mothers rated themselves slightly lower as parents than those who stay home or work part-time.

And that was even more striking when viewed along with the survey’s primary finding – that fully 60 percent of working mothers now say part-time work is their ideal rather than full-time, compared to 48 percent a decade ago.

What does it all mean? Four decades after the feminist movement laid claim to equal footing for women in the workplace, are these findings and others like them a tacit admission that in the end, it’s really not possible to have it all?

For Erica Rubach, a 32-year-old mother of two, the findings weren’t a surprise. A year ago, she felt she couldn’t keep her head above water, though to others her life might have seemed ideal: two young kids and a job she loved as director of marketing and business development at a television station.

“But I knew there just wasn’t room for both in my life,” she says. “It was killing me.”

So she left her job, with its 60-70 hour weeks, and with fellow mother Joani Reisen founded MomSpace, a networking site devoted to matching mothers with services in their communities. The two now work on their own schedules. “Recently Erica’s daughter, Maya, had her birthday, and I said to her, ‘this is the coolest thing,’ says Reisen. ‘You got to spend the day canoeing with your daughter!”

The women count themselves among the ranks of so-called “Mompreneurs,” moms who’ve begun their own parent-oriented businesses to serve other moms plus have the flexibility they need for their own young families. They’ve also given other mothers part-time work; they’ve hired 60 people, mostly women, to sell ads on commission.

To both, “having it all” is a question of how you define it. “You can’t be a part-time vice president,” says Reisen. “And maybe you can’t attend every PTA meeting. But I do believe you can have it all, in bits and pieces.”

She thinks the trend among mothers “opting out” of the work force is a natural reaction to the previous generation. “I had a single mother who worked full-time,” says Reisen, 41, “and I missed having her at home.” For Rubach, “it has to do with how my generation was raised. Our moms were hardworking but they also missed out.”

Such explanations trouble author Linda Hirshman, who has forcefully argued that mothers are wasting their potential when they shun the work force to care exclusively for their kids. Hirshman, author of last year’s “Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World,” says it’s clear that increasing numbers of women are working less or not at all – and at all different strata of society.

And why? She attributes the trend largely to a “ramping up” of the job of motherhood, by a culture that expects women to be super-moms, perfect at everything. “If you want to be Martha Stewart at home AND president of the PTA, well, then you’re right, you can’t do it!” says Hirshman. “So you have two ways out of the problem. You don’t buy into the madness – or you quit your job.”

But quitting your job – or switching to a much lower-paying one – can be a recipe for financial disaster, argues Leslie Bennetts, author of the recent book “The Feminine Mistake.”

“Many women romanticize the stay-at-home life, but most don’t realize the consequences,” says Bennetts. “The reality is that to give up your career and depend on someone else to support you is a very high-stakes gamble – for women AND their children.”

For Bennetts, the problem with the Pew survey is that it asks women about their feelings but not their experiences. “Part-time work, for many women, is an ideal that is out of reach, because the workplace is not offering them what they want,” she says.

That’s borne out by the study itself. Though it might be nice to think women’s increased desire for part-time work is fueled by increased flexibility among employers and hence more opportunity, project director Paul Taylor says the survey found otherwise: The percentage of working mothers who actually work part-time has stayed stable since 1997, at 24 percent.

“What you have is an increasing number of women expressing a preference for something that just over a quarter of them do,” said Taylor. “There’s a feeling that by and large the workplace has not accommodated a desire for part-time work.”

So the problem for most women is that there’s precious little middle ground between an exhausting juggling act and a risky trip down the off ramp, with only a vague hope of getting back in later. Deloitte, the professional services firm, is trying to offer up just such a middle ground with a new system called Mass Career Customization.

Under the system, now in a phased rollout, employees are allowed to dial up and dial down their professional commitment, depending on the stage of life they’re at, says Cathy Benko, the executive who conceived the system.

“The problem with surveys like this is that they look at one point in time, versus a whole career,” says Benko, Deloitte’s managing principal of talent, who is herself a mother of two. Yes, she says, many moms with young kids – some dads, too – want to dial down. But later, when the kids are older, they’ll often want to dial back up.

Dialing down may mean working fewer (or different) hours, getting less compensation or taking a slower track toward promotion. But it will be out in the open, and may keep valuable employees with the company. And they will feel less guilty over doing what everyone does at one point or another – sneaking out for that PTA meeting or first-grade violin performance.

“Wouldn’t it be better to just be able to say, I can’t make that 10 a.m. meeting because I’m the head of the PTA?” Benko asks. “Why sneak?”

Though the concept isn’t gender-based, it’s clear that solutions like these would most benefit women, who almost a half-century after the birth of the feminist movement still bear the brunt of managing the home.

Kim Savino, a 42-year-old mother of two with a business degree, has little regret over leaving demanding work in the hospitality industry when her second child was born, leaving her husband as the breadwinner. “One of us had to do it,” says Savino, of Downigntown, Pa. “That was me.”

Now, she happily does part-time sales work for MomSpace, the company started by Rubach and Reisen. But she acknowledges that mothers like her are always torn.

The development where she lives is evenly divided between stay-at-home moms and working ones. The stay-at-home moms often say to her of her part-time work: “How’d you find that?”

And the full-time working moms often say, with envy: “I can’t believe you’re home today.”

Strong women dominate new US TV shows

The Observer | May 20, 2007

Prime-time viewing has ditched male-led programmes to aim at a loyal female audience that increasingly controls the family

She can leap across rooftops, lift huge objects and knock down a man with one blow. Meet the new Bionic Woman: updated for the modern era in a gritty, realist style that already has television insiders anticipating a hit. Bionic Woman, which stars the former EastEnders actress Michelle Ryan, had plenty of strong female company last week as America’s TV executives gathered in New York to unveil their new shows. US television is preparing a huge chunk of prime-time programming based on strong women characters who are more than a match for any men that come their way.

Old stereotypes are being cast out and a new audience – dominated by women – is being catered for. Beyond the new serious Bionic Woman – far removed from the kitsch 1970s original – are the Women’s Murder Club, with four amateur women detectives solving crimes. Then there is Lipstick Jungle, with Brooke Shields, and Cashmere Mafia, starring Lucy Liu, based on groups of successful, strong women. A medical series, Private Practice, starring Kate Walsh, centres on a woman doctor. ‘It is all about having female leads at the moment,’ said Professor Tina Pieraccini, broadcasting expert at the State University of New York.

The shows that the networks killed off or suspended also show the change from male leads to women. Gone are comedies and dramas like George Lopez, What About Brian and According to Jim. Both Lipstick Jungle and Cashmere Mafia are inspired by Sex and the City but, instead of dating and obsessing over fashion, the women are successful in their jobs and struggle to balance work and family lives.

Nor is it all about glamour. One of the biggest recent TV hits was Ugly Betty, whose main character is distinctly unglamorous and played by America Ferrera, who first gained recognition in the film Real Women Have Curves. Experts say female-centric programming is breaking new ground with characters displaying foibles viewers can relate to. ‘These new characters are strong women. But they are also strong, flawed women. That’s a reflection of society wanting a more realistic portrayal of life,’ said Pieraccini.

Women characters are also set to become more prevalent in the world of US sitcoms. Apart from Ugly Betty, one of the biggest critical hits is The New Adventures of Old Christine, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Sitcoms coming later this year with female leads are Sam I Am, starring Christina Applegate, Miss/Guided with Judy Greer, and Parker Posey in The Return of Jezebel James

It is not only in TV where women are making their strength felt. One of the most successful, and male-dominated, areas of American media is the talk radio industry, home to legions of ’shock jocks’ stirring up controversy with live debates. In recent weeks three shock jocks have seen their careers collapse after making derogatory comments about women. Last week two hosts, known as Opie and Anthony, were suspended after airing offensive remarks about the rape of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

‘Any woman who hears the clip will be seething at the misogynistic diatribe. Both hosts knew what they were doing when they treated assault and rape as a joke,’ said Kim Gandy, of the National Organisation for Women. It followed the sacking of Don Imus – one of the biggest names in radio – after he made disparaging comments about a women’s basketball team. Much of the Imus controversy centred on the racial element, but it was as much about his sexism. Women’s organisations campaigned against him, attacking his show’s advertisers. ‘We just got through this with Imus … profiting from hate will cost you,’ said Gandy.

The main reason behind the rise of women is money. US women have more purchasing power than ever before and, in an industry that needs advertising, that gives them increasing influence over airwaves. Women head about 40 per cent of US households, make 85 per cent of purchasing decisions and run 40 per cent of US companies. Its an economic clout that can only get stronger.

‘The baby boomer generation of women got power. But what advertisers really want are the boomers’ daughters. They’re in their twenties and thirties, have careers and can spend lots of money,’ said Pieraccini. At the same time broadcasters are facing a decline in the number of young men watching TV. The key 18-24 group has shrunk by at least 12 per cent as they turn to DVDs and video games. Women now make up more than half of all prime-time viewers and watch four hours more TV a week than men.

The colossus in the new landscape is Oprah Winfrey. She has made millions dominating female daytime television and is branching out into evening prime-time with a reality TV show on ABC called The Big Give, featuring celebrities in acts of philanthropy. She is also making inroads into talk radio with a satellite show called Oprah & Friends, while GreenStone Media has started a talk radio network with an ‘all female, all talk’ format. Partly backed by actress and liberal activist Jane Fonda, some in the industry have dubbed it ‘respect radio’, reflecting its less confrontational style.

There is, of course, a long way to go. Katie Couric’s appointment as the evening news anchor at CBS was a great moment for women in broadcasting. But she has failed to haul the show past the ratings of rivals at ABC and NBC. CBS ratings are at 7.3 million viewers, down about 5 per cent on a year ago, despite Couric’s high profile and $15m salary.

US broadcasting bosses remain as male, middle-aged and white as the rest of corporate America. But changes are afoot. One of the most humorous signs is a commissioned TV comedy about some newly discovered cavemen and the prejudices they face. Being called a caveman used to be a badge of male chauvinism. Now it is being used to explore the experiences of a misunderstood minority. Things really have started to change.

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Hollywood director and documentary film maker Aaron Russo has gone in-depth on the astounding admissions of Nick Rockefeller, who personally told him that the elite’s ultimate goal was to create a microchipped population and that the war on terror was a hoax, Rockefeller having predicted an “event” that would trigger the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan eleven months before 9/11.

Rockefeller also told Russo that his family’s foundation had created and bankrolled the women’s liberation movement in order to destroy the family and that population reduction was a fundamental aim of the global elite. 

Men are ‘too frightened to give women the compliments they need

Daily Mail | May 18, 2007

As every woman knows, a simple compliment can brighten a gloomy day.

But in these politically-correct times, it seems, gentle flattery has become something of a lost art.

Not only are men failing to compliment female friends and colleagues for fear of causing offence – but women are highly likely to suspect the motives of the individual offering the admiring comment.

Two-thirds feel uncomfortable if someone other than a partner offers praise, and a similar number mistrust the motives of the man behind the praise.

Unfortunately for women, this all presents something of a conundrum because, according to research, nine out of ten claim they love to be complimented.

Experts have set an ideal ‘compliment quota’ of five a day.

But even for women in long-term relationships, compliments are few and far between.

Two-thirds of women questioned for the survey by Loire Valley White Wines complained that their partners praise them less than they did five years ago.

Only 16 per cent said they received the magic five a day.

One in eight of the 1,000 women surveyed said that not a single man had complimented them in the past three months.

Relationship expert Christine Webber said: “In my experience, women do care a great deal about what people think about them. A compliment massively boosts self-esteem.

“And whilst it may seem somewhat frivolous, it is in fact a vital ingredient for well-being.”

But she added that British women were often not as gracious about receiving compliments as their European neighbours.

“If a man says, ‘Your hair looks nice’, she should not be saying, ‘It needs washing’. “Or if he says ‘You are in great shape’ it is churlish to reply, ‘I am four pounds overweight’.”

She said many men were terrified of an innocent remark being wrongly interpreted.

“I think political correctness and fear of saying the wrong thing is the main cause of men failing to compliment women who are not their partners,” she added.

She recommended, perhaps not too surprisingly, that men should steer clear of complimenting breasts, bottoms and legs with non-partners.

The trick, apparently, is to make someone feel good about themselves, rather than coming over as smarmy or, worse, “a bit lecherous”.

Women do not just want to be complimented on their appearance-In fact, favourite subjects of praise were being a good listener or adviser, or admiration for their ability to juggle a career and home life.

However, the age-old desire to be complimented on being well turned out is as strong as ever.

Some 81 per cent long to hear that their hairstyle or outfit is nice, followed by 79 per cent hoping to hear that they are stylish and 73 per cent that they look slimmer.

According to Miss Webber, compliments are crucial to good relationships.

“We have busy lives and people tend to assume a lot and forget to say things,” she said. “And yet compliments can act like oil in an engine – they help everything to run smoother.

“Couples who give frequent compliments to one another tend to treat each other with courtesy and respect and that helps keep their relationships alive.”

How feminists tried to destroy the family

Daily Mail | Jan 22, 2007 

“I decided that I was wasting my time trying to influence what, to my mind, was a Marxist/ feminist movement touting for money from gullible women like myself.”

Erin Pizzey, founder of the battered wives’ refuge, on how militant feminists – with the collusion of Labour’s leading women – hijacked her cause and used it to try to demonise all men.

By the early Seventies, a new movement for women – demanding equality and rights – began to make headlines in the daily newspapers. Among the jargon, I read the words “solidarity” and “support”. I passionately believed that women would no longer find themselves isolated from each other, and in the future could unite to change our society for the better.

Within a few days I had the address of a local group in Chiswick, and I was on my way to join the Women’s Liberation Movement. I was asked to pay £3 and ten shillings as a joining fee, told to call other women “sisters” and that our meetings were to be called “collectives”.

My fascination with this new movement lasted only a few months. At the huge “collectives”, I heard shrill women preaching hatred of the family. They said the family was not a safe place for women and children. I was horrified at their virulence and violent tendencies. I stood on the same platforms trying to reason with the leading lights of this new organisation.

I decided that I was wasting my time trying to influence what, to my mind, was a Marxist/ feminist movement touting for money from gullible women like myself.

I knew that the radical feminist movement was running out of national support because more sensible women had shunned their anti-male, anti-family agenda. Not only were they looking for a cause, they also wanted money.

We were astonished and frightened that many of the radical lesbian and feminist activists that I had seen in the collectives attended. They began to vote themselves into a national movement across the country.

I believe that the feminist movement envisaged a new Utopia that depended upon destroying family life. In the new century, so their credo ran, the family unit will consist of only women and their children. Fathers are dispensable. And all that was yoked – unforgivably – to the debate about domestic violence.