The White House Project

October 31, 2009

by Robyn Gordon

As of October 20, 2009, H.R. 626: Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2009 (introduced by New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney), falling under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993, has passed in the House of Representatives and is currently winding its way through the Senate, where it unfortunately failed to pass last year. This bill would guarantee federal employees at least four weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child, an improvement in financial support for new parents in the only industrialized nation in the world to offer no form of paid parental leave.

Currently in the United States, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, signed into law by President Clinton, guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid leave for new parents. However, the FMLA only applies to individuals who are employed by a business of 50 employees or more and who have worked for that employer for at least 12 months. The FMLA leaves approximately 40% of the American workforce without this essential coverage. While certain states, like California and New Jersey, try to supplement the federal legislation in some way, for example, by providing 6 weeks of paid parental leave, reimbursed at 55 and 67 percent of current wages, this financial support is woefully insubstantial when compared to other industrialized nations.

While the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act is a step in the right direction for the United States in supporting child rearing and the health and well being of both young children and new parents, why must we exclude 40% of the American workforce? Countries such as Sweden and Germany offer 47 weeks of full paid leave for new mothers. Yes, those countries support smaller populations, but the United States remains inexcusably behind in supporting parents of newborns. While HR 626 will not immediately solve the conundrum for those parents of newborns who work for the aforementioned small businesses not covered by FMLA, it is a step in the right direction for our country’s biggest employer: the federal government.

The goal we need to strive towards in the United States is a paid, non-transferable (meaning fathers cannot transfer their leave to mothers), universal (extending to any kind of workplace), and federally-financed parental leave policy. In the meantime, Americans can call and write their representatives in the House and let them know that passage of HR 626 is critical, and can contact their senators to ensure the companion bill gets brought to the Senate floor for a vote in early 2010. When our representatives in Congress hear how important this issue is to both women and men, we will be one step closer to having fair parental leave policies for federal employees on President Obama’s desk to be signed into law within the year.

The Huffington Post

by Marie Wilson

October 29, 2009

Almost 11 years ago, when I first started The White House Project, some of the top minds in politics, business, film, and journalism came together for our inaugural meeting in Boston. Our mission was ambitious: to profoundly advance women’s leadership in the U.S., all the way to the presidency. Our nation’s most savvy journalistic scholar, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, stood before the group and advised us of the primary need to “change the conversation” if we were permanently to transform the status of women across the country.

In this weekend’s New York Times, the equally savvy journalist Joanne Lipman echoed the call to “change the conversation” if we are to make progress for women. As Lipman states, women’s progress has not only stalled, but attitudes about gender have taken “a giant leap backward.”

Lipman is right: our nation’s conversation about women has degenerated terribly. Yet she is wrong in the assumption that focusing on numbers is the wrong way to foster change. Having spent 30 years working to change the culture and conversation – from Take Our Daughters to Work to Vote, Run, Lead - I know there is only one way to permanently change the discussion: numbers of women in leadership. Or more specifically, a critical mass of women leading in each sector, with the end goal of women leading in parity alongside their male peers. As the upcoming “White House Project Report: Benchmarking Women’s Leadership” illustrates, adding women to the workforce won’t change much – but when we add them to corporate boardrooms and executive suites, anchor desks and political office, attitudes about women in leadership will inevitably follow suit.

The attitude shifts we need go far beyond the changes Lipman calls on women to make, such as asking for raises, having a sense of humor, and an end to ‘good girl’ behavior. Women will be respected only when our companies, institutions, and country as a whole embrace the idea that women are a critical resource, particularly during these turbulent times. When we trust women to lead alongside men, everyone and everything – from profits to policy – benefits.

As for each person, male or female, and what can be done: call, write, email every woman you know and tell her you want her to take the next step in her leadership, whether it’s running for office, applying for that next job, or taking leadership in your community. A word of encouragement is all most women need, but without it many don’t choose to lead. After all, we live in a country that has not yet fully trusted women to do so.

This weekend, The White House Project trained over 70 women to run for office in Wisconsin. Vel Phillips, the first woman and first African-American elected to a statewide constitutional office as Secretary of State, and an icon for both women and men in Wisconsin, told a great story during the training.

She relayed the tale of how she first came to run for office. While the men in her community were begging her husband (and fellow attorney) to run, he had no inclination to do so. Instead, W. Dale Phillips turned to his wife and said, “Why don’t you do it, Honey?” That encouragement from a supportive man propelled Vel to serve in a position which no other woman has been elected for, before or since her tenure, and to become a celebrated pioneer and advocate throughout Wisconsin.

That is what we need throughout this country: thousands of male allies who turn to the women in their lives when leadership opportunities arise, and say, “Why don’t you do it, Honey?” Only then, when we work together to elevate the numbers of women in leadership, will the conversation and the status of our nation’s women be truly transformed.

This past week, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), a Washington D.C.-based non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of women, girls, and families, has broadcast an online campaign in conjunction with New York ad agency The Concept Farm to reformulate the healthcare debate as a battle of the sexes. New advertisements, commercials, and public notices seem to appear weekly in response to the potential healthcare overhaul, and, with the NWLC’s tagline of “Being a woman is not a pre-existing condition,” non-profits, women’s health advocates, and Democratic senators have stepped-up the effort to revisit the healthcare debate as it relates to gender. The NWLC has recently published a study which, among other findings, revealed that 25-year-old women have been charged up to 84% more than 25 year-old men for individual health insurance plans that specifically exclude maternity coverage. At a hearing a couple of weeks ago, Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona wondered aloud why he should have to pay for maternity care when it does not apply to him. Musings such as this have served to fuel the work of women and family advocacy groups. As Congress approaches its debate over the House’s and Senate’s respective bills, these gender issues will only come even more into the forefront, especially now that the NWLC’s online campaign is driving this conversation. A rallying cry for likeminded health care reform supporters? In response to Senator Kyl’s ignorant and disrespectful contention that he would not benefit from maternity care insurance, Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan cleverly responded, “I think your mom did.”

By Bijoyeta Das

WeNews Correspondent

Friday, October 23, 2009

Tomorrow’s global day of climate activism aims for media and political attention. First Nation women have another way. Since 2003, they’ve walked the shoreline of a Great Lake or major river, meditating on the needs of an unborn generation.

But when you ask Mandamin about human-made climate change and the havoc scientists say it is wreaking, she says Mother Earth is doing what she can by “cleaning herself” in the form of fires, floods and landslides.

Mandamin described herself as a grandmother “looking after the water for the next generation for the unborn.”

“In every nation, any country, any First Nations that I have heard, women were the carriers of the water, from the wells to the house,” she said.

According to the “State of the Great Lakes” report, the climate in the Great Lakes region is shifting. Winters are shorter, annual average temperature warmer and rain and snow are heavier. The air and water temperatures are increasing, while the lake ice cover is decreasing.

Cannon said that Congress is considering the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, in which the president has proposed $475 million to address the problems in the Great Lakes. “That would certainly make a big difference towards continuing the work of cleaning up the Great Lakes,” she said.

Inspiration for First Walk

The idea for the Water Walks welled up in 2002, from the Sundance Ceremony in Pipestone, Minn., where the Grand Chief E. Benton-Banaise-Bawdwayadun of the Anishinawbe reminded the women of a prophecy made about 10 years ago by an Anishinawbe elder:

“In about 30 years, if we humans continue with our negligence, an ounce of drinking water will cost the same as an ounce of gold.”

The leader also talked about how traditionally women have been the carriers of water and that it is believed that one day women would walk all of the Great Lakes.

That prompted Mandamin to initiate the first Women Water Walk.

In 2003, after a send-off ceremony and feast of moose stew, fish, wild rice and Bannok– a traditional native bread prepared by pan-frying–women from different clans came together to pace the 350 miles of the Lake Superior coastline.

For the last couple of years men have realized their duties, too, and are walking beside the women on the spring treks.

Since 2006, men hold the symbolic eagle staff to give strength during the walks; however, women continue to carry the pail of water. “There was a uniting of the minds for the water, with the water and because of the water,” Mandamin said.

Walking All Day

The Water Walkers wake up before dawn and walk until sundown, thriving on trail mixes, granola bars, fruits and hot soup at night.

They stop to refresh the bucket of water, offer tobacco and petition to the powers of the water. The walks are marked with water songs, hand drums and flute, rain, snow and gales of laughter.

Similar walks are organized elsewhere in North America. The women of Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians in Michigan organize one-day annual water walks.

In June 2008 the Many Horses Foundation, based in Woodstock, Ga., organized a 10-day Walk for the Water for 50 people who walked along the banks of Chattahoochee River.

Gary Fourstar, one of the founders of this event, said the female-dominated group led another 10-day walk for the water, starting at the headwaters of the Tiber River in Italy and ending at the Vatican in 2007. More than 80 people, including Native American elders, participated in the walk.

The goal of the water walk is to spur people to give thanks for their water and to realize that water is alive and needs protection, said Debora Fourstar, president of the Many Horses Foundation and married to Gary Fourstar.

She said the Western world has lost respect and connection with nature.

“We are not here to just take but as the guardian of the natural world,” she said.

The Huffington Post

by Marie Wilson

When Sen. Olympia Snowe commented this week on translating the “empathy of your experience into legislation,” she made a profound statement on what is currently missing in American politics. The pinnacle of such indifference to the average citizen’s plight is seen today in the partisan stalling of health care. You would think that our leaders would want the U.S. to improve its ranking of 37th in the world for health care, and to ensure that families are not destroyed by lack of affordable insurance. Yet the Republican Party’s stubborn adherence to partisanship on this issue is not only harming Americans while ignoring the public majority. It is alienating a huge portion of the party — Republican women — and is giving rise to impending revolt.

One of the beauties of traveling across the country to train women to lead at a time when their experience as women is sorely needed, is that you pick up on the stories and trends that are lying below the media’s radar, yet are on the cusp of erupting onto the national stage. Since The White House Project trains women of all political leanings to run for office and assume leadership, I am fortunate to have my finger on the pulse of our nation’s women – and the tolerance of many Republican women for their party is drawing to an angered end.

Read the rest of this article at:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marie-wilson/the-gathering-storm-of-re_b_321149.html

Times Union

by Marie Wilson and Erin Vilardi

Several weeks ago, integrity in Albany endured defeat once again, when legislation aimed at ethics reform failed to pass in the state Senate. Votes were cast strictly on party lines, an all too familiar occurrence in the Capitol at a time when New Yorkers need strong leadership, not petty politics.

At the close of summer, 49 percent of voters said almost everyone in the Senate — including their own senator — deserved to be thrown out, while 77 percent labeled Albany “dysfunctional,” according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

Is there any hope of turning from corruption and stalemate to ethical, bipartisan leadership?

Enter the young women of New York.

The Washington Post

by Marie Wilson

When you are really passionate about what you do, you have to work hard to sort out the wheat from the chaff when it comes to meetings. From a management theory perspective, it is completely unproductive to attend every meeting scheduled, but when your work is your font of energy, it is difficult to say “no” to an opportunity to convey your enthusiasm, ideas, etc. to the group assembled. The bottom line is knowing your assets, and where and at which meetings your presence can be most useful.

But in this age of e-mail, I am a firm believer in the value of face-time with staff. As Harvard’s Marty Linsky and Ron Heifetz have posited in their work on adaptive leadership, in-person meetings build the morale of an organization, which is especially important in these economic times when employees are often asked to perform the work of two or three people.

The key to meeting effectiveness is a good agenda. A well-agendaed meeting where all participants get to the point succinctly, and leave the room with tasks in hand (or in Blackberry, as it were) is productive, creates an essential esprit de corps, and hopefully precludes the need for several future follow-up meetings!

Read more at:  http://www.thewhitehouseproject.org/newsroom/inthenews/2009/Oct/20091007washpost.php