The White House Project

January 27, 2010

By Lisa Copeland

The Power of Pink has taken on a completely new meaning to me as of today.

My friend and founder of The White House Project, Marie Wilson, was just named one of the “10 women to watch in 2010“.  What an honor! Marie has had an incredible life and career.  She founded the “Take Your Daughter To Work Day” program, The White House Project and has the ear of the most powerful women in the Nation. Her message is strong, and her resolve to see women in the white house is UNwavering.  She is a personal hero of mine!

What is the most shocking to me is who made this nomination.  None other than Barbie herself!  Let me explain.  Mattel has launched a campaign to celebrate the 125-year anniversary of Barbie (Wow, she still looks pretty good!)  Part of this monumental campaign is to decide what Barbie’s next career is going to be.  You can VOTE HERE yourself!

Now, when I grew up I had more Barbies than most girls; I love Barbie.  I fundamentally understand the reason for this campaign. I have to wonder, does  Barbie have more appeal to young girls than the Lindsey Lohan? I  hope so!  Barbie has staying power,  Barbie has a job, Barbie has never been to rehab and Barbie only has one boyfriend!

I called a friend of mine to tell her about the “Barbie campaign” and to encourage her to vote. She asked me” Are you just a little jealous that Barbie didn’t think  YOU were one of the 10 women to watch in 2010?”  We had a good laugh,  then tried to figure out who in today’s world of reality TV and pop culture could be a better role model for young women.(For the record I would have given my first very valuable, vintage  Barbie and pink Barbie corvette to make the list). Sad to say from a celebrity stand point we could not think of any.  I truly admire the amazing women who have earned to right to be called the” top 10 women to watch in 2010″.  I am telling the story to keep it at the forefront of our minds that as women, we still have a long way to go. We must be constantly looking for role models that can uphold the values that we want to instill in our young women.

Read more at:  http://thepowerofpinkblog.com/think-pink/10-women-to-watch-in-2010/

Trading Markets

Catalyst announced that initiatives from Campbell Soup Company, Deloitte, Royal Bank of Canada and Telstra Limited are the recipients of the 2010 Catalyst Award, the annual award that honors exceptional initiatives from companies and firms that support and advance women in business.

“These initiatives exemplify our Catalyst vision of ‘Changing workplaces. Changing lives’,” said Ilene H. Lang, President and CEO of Catalyst. “They impact the lives of employees, families, and communities by transforming organizations, and serve as models that inspire and encourage others to embrace inclusive workplaces that benefit women, men, and business.”

Catalyst Award-winning initiatives are evaluated in a year-long process against a set of criteria: business rationale, senior leadership support, accountability, communication, replicability, originality, and measurable results. This year’s Award winners include a company where women run the largest and most profitable businesses, a second-time Catalyst Award-winning company, a Canadian bank that expanded its women’s initiative to benefit other diverse employee groups, and the first initiative from an Australian company.

Read more at:  http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/cpb_catalyst-gives-2010-catalyst-award-to-campbell-soup-company-deloitte-royal-bank-of-canada-and-tels-722564.html

By Marie Wilson

Huffington Post

January 20, 2009

There’s a chance that all of the punditry swirling around Tuesday’s Senate race in Massachusetts was deeply prophetic about the Democrat’s chances in the fall 2010 Congressional elections, but the death knell of Martha Coakley’s campaign might have been as simple as her comment about the Red Sox. The Red Sox are a religion in Massachusetts. And when Coakley gaffed on a radio program and indicated that former Red Sox hero Curt Schilling was a Yankee fan, many interpreted this as a signal that she was completely out of touch with the electorate, for whom Schilling and his team mean more than helath care reform, and more than a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. That is why what we at The White House Project teach our trainees who aspire to run for political office is this: culture matters.
For some, it’s hard to understand how large a role our popular culture plays in our public sphere. And the White House Project has sometimes taken flack for focusing on what some consider less-than-serious emphasis on the culture. We train only women (of any and all political stripes) to run for office, the role of sports has always been a theme for us. Women athletes show the country that women are tough and persistent and we love working with groups like the WNBA, whose games have served as an unofficial opportunity to reach people about our work.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marie-c-wilson/how-about-them-red-sox_b_430568.html

The Huffington Post
Faith Winter, Training and Outreach Director at the White House Project
January 15, 2010

With Governor Ritter’s surprise announcement last week the dominos quickly fell into place on the pecking order of who should be the nominee for Governor.

The general consensus was 1. Secretary Salazar, 2. Mayor Hickenlooper, 3. Representative Perlmutter. And now Mayor Hickenlooper has announced he will run for Governor. This quick “hand over” of the nomination to the top executive position in our state prompted me to think about exactly what (or who) makes a candidate? Why were these three our “go-to” guys? The immediate answer is they each have the requisite experience and viability. This is a trend in our state. During the 2009 Senate appointment process to fill Secretary Salazar’s seat, women were also left off of the short list.

This then begs the question: why were many of our female elected officials and potential candidates with an equal or greater measure of these requirements overlooked?

Ask people what makes a viable candidate and most will answer, “experience.” In these volatile times, the voting public is wary of electing someone who hasn’t been around the block a few times. If “experience” is the primary criteria, it is followed closely “viability”: the ability to raise money state-wide, and by having name-recognition across the state. Given where Colorado is financially, we would assume voters would appreciate a candidate with intimate knowledge of the workings of the state budgetary process. Perhaps even someone who has steered the state through one of the worst recessions this country has ever seen. Our State Treasurer Cary Kennedy fits the bill entirely, and yet she was passed over for consideration.

I have heard from a lot of people that Mayor Hickenlooper and Secretary Salazar were at the top of the list of potential gubernatorial candidates because they have proven that they could win a state-wide race. But Treasurer Kennedy has successfully run state- wide, has proven she can raise money for a state-wide race, and is seen as a leading expert on the issue that every poll shows is number one on the minds of Colorado’s voters: the economy. Another potential candidate, Representative Betsy Markey, represents a larger geographic area than Mayor Hickenlooper and her colleague Rep. Perlmutter, whom the media was also touting as a potential candidate for the governor’s seat.

I have also heard that there is a pecking order to the nomination for governor, and therefore Treasurer Kennedy has to “wait her turn”. If our list of potential candidates is based on seniority then Representative Diana Degette should have been at the top of the list. She is the Democrats senior member in congress.

Aside from these empirical facts, Colorado likes electing women. We were the first state to elect a woman state wide in 1899, and last year led the nation in the number of women in our legislature. Our recently released study, “The White House Project Report: Benchmarking Women’s Leadership” cited recent polling by the gFk/Roper that showed voters trust women as much if not more than men to lead on important issues. Given all this, the perception that Treasurer Kennedy could not win, or would have less of a chance to succeed than someone like Mayor Hickenlooper or Representative Perlmutter is false.

The reason these women were not immediately on the list or part of everyone’s discussions of who will run in Governor Ritter’s place has just as much if not more to do with the media and culture than electability and experience.

In 2000 The White House Project conducted some ground breaking research called “Hair, Hemlines and Husbands”. The conclusion was that not only were male candidates covered more frequently by the news media, but the coverage was focused on their stances on the issues and on their voting records, while the discussion around the female candidates often revolved around their hair, their hemlines and their husbands.

We followed up that research in 2001 with “From Soundbites to Solutions”. This research found that on political talk shows, and on interviews between the media and political experts, male guests outnumbered female guest 9 to1. We also found that these appearances have an influence over the electorate if forming perceptions of who is qualified to lead and who is not based on who is sitting at the table.

In the days since Governor Ritter announced his decision, Mayor Hickenlooper was mentioned dozens of times and has been in the headlines at least seven times. Both Salazar and Perlmutter have also been mentioned dozens of times. It was a full three days before many of the political blogs, news websites and TV stations began to mention Treasurer Kennedy, or Representatives Markey or DeGette in more than a tokenizing way. At the same time many of mentions of Treasurer Kennedy pointedly noted that she was a mother, and mused on how that would weigh on her decision. Mayor Hickenlooper’s family was only mentioned once or twice out of dozens of mentions of his decision.

These not-so-subtle endorsements of Mayor Hickenlooper by the media made his announcement appear inevitable. The media had elevated him to frontrunner status as the Democratic nominee before he even formally entered the race.

We need to make the Colorado state-wide political bench bigger and more diverse, and we need the media to focus on female candidates as seriously as they have on their male counterparts.

My call to action is threefold:

1. Let’s ask our local media to examine their coverage of potential female candidates for the governor’s race, so they can clearly see the gender-bias in their reporting.
2. As members of the electorate, let’s ask our political parties to push all viable candidates to the top, and let’s ask ourselves to start thinking of female candidates as serious contenders.
3. And finally, let’s ask a competent woman we know to run for office, from the local level all the way through to a candidate like Treasurer Kennedy. The number one reason women run for office is that someone says, ” I believe in you and you should run”.

If we all take these three steps, the next election cycle in Colorado could be truly representative of the diversity and talent our state has to offer. We deserve nothing less.

By Robyn Gordon

This week, Senator Al Franken (D-MN) introduced the Compassionate Care for Servicewomen Act, co-sponsored by Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME).  This legislation would require that emergency contraception, also know as Plan B or the “morning-after” pill, be carried at every military healthcare facility.  Senator Franken explained in his introduction to the bill that while emergency contraception is more widely available to women serving on domestic posts, it is less accessible to women stationed overseas.  Senator Franken has a history of standing up for women who work for the Defense Department.  In October 2009 he sponsored an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would have given female military contractors access to the criminal justice system for cases of sexual assault, battery, and discrimination.

Currently, about 350,000 women serve in the American military, yet military bases are not required to stock emergency contraception, which can prevent pregnancy after sex.  The Compassionate Care for Servicewomen Act would require that military pharmacists offer emergency contraception to servicewomen without a prescription, just as anyone over the age of seventeen in the United States can obtain this form of birth control without a prescription as allowed by the Food and Drug Administration.  Presently, military servicewomen face inconsistent access to emergency birth control, even while they can be threatened with courts martial should their primary form of birth control fail, should they become victims of sexual abuse, or should they fail to use contraception and consequently become pregnant.  Additionally, military facilities are not allowed to perform abortions under federal law.

Senator Franken’s Compassionate Care for Servicewomen Act would likely be examined as an amendment to the defense authorization bill, as his amendment to the appropriations bill was in October.  In the meantime, please urge your Congressperson to support the Compassionate Care for Servicewomen Act to ensure that emergency contraception is available to women at every military base!

BROOKLYN COLLEGE WOMEN TAKE THE POLITICAL LEAD

New voices. New visions. New leadership.

The White House Project’s “Go Lead!” Training Program Kicks Off for 2010

Political Leadership Training

Friday, January 8, 2010

Brooklyn College Student Center

Campus Road & East 27^th Street, 6th Floor

The White House Project and Brooklyn College have announced their partnership to bring the award-winning Vote, Run, Lead training program to the women of the Brooklyn College community.

To kick off 2010 with their political leadership training program, the WHP will train 100 women on January 8, from 8am-8pm, featuring activist and writer Kevin Powell, Binghamton City Council Woman Lea Webb, Brooklyn Deputy Borough President Yvonne Graham, New York State Assemblywomen Joan Millman and Rhoda Jacobs.

The Brooklyn College training, Go Lead, is a unique daylong event which aims to inspire young women to enter the world of politics by teaching innovative skills and strategies needed to run for office. The overall goal is to foster a positive environment in which young women can actively contribute to, and transform the political arena. From fundraising to public speaking, campaign management to coalition building, Vote, Run, Lead offers the vital nuts-and-bolts skills and network of support to help women lead politically and succeed.

“We need a massive effort to recruit, train, and support women running for office,” said Marie Wilson, President and Founder of The White House Project. “Go Lead empowers women to be at the forefront of politics by providing innovative skills, strategies, and networks for leadership.”

Go Lead will serve as the foundation for young, smart, ambitious women of Brooklyn College to pursue promising futures in politics.

“Now is the perfect time to embrace change and to get involved with such a strong collaborative effort that aims to better women and society overall,” said Professor Namita Manohar, Coordinator of the Women’s Studies Program at Brooklyn College.

The White House Project is a national, nonpartisan organization which works to advance a critical mass of diverse women into leadership.  The organization has trained over 9,000 women nationwide through their award-winning Vote, Run, Lead program since 2004.  For more information, please visit www.thewhitehouseproject.org

The Washington Post
Marie Wilson
December 17, 2009

I nominate Ursula Burns and Anne Mulcahy of Xerox as a leaders who exemplify the unique leadership women can bring to corporate America. In July of this year, Ursula Burns was tapped to succeed Anne Mulcahy as CEO of Xerox with Ms. Mulcahy remaining as Chairman of the Board.

Both women have 30+ years each with Xerox. That institutional knowledge at the top of the corporate structure during some of the toughest economic times in recent history ensured that Xerox would weather the storms of 2009 with the wind at their back as they move into 2010.

To go through a transition of leadership in the midst of an economic downturn can have extreme negative effects on a corporation’s bottom line. Phasing out a CEO can make shareholders and potential investors apprehensive about the company’s stability. In adopting a co-leadership model, both Ms. Burns and Ms. Mulcahy showed a willingness to forgo ego in order to provide a strong foundation for Xerox during these changes.

I’m not saying that they did this because they are women, or that this is what all women leaders do. But in speaking to women and men about the importance of getting numbers of women into top leadership, invariably someone makes sure to talk about how women “just don’t support each other.” The story of how when Ursula was made CEO, actually surprising folks in and outside the company, Anne made a decision to stay at Xerox to support her is a moving one. And their ability to forge successful co-leadership roles seamlessly during this time has been a very public contradiction of the old saw about women “being our own worst enemies.

Their steady management of and dedication to the employees of Xerox has served as a lesson in successful leadership that has corporate America watching, along with the Obama administration. Ms. Burns was recently named to lead The White House Initiative on Science, technology, Engineering, and Math Education.

To view original article click here.