Spit on a Stranger: A New Rosa Parks

When you think of Israel what do you think of? Probably something about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One would think that one conflict was enough - but no, apparently we all just can't get along. Right now, the conflict is actually between the secular and religious Israelis west of Jerusalem in a small town called Beit Shemesh. The town is primarily Jewish and hosts a population of more than 80,000 residents nearly equal male/female.

In late December, Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men began protesting gender equality. One of the first reports was that of a eight year old girl who was spit on by an religious zealot man. "Eight-year-old Naama Margolis was recently featured on Israel’s most-watched news program because she was too afraid to walk to school her Orthodox neighborhood after Haredi men spit and cursed at her for dressing immodestly, in their view." Her plight was shortly followed by a woman now referred to as the 'Rosa Parks of Israel' who was reprimanded to sit in the back of the bus; she refused. In the following days, a woman in military uniform was called a 'Shicksa' and other vulgar names in Yiddish by a Orthodox man when riding the bus. The woman was standing in close proximity to the men and the uniform was apparently deemed immodest clothing for a woman to wear in public. Incidents have been flaring in the town as Haredi men act out against women who they feel are acting and dressing immodest to the extent that they will not allow for women to walk on the same side of the road. Hey Americans, Sound familiar?

Well, the international community has stepped up support for women. Aish HaTorah, a Orthodox pro-Israel organization, posted an anonymous letter titled "How Dare You?" specifically directed at the 'Beit Shemesh Spitter'.

The conversation has turned towards solutions. Netanyahu proposed divding the town between the secular and the zealots. While this is a contested option, it will be the women who will create the necessary change, not the Mayor - no offense sir. The women in Beit Shemesh are not sitting idly by. Since the first incident, women have been tactfully using their voice to advocate for their rights. Not only have there been daily reports to the media, letters to the editor, but 250 women participated in a flashmob to Queen's 'Don't Stop me Now'. Other protests have been coordinated over the past three weeks. While the men's riots against women's equality have resulted in arrests, the women's outcry of inequality has received positive international publicity. Thus, it will be the women of Beit Shemesh, and all of Israel, coming together regardless of religious affiliation, location, or age advocating for their right to equality that will Speak Out and create change.

Can Social Media Empower Arab Women?

Will there be a revolution in Arab women rights after the Arab Spring? Perhaps social media will help?

Can Social Media Empower Arab Women?

by Julie Tomlin
1.10.12

After a year when popular movements swept across the Arab world, it's maybe not surprising that the number of people using Facebook and Twitter in the region has shot up.

There were 36,016,664 Facebook users in Arab countries by November 2011 - almost double the number in the same month in 2010 and over 652,000 people were signed up to Twitter, according to a new report published by the Dubai School of Government late last year.

But despite the prominence of women during the Arab Spring, both in the protests and in online activism, one social media statistic remained unchanged; men in the Arab world remain twice as likely to use social media than women, who still only made up just over 33 per cent of users in the Arab world. Worldwide, they make up half of all social media users.

There was a strong belief among the women who took part that social media could enhance women's participation in economic, political life, allowing them increased self-expression and the means of promoting social change.

Those Arab women who use social media are certainly part of a broader shift that has taken place in how it is used, according to the report. In the past year, social media has become more than a tool for social networking and entertainment, it "now infiltrates almost every aspect of the daily lives of millions of Arabs, affecting the way they interact socially, do business, interact with government, or engage in civil society movements".

Most men and women in the Arab world primarily use social media to access information and connect with people, but 60% of all those who took part said they used it for community and political activism.

Marginally more men than women believed that social media promoted political equality between the sexes, although women were slightly more optimistic that the tools would make it easier for them to express themselves, enable them to participate in civil society and be role models for social change, and improve their rights and economic status.

But the "real life" social and cultural barriers women face will have to be overcome if more women are going to participate in social media and see it impact their lives, the report concludes.

Some of the barriers women face such as ICT literacy, confidence in using social media for communication and lack of education could be overcome by practical measures including training.

But the most significant barriers are the social constraints women face in everyday life, the report says. Some women pointed out that reliance on social media alone was not enough to challenge discriminatory attitudes and practices:

"I believe the Arab women should not depend on the social media cover to express their opinion or produce role models, it starts out in the interaction with the people not behind the screen," one respondent said.

Two examples show how for some women, social media is so embedded in their lives that they use it seamlessly in their campaigns:

Egypt-based Harassmap, launched in 2010 to raise awareness of and tackle sexual harassment. The group initiated a day of blogging and tweeting against sexual harassment last year using the hashtag #endsh and also launched an initiative against sexual harassment for a safe Eid holiday in August and a 'catch a harasser' day on 2 November.

In Saudi Arabia, Women2Drive, a campaign launched by Manal Al Sharif calling for women's right to drive attracted worldwide support.

Both of these projects also show there is a balance to be struck - none of them focus solely on raising awareness, or communicating online. They recognise the importance of physical actions such as taking to the streets or getting in the driving seat of a car and of speaking out against practices that have long been held taboo.

Upcoming Event: The Thick Chronicles: A Body Image Story

This event about body image looks like it will be great!

Saturday, January 28 @ 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, January 29 @ 5:00 p.m.

Trinty-On-Main
69 Main Street
New Britain, CT

Tickets:
$15 for adults 18 & older
$10 for students with school ID and children under 13

Event website click here
Founder: Tracy "Mind.Evolution." Caldwell
Co-Creator: Alison McMeans
Co-Creator/Director: Shireal Renee

Hosted by: Lynnette Johnson

HARTFORD, CT- Brighter Than Before Entertainment of Hartford presents its second run of The Thick Chronicles: A Body Image Story at Trinity-On-Main on Saturday, January 28th and Sunday, January 29th. The show is a collection of poems, skits and first person accounts of people's love/hate relationship with their bodies told through poignant and humorous stories. The ensemble cast of men and women features actors, poets and members of the community from the areas of Hartford, New Haven and Springfield. Each piece gives voice to the inner struggle that all people have with self-esteem and self-acceptance, flaws and all. The goal of the show isn’t just to entertain, but also to inform and empower.

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

There are things as a man that I will never fully understand about women. Aside from the obvious like childbirth and Tupperware parties, I’ll never fully understand what it’s like to be a woman out alone. I observe it all the time from the outside, however. One time when I was golfing, a young woman was jogging down the adjacent road and a man in a car was just casually driving at her speed talking to her through the open window, which from my perspective was totally creepy and pretty much gave me the heebie-jeebies.

That really got me to thinking how strange and creepy the world can be, especially relating to my sister who lives on her own in a city. She has to travel by herself across the city to and from her job every day. If I had to do that, it would probably be more of a minor annoyance than anything else. However, her necessary steps included acquiring pepper spray, speaking to a police officer to find the safest route, and upgrading to a smartphone just for the GPS feature. Add to all this that she’s only five feet tall and good-looking, and she’s definitely a prime target for creepy guys to prey on. (The joke’s on the creepy guys though, since she’s a personal trainer, basically works out for a living, and once defeated the men she works with in a pushup contest.)

This isn’t to say that men don’t need to worry walking around cities and parking lots by themselves, but it’s just such a strange phenomenon to me that women have so much more to worry about. I can attest that sometimes men think with things other than their brains, and it’s often difficult not to look for more than a second or two when a pretty girl walks by. Now, I don’t know the severity of this issue, but I definitely find it concerning that it has to be an issue. Point being, I think it stinks that women have to deal with walking around with a near-constant sense of being watched, and I give women all the credit in the world for it.

Being the Entrepreneur of Your Career

I thought this would apply to everyone-- after all, we are entrepreneurs of our own careers.

Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a Personal Board of Directors

Contributed by YEC Women on the Forbes Women website, 1/3/2012

Our society emphasizes friends, family and co-workers as essential parts of our emotional and professional support system. Friends can offer distraction and encouragement, family members give unconditional love and co-workers may provide a sense of camaraderie and even professional advice. However, there are times when we need a fourth type of support in the form of a personal board of directors.

A personal board of directors is usually made up of up to six professionals in your age group — but not necessarily in your industry to — who meet once a month to for brainstorming and encouragement. Keith Ferazzi, in his book Who’s Got Your Back, was one of the first to promote this idea of a small, intimate professional networking group.

If you’re not convinced, here are a few reasons a personal board of directors could be worth considering:

1. More Honest Than Friends and Family

   Friends and family can be wonderfully supportive and encouraging, but the often don’t want to be constructively honest or, if you are talking about Mom, Dad or Grandma, they think everything you do is spectacular no matter what. A personal board of directors is a great way to have a supportive — but honest group of individuals to bounce ideas off of, get advice and constructive criticism on everything from reports to resumes.

2. Break From Your Industry

   Sometimes it is good to take a break from your industry or co-workers and get an outside perspective. Often times this can help bring new energy to your ideas or career and get you to meet new people.

3. Creating Accountability

   Goals can be hard to keep. With a personal board of directors you can set goals and have your co-members help you stick to them. A recent working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, researchers confirmed the importance of having a small peer group to depend on. Their research suggests it’s best to motivate groups, not individuals. They compared compensation packages and found that group incentive pay motivated workers better than individual incentive compensation.

4. Hone Your People-to-People Skills

   In this digital age we spend less and less time with others — especially virtual workers. Researchers Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management have found that groups of people who did well on tests had the most members who were also good at reading each other’s emotions. They had equal contributions to communications and were patient with each other’s answers and issues. One of the best parts of a personal board of directors is that you do not need a leader and as a group you can solve problems as a group better than one of the individual members could by themselves.

How to Start Your Personal Board of Directors Group?

• Identify between four and six professionals.

  The hardest part is connecting with a good group. Think of a few professionals you know who may or may not be in your industry who you think are intelligent, open-minded and collaborative. If you can only think of one or two this is fine too — those members might have a few people in mind to invite.

• Decide how often to meet.

  I know personal board of director groups who meet every week. Others check-in once every six months. Have an idea of how often you want to meet and tell invitees what to expect.

• Define ground rules.

  Once you have got an group together define some ground rules — no one leader, open support, constructive criticism only, confidentiality etc. You might want to create a Google Doc with the rules and then decide on your structure. I encourage Board of Director groups to go over goals every time they meet and then do goal check-ins with each other.

• Let it grow.

  You will find that your group will grow on its own — both in terms of rules and members. Remember, you do not want it to be too big because you want everyone to feel supported, but otherwise let members dictate the direction of the group.
  
  
  

  Vanessa Van Petten specializes in social and emotional intelligence research and development. She is the CEO of Science of People, focusing on research youth behavior and help adults keep up with young adults. Her company not only reaches out to families, but also works with brands and individuals to help them use social and emotional intelligence to improve website traffic, sales and branding.

  via YEC

  Co-Founded by Natalie MacNeil and Scott Gerber, YEC Women is an initiative of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and underemployment and provides its members with access to tools, mentorship, and resources that support each stage of a business’s development and growth.

  
  

Do Working Moms Really Prefer Part-Time Jobs?

Do Working Moms Really Prefer Part-Time Jobs?

Interesting article...

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/do-working-moms-really-prefer-part-time-jobs/

December 16, 2011
By KJ DELL’ANTONIA


The National Marriage Project released an optimistic report this week on marital satisfaction and parenthood. Because “When Baby Makes Three” was edited by the director of the project, which aims to promote marriage by identifying “strategies to increase marital quality and stability,” and by the Director of the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values, which seeks to increase “the proportion of children growing up with their two married parents,” this is not a report that focuses on numbers showing that marital happiness decreases among parents. It’s a report that looks at why that’s not true for a “substantial minority of husbands and wives.”

The result is a nice list of things successful married couples who aren’t made miserable by their kids do for and with one another. Tara Parker Pope wrote about it for last Sunday’s Times Magazine (“The Generous Marriage”). But hidden beneath the advice for couples was a section on the way social and cultural factors that are difficult for an individual to control impact marital/parental happiness. The less affluent and educated you are, the more likely you are to divorce. The more debt you have, and the more day-to-day worries about money, the less likely you are to describe yourself as “very happy” in your marriage (I recognize that this is not a surprising statistic). And if you’d prefer to work “part time” but find yourself instead working “full time,” then women, especially, are significantly more likely to be unhappy with their marriage (and presumably with life in general).

But why do so many women say they’d prefer to work part time in the first place? I spoke briefly to W. Bradford Wilcox and asked him how the question was phrased. What 58 percent of women responding to the Survey on Marital Generosity really said was that that they preferred to work, not “part time” per se, but 34 hours a week or less (only 20 percent of men said the same). That’s not a result that’s unique to this survey: a 2009 Pew survey on workplace demographics found that 61 percent of mothers with young children would prefer to work part time. My former colleague at Slate’s XXFactor blog, Jessica Gross, was momentarily surprised by those numbers. Why, she asked, the huge contrast between what married men and women with children want?

Could it be the way they’re phrasing the question?

Both men and women want flexibility in the workplace to support our family lives. According to the Families and Work Institute’s report on the status of workplace flexibility in the United States, in 2008, 49 percent of employed men with families reported experiencing work-family conflict (up from 34 percent in 1977). The same report points out that workplace flexibility is just as important to the job satisfaction of low-wage employees as it is to high earners, and just as feasible, albeit in different ways. But the report concludes that the “culture of flexibility appears to be stagnating,” with little growth and fears among employees that taking advantage of flexibility that’s offered will interfere with their employment.

In the absence of workplace flexibility, the one way to guarantee that a job will allow you to meet the demands of family life is simple: work fewer hours. So when women tick their way through a survey on work and family in whatever form and reach the question about work hours, many of us are looking for a question that’s not there. “Thirty-four hours or less” doesn’t really represent a desire for part-time work, with its overtones of secondary and lesser roles. It represents a desire for something “other.”

Into that desire comes so much of what we’ve been talking about lately at Motherlode: issues of available, affordable child care, health care, safe housing and even healthy school meal programs. With those things, the need for shorter hours wanes. Without them — if, like Soni Sangha, your child is one of the nearly 10,000 kids who don’t get a slot at any of the public pre-K programs in New York City (where 28,817 applicants vie for 19,834 positions) — 34 hours or less is suddenly the only viable option. (Read about Sangha, who created a co-op pre-K for her son, and investigated the legal status of other parents who’ve done the same, here.)

Of parents who want to work, do more moms than dads really want to work part time? Or have women just accepted a reality that working fewer hours in the absence of true workplace flexibility for both parents is more conducive to a smooth family life? Would fewer work hours make you happier, or is it the flexibility of the hours that counts?

Womens Health Forum This Friday!!

A long-time champion for women’s health, Congressman Chris Murphy is hosting a Women's Health Forum this Friday, January 6th from 12pm-1:30pm. Congressman Murphy, along with his panel of highly distinguished guests, will discuss the recent women’s health and reproductive rights victories and setbacks in Washington. The Forum will be held in the Old Judiciary Room of the Capitol Building in downtown Hartford. If you are interested in attending this wonderful event please RSVP to Meghan Forgione, 860-223-8412.

I have included the event specifics below and hope you all can attend!

Please Join

Congressman Chris Murphy

Dr. Kristen Zarfos, St. Francis Hospital

Teresa Younger, Executive Director PCSW

Christian Miron, Executive Director NARAL Pro-Choice CT

to discuss recent women’s health and reproductive rights victories and setbacks in Washington.

A long-time champion for women’s health, Congressman Murphy is the author of a provision of the new health care law which establishes into law federal offices of women’s health.

Old Judiciary Room

Capitol Building

210 Capitol Ave

Hartford, CT

12 pm to 1:30 pm

Friday, January 6, 2012