New Pink Power

Women don't have ambition? Really?

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO attributes the lack of equality in the workplace to women's lack of ambition.

“Until women are as ambitious as men, they’re not going to achieve as much as men.” – Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

This is such an unfair representation. Are there women who don't have ambition? of course! the same way that there are men with no ambition.  But to characterize the inequality and injustice that women face in the workplace as our own fault, is going a little to far. 

Let's see...

• We go to work knowing that we will have to work harder than men to even be noticed
• Knowing we will be paid less than a man to do similar jobs.
• Knowing that we will see other people be promoted continuosly with no achievement over us other than having the right gender.
•  Knowing that for every sign of leadership and courage - any attribute celebrated in men - we will be labeled "a B".
• Knowing that there is a glass ceiling that apparently can only be broken if we have the right mentor.
• Knowing that we will juggle all this while being moms, wives, daughters and keeping our households running.

 If  this is not a sign of ambition, frankly I don't know what is. Anyone that manages to work and succeed under this circumstances has nothing BUT ambition!

 

Miss Representation - A film exposing how the media erodes female self-worth!

A documentary revealing the damage mainstream media does to women! In a film directed by Jennifer Siebel Newson, she exposes how American media erodes female self-worth. How TV, Film, and Web content teach us that our worth is based on our desirability. How women leaders are trivialized, and how Hollywood green-lights few female protagonists especially if the role does not involve landing a man.

Watch Miss representation's official trailer below. And then look for a screening near you.

How craiglist enabled sex slavery!

Much has been said about how Craiglist being forced to shut down their adult services section was a violation of the first amendment.  When you look at it from the outside, you may agree with that statement, until you dig a little and realize that Craiglist was a major venue for the trading of young girls for sex. Did you know that about 100,000 girls are traded for sex annually in the United States? and the majority of them are trafficked by pimps online. And unfortunately Craiglist had become the wal mart of the child sex trade in America.

The Rebecca Project for Human Rights was founded to advocate for justice, dignity and policy reform for vulnerable women and girls in the United States and in Africa. They believe that women and girls possess the right to live free of gendered inequity and violence, and that investment in their leadership creates healthy, safe, and strong communities.  Learn more about the Rebecca project at http://www.rebeccaproject.org/index.php.

So while some people may focus on the fact that this may look like a violation of the first amendment. I personally feel that if it somehow limits the ability of some pimp to trade young girls for sex, it should be lauded.  As a society we have an obligation to - at the very least - protect vulnerable girls from sex abuse even if we don't do more to help them become useful members of society.

 

Sexism and " Sex and the city "

So men don't like the "Sex and the City" movie?  is that any surprise at all?  a movie where women are fully empowered!!. Where even the ones that still wait or look for their knight in shining Armour, are still living full lives and don't just sit at home to wait for the wonderful great prince that will come to rescue them and make them happy for ever and ever.......  WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED THEY ARE NOT DIGGING IT???

Were you aware that this movie is the highest-grossing debut ever for a movie starring women?

Ramin Setoodeh writes a nice analysis on the Newsweek magazine of June 16th, 2008.  Were you aware that the studios felt this movie would fail because mostly women would go to see it? women don't usually carry movie blockbusters on their shoulders.  What they don't realize is that their category of "chick movie" no longer cuts it with lots of us.  We want the chick factor!! but we need them to add the empowerment ingredient.  We are just no longer just going for the "damsel in distress" identity.....

I am really hoping that the success of this movie, will help the studio heads realize (mostly white men) that life has changed.  We women want different things than our mothers did. And we are no longer just looking for the love story built on a man's terms. We want the love story built on our terms.  And isn't that what "Sex and the City" did for us?   everyone got what they wanted... on their terms!!  you've got to love it if you are a woman... gotta hate it if you are a man...  your control is no longer there...

See the whole article here.... http://www.newsweek.com/id/139889

Sexism sells... How long until we stop buying it?

I just came across this video and it had me literally in tears.....yes! we all know sexism is prevalent, yes! we all know the name-calling, outright abuse, and harassment that women that are trying to change the status quo live with, but are we being blind to what the media is doing to us?  The video I am talking about is posted at http://womensmediacenter.com/sexism_sells.html.  Please spend some minutes watching it and forwarding it to your female friends and family and definitely sign the petition on the site.

Although a lot of the content on the video is of political nature and of "Hillary-nature", don't let that put you off if you are not a Hillary-follower. This is not about her, and this is not about political parties.  This is about the permission the media feels it has to bash women.

When a man stood up in front of Hillary in the campaign trail, with a sign saying "Iron my shirt".  Where was the uproar?  where was the media?  but more important... where we we?  as a gender we need to work together to not only highlight situations like this, but also to work on changing the fact that "it is OK" to do that.  What if someone had stood up in from of Obama to say "Park my car" or "wash my dishes".  What do you thing would have happened? maybe that is why black men were able to vote 50 years sooner than women were.  We have a big lesson to learn from the underrepresented group of African Americans. They have been able to work together to institute change while we women sit on the sidelines maybe even possibly crying foul, but then moving on to something else that gets our attention.   So how long until we start fully working together? how long before we stop buying the messages the media gives us?

I say "yesterday was late"!! get involved!! get involved with the community and with the organizations that are working on behalf of all women!!!  fight for what is right and learn to stick together as a gender.  My friend Eme with lots of wisdom recently told me... "There is only one area in which women are inferior to men, and that is in their ability to play together and to work together". So, I say it is time we stop buying it!!! it is time to come together and continue changing the world, even if as one of the men on the video say... "I close my legs when I see Hillary".   Let them all close their legs when they see we are a power to be reckoned with.