Texas NOW Blog

I've been representing Texas NOW on the steering committee for Women's Legislative Days for the last several months, and I'm thrilled to report that the day is finally here! We kick off with a welcome reception tonight, and then the cool stuff really starts. Tomorrow will be a full day of workshops on everything from global warming to violence against women, with panels of the smartest folks we could find. We'll get you all educated on the issues, and then Tuesday we head to the Capitol to make our voices heard.

I'm especially excited to report that our keynote speakers are the fabulous Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, the bestselling authors of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism. They are great young feminist leaders and I hear they're fantastic speakers as well, so don't miss them!

We worked really hard to keep this conference accessible to everyone, so the fee is only $35 and it's FREE for students! The only thing students have to pay for is lunch if they want it, but you can bring your own. We still have a few more spots open, so come on down if you can. See you there!

Posted by Carrie at 10:01 AM | Permalink

I am so thrilled with Tuesday night's election results! Let's review, shall we?

• For the first time in US history, the House clerk will be saying, "Madam Speaker." Congratulations, Rep. Pelosi!
• NARAL Pro-Choice America tells us that we have three new pro-choice US Senators and more than twenty new pro-choice US Representatives!
• Democratic control of the Senate will help us take back the federal courts, vital to maintaining reproductive rights at the state level.
• Voters in South Dakota defeated an abortion ban! Voters in Oregon and California also defeated anti-choice ballot measures.

Here in Texas...

• We have five new pro-woman state representatives! Congrats to Valinda Bolton, Ellen Cohen, Juan Garcia, Paula Hightower Pierson, and Allen Vaught. Counting the delightful Rep. Donna Howard, who won her seat in a special election in the spring, we have six new pro-woman voices at the Capitol!
• Notice that four of the above six are women. Cohen defeated anti-feminist Martha Wong, so we have a net gain of three women in the Texas Legislature, for a total of 40. That gets us up to 22% female representation. Not great in total, but a great step forward.
• We re-elected pro-woman Reps. Mark Strama and Hubert Vo and Senator Jeff Wentworth.

That's a good day for women, y'all. I'm feeling good and looking forward to making some progress come the spring and the legislative session!

I'm also looking forward to having more time to sleep - and to post to this blog.

Posted by Carrie at 6:41 PM | Permalink

Eighty-six years ago today, because of the efforts of many amazing and determined activists (including the ones I've been profiling this month), women in the US were granted the right to vote. And we are now the majority of voters in this country. So today, here's what I'm doing to celebrate:

• Exploring the Texas State Library's excellent online exhibit, Votes for Women
• Signing NOW's petition demanding that anybody who wants to lead our nation stand up for the rights of slightly more than 50 percent of its citizens

And if you're not registered to vote, get that way! Our suffragist foremothers fought hard for these rights, ladies. Don't let them down. You can register at any driver's license office. In Texas you have to be registered to vote 30 days prior to any election to be eligible to vote in that election, so if you want to vote in November, get registered now!

Austin: check with the Travis County Tax Office
Dallas: go to Dallas County Elections
Fort Worth: check with Tarrant County Elections
El Paso: go to El Paso Counts
Houston: they'll take care of you at the Harris County Tax Office
San Antonio: Bexar County Elections Department will set you up
Elsewhere around the state: check with the Secretary of State's Office or your county tax office

See you at the polls, women!

Posted by Carrie at 1:35 AM | Permalink

When you're a feminist in a conservative area, you can find yourself feeling alone. Just ask Wajiha al-Haweidar:

Wajiha al-Huweidar, an outspoken writer, said she was taken in by police for carrying a placard urging King Abdullah to grant more rights to women...

Huweidar, 45, said she protested on a busy causeway leading to neighbouring Bahrain, where women enjoy greater rights.

"A year after his (King Abdullah's) enthronement and after promising us more rights, the picture on women's rights remains very opaque," Huweidar told Reuters by telephone. "I'm not alone in this, a lot of women in the country aspire for more rights.

"Police treatment was faultless, they interrogated me and asked for a male (relative) ... to sign a pledge that I will not do such a thing again, my brother came and signed it for me.

"I won't march again on the bridge as I promised, but there are other ways to protest."

Wow. I am in awe. That is one hardcore feminist sister. Imagine staging a march all by yourself with your little sign, in a country where public protest is illegal, where you've got to have your brother come promise you'll behave - and after they let you out of jail, immediately starting to figure out more ways to make yourself heard within the law. Now that's perseverance.

You're not alone, Ms. al-Huweidar. I know your fellow Saudi feminists are proud of you and glad to see you standing strong for them. And I promise I'm cheering as hard as I can from here.

Posted by Carrie at 4:16 PM | Permalink

I'm so excited about this year's annual meeting! We'll be meeting up at a lovely resort in League City, south of Houston, on October 7. It'll be so nice to get out of Austin, see the ocean, and get away from the election season grind for a couple of days. We've kept the registration fee low ($35 pre-registration, $40 day of), and we've even got a special - you can join NOW and attend the conference for only $65. What a deal! I hope many of y'all will join us in League City for an energizing day of feminist sisterhood.

Posted by Carrie at 1:43 AM | Permalink

The second annual BlogHer Conference was fantastic! What an amazing group of smart, funny, articulate women. I had a great time, met some great women, and learned a lot.

What a thrill to meet Laurie Toby Edison and Debbie Notkin of Body Impolitic, makers of the wonderful book Women En Large. Laurie mentioned that she will be in Austin in October! With some luck we'll be able to bring her to UT to speak. More as things develop on this. And it was wonderful to see Susie Bright speak; I recommend her blog entry, linked above, on the need for the conference and why blogging is a feminist issue.

The panel on identity and obligation was FABULOUS. Panelists Karen Walrond, Dawn Rouse, Marisa Treviño, and Carmen Van Kerckhove, along with moderator Maria Niles, started us off, and the crowd discussion got very lively indeed. It was such a joy to listen to a group of women who were mostly strangers talk thoughtfully, honestly, and wisely about some tough topics. Do we have to disclose marginalized identities? Should we? Does that help us gain allies or not? Fascinating discussion that taught me two new phrases: "racial spy," a person of color whose appearance doesn't immediately make that identification clear and thus has a unique opportunity to observe race and racism in multiple communities, and "sneaky racist," someone who waits for 'safe' territory (read: no people of color around) before starting to disclose racist ideas.

So much fun to see so many amazing women using the web to make themselves heard!

Posted by Carrie at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Title IX, the landmark legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender by institutions that receive federal funding, is 34 years old today.

The fine folks working on educational equity at Education Development Center have an excellent history of Title IX on their website. Here are some highlights:

• The whole deal got kicked off when Dr. Bernice Sandler noticed that President Johnson's executive order forbidding gender discrimination would apply to colleges and universities with federal contracts or funding - and that's most of 'em
• Rep. Martha Griffiths of Michigan gave the first speech to Congress about gender discrimination in education.
• Rep. Edith Green of Oregon, chair of the subcommittee that dealt with higher ed, drafted the initial legislation and held the first congressional hearings on women and education. In one of those cool instances where everyone acted right, Rep. Green listened to the concerns of African-American leaders concerned about the practicality of adding gender stuff on to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act; she proposed a whole new section, which is where we get the name Title IX.
• The jackasses in the Reagan-era Department of Justice tried to limit the application of Title IX. Congress smacked 'em down with the Civil Rights Restoration Act, and then the Supreme Court affirmed the liability of institutions for the acts of individual employees and ruled that plaintiffs could sue for monetary damages. So yeah, y'all got to take us seriously.

We're not done yet. Lots of stupid adminstrative rules still exist that mean women's sports still get less funding than men's. There's still a huge lack of support for women in traditionally male fields. Women don't leave these fields because they can't do the work; they leave because they're not welcome and the workload is tailored for single men.

But. For today, I'm celebrating the fact that some smart, badass ladies saw a problem, took an opportunity to fix it, and gave us the legal stick (and later the carrot) we could use to demand equal rights in education.

Posted by Carrie at 3:11 PM | Permalink

Big batch of feminist love going out to Lufkin Daily News columnist Cynthia Hall Clements for her fabulous article on the local Planned Parenthood clinic's efforts to provide quality preventive healthcare for low-income women. Those of us who work on women's health issues know that our friends at PP, here in Texas and nationwide, and their colleagues in local family planning clinics are the backbone of healthcare for low-income women and, as new PPFA pres Cecile Richards has said, "do more to prevent abortion in one week than the South Dakota legislature will in a lifetime." But it sure doesn't get said often enough. Thanks, Ms. Clements! Allies are awesome!

Posted by Carrie at 11:26 AM | Permalink

Big love going out to the Houston Chronicle for this great profile of Cecile Richards. Unlike the NYT, they managed to actually cover her achievements, not her cool hairdo.

Posted by Carrie at 10:23 PM | Permalink

One more reason to love Austin: AISD has established the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders. The school will open next August for grades 6-12.

I was surprised to discover that Austin is actually following Dallas here. The Irma Rangel Young Women's Leadership School started this school year, and is rated Recognized for general test scores and Commended for Writing test scores by the Texas Education Agency. Go, Big D!

Posted by Carrie at 6:23 PM | Permalink

Mississippi catches up with the rest of us on breastfeeding!

It's another thank-heaven-for-Mississippi moment for Texas; we've had these protections since 1995. But even if they're late coming to the party, at least they showed up. So glad our sisters a few states over will have it a little easier.

Posted by Carrie at 9:08 AM | Permalink