Lobbying at the General Assembly on legislation that impacts our key issue areas is one way RI NOW advocates for women’s rights across a broad spectrum of issues.
To view this year’s legislative agenda, please visit: http://www.rinow2008.blogspot.com
Comments of NOW President Kim Gandy on legislation introduced today by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to reject Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations that would expand the ability of media conglomerates to increase their cross-ownership of multiple media outlets in a single community, reducing the diversity of local voices.
At the National Organization for Women, which is the nation’s largest grassroots women’s rights organization, we are extremely concerned about the state of media today, particularly media ownership.
Not a day goes by that women don’t call and write to us to express their frustration at what they see, hear and read in the media. They are outraged by sexist, racist, homophobic comments. They are disturbed by the high level of sexual exploitation and violence. They ask why more women experts aren’t featured on news and political talk shows. They are dismayed at the lack of substantive coverage of women’s issues. And they long for better role models for their daughters and sons.
I believe this condition is a direct result of the lack of diversity in ownership Women own just five percent of commercial broadcast TV stations and six percent of all full-power radio stations. Whenever the FCC allows big media companies to gobble up more stations, it leaves fewer and fewer outlets for women and people of color to purchase. And often the big companies are buying stations from women and people of color.
It is critical that we not let the FCC further relax its ownership rules. If the media giants grow even larger, women and people of color will suffer as their voices and viewpoints become even further marginalized. I applaud Sen. Dorgan for standing up for the people’s interests–not for making big business even bigger.
NOW is calling on its members and all women’s rights supporters to write to their Senators today, urging them to vote ‘yes’ on the Senate resolution to reject the FCC’s disastrous new rules.
Statement of NOW President Kim Gandy
February 24, 2008
Note: This statement was issued at a Feb. 24 rally organized by Women’s Ski Jumping USA in Vancouver, Canada, the site of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
The next Winter Olympics will take place in 2010. Let me repeat, Two-Thousand and Ten. We are well into the 21st century, yet women ski jumpers still are not permitted to compete at their sport’s highest level.
The National Organization for Women calls on the International Olympic Committee to right this wrong immediately. The exclusion of women from this sport, which is open to men, is unwarranted and unfair. We reject outdated notions that ski jumping is not “appropriate” for women because it is disproportionately hazardous to their health. And we firmly disagree with claims that the current level of competition in women’s ski jumping does not justify its addition to the Olympic games.
Since 1998, women from 16 nations have participated in international ski jumping competitions, and the International Ski Federation finally added women’s ski jumping to the upcoming 2009 world championships. Throughout its 42 year history, NOW has promoted equality for women in all arenas, including sports. Exclusion of women and girls from athletic opportunities is discrimination, plain and simple, and it can have a profound impact on their health, well-being and future.
According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, girls and women who play sports have higher levels of confidence and self esteem, lower levels of depression, and higher states of psychological well-being than girls and women who do not play sports — and 80 percent of female executives at Fortune 500 companies reported having played sports.
But for right now, there are women around the globe who want to fly. NOW calls on the IOC to let Vancouver in 2010 be the place and the time for women ski jumpers to make their Olympic dreams come true.
Today marks the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. The National Organization for Women is determined to not go back to the days when women suffered from health complications after giving birth to 10, 12, or 15 children, often dying in childbirth. Or they died from illegal abortions in back alleys or dirty motel rooms, or were left injured and infertile after botched illegal abortions. Our mothers and grandmothers had no self-determination when it came to pregnancy and childbearing, and we are determined that our daughters will never have that experience.
“It is no surprise that majority of people in this country agree with the core decision of Roe, but in the last 35 years the anti-choice groups have grown more vicious, lashing out against the landmark Supreme Court decision as part of their on-going campaign to eviscerate it,” says NOW President Kim Gandy. “We have endured more than three decades of challenges and roadblocks from a well-funded opposition, and our rights are more tenuous than ever — so now, more than ever, we have to fight to keep Roe alive,” said Gandy.
Over the last few years, we have seen calculated legal and legislative strategies designed to challenge the core holding of Roe v. Wade and overturn the decision. In 2006, South Dakota lawmakers made it a felony for doctors to perform any abortion except to save the life of a pregnant woman, but the law was reversed by voters later that year. Last April, in a move that distorts the law and disregards the Constitution, the Supreme Court upheld an abortion procedure ban without any exception to protect the woman’s health. Five justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito — both installed by Bush and a Republican-majority Senate — effectively reversed court precedent in ruling that the law does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to choose abortion. With the stage set, the next phase of their attack is moving to Missouri, where a proposed ballot measure, that if adopted, would ban abortion in almost all circumstances and could spur a legal challenge before the Supreme Court.
“In this time of many challenges to our liberty, preserving women’s reproductive freedom calls for constant vigilance and concerted action,” said Gandy. “Abortion opponents are attempting to eliminate access to abortion in many states — by passing TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws to put clinics out of business, passing waiting periods and notice requirements that cut access to rural women, poor women and young women, and by enacting outright abortion bans that would jail doctors and revoke their medical licenses.”
“This is a promising year for women,” said Gandy. “We will soon be seeing the last of George Bush and his right-wing religious zealots, but it is critical that we elect a new president and a Congress committed to full reproductive health care for women,” said Gandy.
Below the Belt: A Biweekly Column by NOW President Kim Gandy
January 4, 2008
Sadly, the year 2007 ended with a maddening reminder that violence is a popular tool of oppression. From the most powerful leaders in the world, to the tyrant next door, those who aim to exploit, control and silence others predictably turn to aggression and brutality.
On Dec. 27, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, robbed the world of a charismatic and dedicated advocate for democracy in the Middle East. The news was horrific, but hardly surprising given the numerous death threats Bhutto had received over the years.
In 1988 Prime Minister Bhutto became the first woman democratically elected to lead a modern Muslim nation, and repeatedly put her life on the line to advance democracy in a volatile country. Bhutto knew the risk that came with returning to Pakistan to run for a third term, but she refused to let that threat stand in her way. She was prepared to pay the ultimate price for freedom, and she did.
Bhutto’s murder dominated the news for days, but millions of women across the globe are killed, raped, beaten and mutilated every year without any public pause.
According to Amnesty International, more than 15,000 women are sold into sexual slavery in China annually. Six thousand women are genitally mutilated each day in North Africa. In Bangladesh, hundreds of women are horribly disfigured when spurned husbands or suitors burn them with acid. More than 7,000 women in India are murdered by their families and in-laws in disputes over dowries per year. Even here in the U.S., an average of three women are murdered every day by husbands or boyfriends, and an estimated one million to three million women are abused by them.
In the conflict-ravaged region of Darfur, in western Sudan, as many as 400,000 innocent people have been killed and more than 2.5 million driven from their homes. Rape and sexual violence have been used to terrorize and displace rural communities. Even after fleeing Darfur, women and girls in refugee camps continue to be raped and assaulted by civilians or militia members.
The brutalization of women in war zones and the appropriation of their bodies as “spoils of war” are common practices that have persisted for centuries. The United States condemns the use of these tactics, but at the same time our female service members fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are being raped by the same commanders and comrades they trusted to fight beside them. They are reluctant or afraid to report these crimes, and the added trauma is taking its toll, as reported in USA Today this week.
This report comes on the heels of a story of gender-based crime and punishment that sparked considerable media interest. In 2006, a 19-year-old woman in Saudi Arabia brought charges against seven men for gang-rape. In addition to the punishments handed down to the perpetrators, the judge sentenced the young woman herself to 90 lashes for being alone in a car with a man who was not a relative of hers just before the attack.
Even a country like Saudi Arabia, a strong ally of the Bush administration, treats women residents like second-class citizens. Justice in Saudi Arabia is administered by a system of religious courts following a strict interpretation of Islamic Shari’a law. Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive and must get a male relative’s permission before having surgery, going to college, seeking a job or accepting a marriage proposal.
The case of “the Girl from Qatif” (as she came to be known) attracted worldwide attention for its outrageous injustice. Last year, a Saudi court more than doubled the young woman’s penalty to 200 lashes and six months in jail. According to Arab News, the court said the woman’s punishment was increased because of “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.”
After even greater condemnation from the world community, King Abdullah eventually granted the woman a pardon in December. However, this incident served as a reminder that patriarchy continues to exist in its most extreme forms, sanction by governments that are not accustomed to being challenged.
Some conservatives argue that discrimination and violence against women in the Middle East should be reason enough for feminists to support the U.S. right-wing’s agenda of invading Islamic countries and installing Bush-style “democracy” as in Iraq.
But the Bush administration is not on a mission to do the women of the world any favors. Just look at how women have suffered in Iraq, and at the deteriorating conditions for women in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is making a comeback.
Obviously the reliance on brute force to keep women from overstepping proscribed boundaries is not limited to convenient interpretations of Islam. Violence and misogyny transcend territory, language, ethnicity, culture, politics, religion — you name it. The desire to dominate, combined with sexism, fuels violence against women in every corner of the world.
In 2006, the United Nations released a report officially classifying violence against women as a human rights violation, increasing pressure on nation-states in the UN to intensify and improve systems in place for handling violence against women. Calling violence against women “unacceptable,” the report goals included: surveying the pervasiveness of violence against women around the world; reminding UN states of the importance of this issue; finding better, more effective ways to combat violence against women; and increasing accountability of UN states for violations of women’s human rights.
Responding to and preventing violence will be most effective when the U.S. and all societies across the globe are willing to acknowledge and address its root causes. Our current president lacks credibility on this issue because he is a bully himself, someone who resorts to violence to get his way, a man who laughed at the impending execution of a woman in the state he governed. Let’s face it, Bush just doesn’t get it.
This nation needs a leader who can speak with authority on this subject. Someone who can influence other countries to join us in eradicating violence, hatred and discrimination of all kinds. Someone who will shine a light on this issue and set a bold example for the world. Someone who believes that women’s rights are human rights. I hope that we will end 2008 with a newly elected president who can do just that.
Are you trying to think of the perfect gift for a progressive family member or friend? Give a RI NOW Holiday Gift Membership Package! For $55 your loved one will receive a one year membership to RI NOW, a 100% organic cotton RI NOW canvas tote bag 
and a pair of sterling silver and Swarovski crystal earrings bearing the woman symbol.
Contact Laura Costa at membership@rinow.
Thursday afternoon, by a vote of 273 to 156, the House of Representatives failed to gather the 290 votes needed to override the president’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program bill (SCHIP). Both the Senate and House have previously cast bipartisan votes to reauthorize this ten-year-old program and to extend coverage to an additional ten million children who live in low income families with no health insurance, even though the average annual cost of the expansion was less than three weeks of Iraq war spending.
Bush’s veto required that two-thirds of the 435 House members vote to override the veto before the bill can become law. Despite overwhelming public support and the backing of many in the medical and health insurance industries, the president and his House allies have carried on a campaign of mistruths and unfounded allegations, leading to the bill’s demise this afternoon.
NOW decries the cruelty of denying the most basic health care to children whose parents cannot afford health insurance. The 156 House members — 154 Republicans and two Democrats - who voted against the override have let down not only the vulnerable children of this nation, but also put an undue burden on single parents and low-income families who can only pray their children do not get sick or hurt.
“It’s purely political,” says NOW President Kim Gandy. “George Bush has no trouble funding a government sponsored, ’socialized’ war, yet bristles at the thought of helping poor children who need health care, branding the expanded SCHIP as a program leading us down the slippery slope to ’socialized’ medicine.” In his book it’s fine to provide subsidies, tax breaks and federal grants to industries, businesses and colleges to ensure their economic health and well-being, but kids just don’t count.
The vetoed bill would have extended health insurance coverage to an additional four million low income children and would have cost $35 billion over five years, an average of $7 billion per year, compared to the $12 billion every month that George Bush is spending in Iraq. The President says he might sign a proposal to reauthorize the program and increase the spending by $5 billion — but with inflation, that amount would represent a reduction in real dollars, which means that 1 million children who are currently covered by the states with SCHIP funding will be kicked out of the health insurance plan. The failed SCHIP legislation was already a shell of its former self because the final proposal did not include the House-passed language allowing legal immigrant children to participate in the program.
“It’s hard to imagine that Bush, his Cabinet, and all 154 of those Republicans in Congress are enjoying ‘government funded’ healthcare, subsidized by the same taxpayers who overwhelmingly supported continuing and enhancing the SCHIP program,” said Gandy. “It may be time for those 154 members of Congress to go without health care for awhile…or get lost. They have let down the children and the parents in their Congressional districts who are wondering where they will ever get the money or the job that will enable them to provide health care for their families,” said Gandy.
October 18 marks the tenth anniversary of the National Organization for Women Foundation’s Annual Love Your Body Day (LYBD). For the past ten years, the Love Your Body Campaign has promoted healthy body images for women and girls through creative actions and consumer education. The campaign calls for women and girls to be in control of what makes them feel healthy and comfortable with their bodies, on their own terms and not based on unrealistic images promoted by advertisers and the mass media.
“Sex, Stereotypes and Beauty: The ABCs and Ds of Commercial Images of Women” is a new slide show presentation created by the NOW Foundation and available beginning today through the Love Your Body website for viewing and download. This presentation illustrates ways that advertisers and the media enforce unrealistic beauty standards, sexual ideals and gender stereotypes that girls and women are expected to follow.
“‘Sex, Stereotypes and Beauty’ is a fast-paced and compelling way for women and girls to identify and think about the impact that these images have on their health and well-being, and what can they do about it,” NOW Foundation President Kim Gandy says. “Using examples from current advertisements, we brought these images together to present them in a way that will spark discussion. We hope that our chapters, or anyone visiting our website, will present the slide show, forward it to their friends, and use it to strategize ways to combat the daily barrage of messages that say to women and girls ‘You’re not good enough.’”
Hollywood and the fashion, cosmetics and diet industries work hard to make women believe that our bodies are unacceptable and need constant improvement. Print ads and television commercials reduce women to body parts — lips, legs, breasts — airbrushed and touched up to meet impossible standards. TV shows tell women and teenage girls that cosmetic surgery is a necessary step toward positive self-esteem.
“Is it any wonder that 80% of U.S. women are dissatisfied with their appearance?” asks Gandy. “The NOW Foundation is committed to empowering women to say, ‘Enough is enough!’ We want all women and girls to be positive about their bodies and not feel pressured by the media’s negative portrayals and pressure to conform — to look or feel a particular way.”
Common assumptions about mothers’ and caregivers’ responsibilities frequently affect their salary, raises, and job opportunities, and we are gratified that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, today in New Hampshire, made this and other work/life balance issues a central part of her campaign platform. According to many reports, some employers routinely make pay and promotion decisions about employees based on an assumption that caregiving responsibilities for children or elders will affect performance, even if that has not actually been the case. “These assumptions are deeply engrained in stereotypes about women as caregivers, and they affect the pay and employment status of millions of women, and some men as well,” said NOW President Kim Gandy. “This is discrimination, pure and simple, and it contributes to the enormous wage gap between mothers and non-mothers.” Clinton also committed to providing paid sick days for all workers, expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover an additional 13 million workers, and creating incentives for states to create paid leave programs. With specifics on how the cost of the programs would be covered, Clinton laid out a broad agenda that also included increased funding for child care and workplace flexibility initiatives. “NOW was the first organization to pass a resolution supporting ‘Homemaker’s Bill of Rights’ in 1978, and to this day we fight for caregivers’ rights, but no presidential candidate has ever made such an effort to put families first,” said Gandy.
October 12, 2007
On Sept. 28, the Judicial Council of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals formally reprimanded U.S. District Court Judge Samuel B. Kent of Galveston, Texas, suspended him for four months, and reassigned many of his pending cases to other judges. This nearly unprecedented action came after a lengthy secret investigation of allegations that the judge had sexually harassed and inappropriately touched a female employee. During their investigation, the committee expanded the inquiry to include additional complaints against Judge Kent.
Based on the seriousness of the allegations and the actions of the Judicial Council, the National Organization for Women (NOW) has requested, through Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), a member of the committee, that the House Judiciary Committee open an investigation into the accusations against Judge Kent. If they find that Judge Kent violated federal law, including federal civil rights law, we will urge the committee to begin impeachment proceeding.
“There is an Alice in Wonderland feel to this process. The Fifth Circuit’s investigation of its own judge was completely secret, none of the findings were revealed to the public, not even after the investigation was complete, the public ‘reprimand’ contained no details, and all documents uncovered in the investigation are sealed,” said NOW President Kim Gandy, an attorney admitted to practice in the Fifth Circuit. “To make matters worse, the Fifth Circuit says that even if a judicial panel finds that a judge did commit a crime, it is not obligated to refer it to law enforcement. Federal judges are protected by law from the law.”
“This judicial panel seems to be protecting its own. The reported punishment — a four-month paid vacation and a slap on the wrist — seems extraordinarily light, and doesn’t seem to ‘fit the crime’ as it has been reported in the press. His punishment, for all practical purposes, has been a taxpayer-paid four month vacation and a reduced workload at full pay. When he returns to the bench in a few months, he will resume his normal duties, including ruling on cases involving sex discrimination and sexual harassment. If that happens, and he is indeed a sexual harasser, it would be an injustice to every woman whose case could come before his court,” said Gandy.
