mmo Blogworthy http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/ tracking news and commentary on women, work, family, and public policy en Copyright 2008 Sun, 25 May 2008 18:30:12 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Now in MMO: The Mothers' Movement in the United States The new issue of the Mothers Movement Online is live at last! This edition offers expanded coverage of the MMO's central topic: the objectives and progress of the mothers' movement in the United States. New content includes a moving essay by Gretchen Hunt on why Immigration is a Mother's Issue, a non-nonsense piece by Lisa Frack (of Portland, Oregon Activistas fame) on the mothers' movement's strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities, and an informative article by social work professor Arthur Emlen on working mothers' need for flexibility in multiple domains of daily life (Solving the Flexibility Puzzle). In my report and commentary, Power in a Movement, I describe recent developments in the middle-class "motherhood movement" and critique structural and conceptual gaps in the movement's expression -- and the expression of the progressive movement in general -- which are inconsistent with organizing mothers and others for effective change work. (As I explain in my Editor's Notes, I have a reputation in the mother's movement community as the person most likely to pose irritating and uncomfortable questions about the movement's organizational activities and goals. It's an unpopular job -- but someone's got to do it.)

In the Essays section, Kathleen Furin writes about the "Hot Moms" movement. While it's something of a relief to discover that moms are finally considered fuckable in the eyes of popular culture, Furin asks whether claiming our right to pursue hotness is truly a liberating trend for mothers, or simply adds a new twist to the culture of judgment and self-doubt that mothers are already subjected to (MILF: Is the Hot Moms Movement Really a Sign of Progress?). Also in Essays, returning contributor Jampa Williams offers an intensely personal account of the awakening of her opposition to the war in Iraq. Readers will also find short summaries of new resources on public policy, breastfeeding and the workplace; the real rate of economic insecurity among U.S. working families; and gender disparities in American's reports of anxiety about facing economic hardship (in Noteworthy). There are also new listings for several upcoming conferences on the Get Active page. Read and enjoy!

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]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/05/now-in-mmo-the-mothers-movemen-1.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/05/now-in-mmo-the-mothers-movemen-1.html Activism MMO Updates change work mmo mothers' movement. maternal activism progressive movement Sun, 25 May 2008 18:30:12 -0500 Now in MMO: The Mothers' Movement in the United States The new issue of the Mothers Movement Online is live at last! This edition offers expanded coverage of the MMO's central topic: the objectives and progress of the mothers' movement in the United States. New content includes a moving essay by Gretchen Hunt on why Immigration is a Mother's Issue, a non-nonsense piece by Lisa Frack (of Portland, Oregon Activistas fame) on the mothers' movement's strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities, and an informative article by social work professor Arthur Emlen on working mothers' need for flexibility in multiple domains of daily life (Solving the Flexibility Puzzle). In my report and commentary, Power in a Movement, I describe recent developments in the middle-class "motherhood movement" and critique structural and conceptual gaps in the movement's expression -- and the expression of the progressive movement in general -- which are inconsistent with organizing mothers and others for effective change work. (As I explain in my Editor's Notes, I have a reputation in the mother's movement community as the person most likely to pose irritating and uncomfortable questions about the movement's organizational activities and goals. It's an unpopular job -- but someone's got to do it.)

In the Essays section, Kathleen Furin writes about the "Hot Moms" movement. While it's something of a relief to discover that moms are finally considered fuckable in the eyes of popular culture, Furin asks whether claiming our right to pursue hotness is truly a liberating trend for mothers, or simply adds a new twist to the culture of judgment and self-doubt that mothers are already subjected to (MILF: Is the Hot Moms Movement Really a Sign of Progress?). Also in Essays, returning contributor Jampa Williams offers an intensely personal account of the awakening of her opposition to the war in Iraq. Readers will also find short summaries of new resources on public policy, breastfeeding and the workplace; the real rate of economic insecurity among U.S. working families; and gender disparities in American's reports of anxiety about facing economic hardship (in Noteworthy). There are also new listings for several upcoming conferences on the Get Active page. Read and enjoy!

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]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/05/now-in-mmo-the-mothers-movemen.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/05/now-in-mmo-the-mothers-movemen.html Activism MMO Updates change work mmo mothers' movement. maternal activism progressive movement Sun, 25 May 2008 18:30:12 -0500 Another Mother's Day With all eyes on the high drama of the Democratic primary race, Mother's Day has taken a back seat in the news cycle this spring. And that's just fine with me, since I've truly come to dread the mainstream media's perverse fascination with reviving the mommy wars every year. In any case, I'm here to liberate motherhood, not to celebrate it -- and while touching human interest stories about mothers heroically overcoming overwhelming setbacks are, well, incredibly touching, the profiles in maternal courage that predictably surface in the month of May do more to idealize the magical power of maternal stamina than to highlight the reality that every mother in the United States needs and deserves more support from our society than she's getting -- and far too many of us are falling through the cracks.

]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/05/another-mothers-day.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/05/another-mothers-day.html Media Trends Mothers & Mothering Research & Reports Sun, 11 May 2008 12:28:53 -0500 Working While Mother: Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center’s Mother’s Day event to focus on discrimination in the workplace The mainstream media loves to talk about "work-family balance." It tells personal stories about how hard it is to juggle deadlines and suppertimes, but rarely asks why that balance is so hard, and how it can be changed. Often, motherhood is when today’s young women first face serious job discrimination and the biases against mothers that are built into American culture, family policy and many marriages.

This inter-generational panel discussion seeks to shed light on discrimination against mothers in the workplace and focus on what can be done to change things for the better. The discussion is moderated by E.J. Graff, WSRC Resident Scholar, and participants include Dana Gershengorn, Neena Pathak (’08) and Mothers Movement Online editor Judith Stadtman Tucker.

Working While Mother: What they don’t tell you…and should
May 8, 2008, 12:30-2:00 PM
Brandeis University
Epstein Building, 515 South Street
Waltham, MA

For information, please contact Lisa Lynch, 781.736.8102 or llynch@brandeis.edu

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]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/04/working-while-mother-brandeis.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/04/working-while-mother-brandeis.html Advocacy Media Trends Public Policy Work & Family Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:00:36 -0500 New Jersey Senate passes family leave insurance bill After more than a decade of fierce opposition split largely along party lines, the New Jersey Senate passed a bill yesterday to provide state workers with partial wage replacement for up to six weeks of family and medical leave. Governor Jon Corzine has promised to sign the bill, which was passed by the state Assembly on March 14, making New Jersey the third state in the nation to enact paid leave legislation (California was the first, with Washington State following suit in 2007). The legislation was sponsored and tirelessly championed by State Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) with grassroots support from a broad coalition of social justice, labor, and family & caregiver advocacy organizations, including New Jersey Citizen Action, ACORN, NOW NJ, National Family Caregivers Association, Mothers & More, and MomsRising. The final version of the bill passed by a 21-15 vote.

]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/04/new-jersey-senate-passes-famil.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/04/new-jersey-senate-passes-famil.html Activism Advocacy Public Policy momsrising mothers & more national organization for women new jersey paid leave Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:37:16 -0500 Now live: MMO Pregnancy & Childbirth issue The February/March edition of the Mothers Movement Online is now live and ready for your reading pleasure. In addition to my editor's notes -- in which I own up to the distractions of grassroots activism and the impact it's had on the web site's publication schedule -- the current issue features an interview with Judy Norsigian of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective on the concept for the new Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth Book, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser's interview with childbirth educator and author Lisa Gould Rubin (who explains why it's problematic to "normalize" one particular childbirth model), and several outstanding essays, including Unforgettable, Cater-Ann Mahdavi's lucid and compassionate account of the life-altering impact of traumatic childbirth.

In the Noteworthy section, you'll find summaries of research and reports on recent fertility trends in the United States, employed mothers' child care arrangements and expenditures, American children's living arrangements in families, and a recent study from the US Census series on maternity leave and employment patterns of first-time mothers from 1961-2003. An unsurprising finding from the maternity leave report is that today's first-time mothers are older, more educated, and more likely to be employed before and during pregnancy than new mothers thirty years ago.

Also in Noteworthy, my report on the latest attempt to meddle with the Family & Medical Leave Act to give employers more control over when and how eligible workers are allowed to take FMLA leave, and a summary of a research analysis by two social scientists from the Council on Contemporary Families, who propose that rather than pointing to evidence of a stalled revolution, the slow but steady rise in men's contribution to housework and child care over the last twenty-five years should be acknowledged as significant progress toward gender equality. Yeah, I'll get right on that -- as soon as I remind my husband (again) to throw in a load of laundry while he's watching the basketball game.

The topic of the April/May issue is The Mothers Movement in the United States; submissions in all content categories are welcome -- deadline for copy is April 25. (For more information about upcoming issue topics and submission deadlines, download the 2008 Editorial Calendar).

After the dust-up over my endorsement of Barack Obama on the MMO web site, I received a supportive letter from a reader in Sydney, Australia on why electoral and local politics really do matter to the future of women and families, and why mothers need to get more involved (in Letters).

Read and enjoy.

-- JST

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]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/03/now-live-mmo-pregnancy-childbi.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/03/now-live-mmo-pregnancy-childbi.html MMO Updates mmo updates pregnancy & childbirth Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:33:43 -0500 New policy brief on time as a resource for working families The Sloan Work and Family Research Network has released Providing Working Families with an Important Resource: Time, the latest briefing paper in a continuing series on work-life policy issues. The four-page issue brief highlights state legislative activity from 2005-2007 that enables workers to manage their work and family needs without sacrificing their mental and physical health, work responsibilities, salary, or familial responsibilities and summarizes research on how providing such resources impacts workers, businesses, and states. Although the Work and Family Research Network Policy Briefing Series was developed to educate state legislators about current social research on the benefits of implementing work-life reconciliation policies at the state level, the briefs are also an excellent source of information for advocates for caregivers and working families.

The Work and Family Research Network has also published a new compilation of state profiles on work-family policy action covering legislative activity during the 2007 session for all 50 states. The one-page profiles provide a snapshot of state workforce demographics and how each state addresses issues facing working families. All 50 Work and Family State Profiles can be accessed from an interactive, online map.

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]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/03/new-policy-brief-on-time-as-a.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/03/new-policy-brief-on-time-as-a.html Public Policy Research & Reports sloan work & family reasearch network state legislation Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:40:55 -0500 The Nation's tribute to The New Deal Progressive writers and pundits -- myself included -- have fallen into the habit of defining the suite of comprehensive health care, labor, and social insurance policies necessary to promote shared prosperity and social inclusion in America as the "Next New Deal." First and foremost, this rubric refers to the dire need to restore a collective commitment to public spending in the United States in order to foster economic and social conditions that support a functional democracy. But it also draws on the understanding that real progress demands political courage and "new" thinking -- a conscious, if not complete, rejection of political beliefs and practices that have historically exacerbated disparities in wellbeing and opportunity between the nation's haves and have-nots.

]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/03/the-nations-tribute-to-the-new.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/03/the-nations-tribute-to-the-new.html Politics Public Policy fdr frances perkins new deal social spending Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:30:41 -0500 NWLC: Proposed FY'09 budget shortchanges women and children

An analysis by the National Women's Law Center of spending cuts included in the Bush administration's proposed FY'09 budget finds that "The President’s budget seeks to cut health care, nutrition and energy assistance for low-income families, violence against women programs, and social services for vulnerable families:"

]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/nwlc-proposed-fy09-budget-shor.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/nwlc-proposed-fy09-budget-shor.html Public Policy nwlc social spending Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:09:40 -0500 WPI reports on Senate FMLA hearing On February 13, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families held a hearing on the past success and future challenges of the Family and Medical Leave Act. A report from The Source newsletter (published by Women's Policy, Inc., a non-profit organization that tracks women's issues in Congress) highlights testimony by Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Victoria Lipnic of the Department of Labor, Deborah Ness of the National Partnership for Women and Families, and Katheryn Elliot on behalf of the Society for Human Resources Management, a business-friendly professional association.

]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/wpi-reports-on-senate-fmla-hea.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/wpi-reports-on-senate-fmla-hea.html Advocacy Public Policy Work & Family FMLA National Partnership Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:03:30 -0500 Only in the US: The perplexing case of missing maternity coverage There's an important story from Newhouse News Service out today which reports on the common practice among private insurers to exclude maternity coverage from individual policies. "Large group plans generally include maternity coverage as a matter of course. But small group plans and individual policyholders may not because it adds too much to the monthly premiums," Regina McEnery reports. This is dismal news for single mothers-to-be by choice or chance who are self-insured or covered by a group policy that excludes maternity coverage for individual policy holders.

]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/only-in-the-us-the-perplexing.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/only-in-the-us-the-perplexing.html Pregnancy & Birth Public Policy Reproductive Health health care insurance maternal & infant health single mothers Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:09:11 -0500 In a single day, US domestic violence programs served 53,304 The 2007 National Census of Domestic Violence Services -- which collected reports on the delivery and demand for services in a single 24-hour period from 69 percent of identified domestic violence programs in the US -- found that in one day, 53,303 domestic violence victims received services from local programs, while over 7,000 requests for services were not met due to staff and funding shortages. Approximately 61 percent of unmet requests were for emergency shelter and transitional housing.

]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/in-a-single-day-us-domestic-vi.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/in-a-single-day-us-domestic-vi.html Domestic Violence Public Policy domestic violence funding nnedv Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:26:20 -0500 Feminism, women, and the vote AlterNet posted a series of interesting and intelligent perspectives on feminism, women, and the vote yesterday -- and I'm not saying that just because I wrote one of the pieces. (For the record, the original headline I submitted was "Trust Women?: What If We Elect the First Woman President of the United States, and She Sucks?) What's enlightening about the articles -- which include commentaries from Laura Flanders of The Nation and Kimberle Williams Crenshaw with Eve Ensler, plus an excellent overview of the points of conflict by Jill Filipovic -- is that each writer questions the feminist "mandate" to vote for Hillary from a different angle, but all call for a more nuanced understanding of feminist values and goals.

]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/feminism-women-and-the-vote.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/feminism-women-and-the-vote.html Feminism Gender & Culture Politics election 08 Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:16:15 -0500 Most states fail to protect children in family home day care settings Child care provided in family home child care settings is one of the largest segments of the child care industry, with nearly two million U.S. children spending time in family home-based care each week. According to a new analysis of state regulations to promote the safety and quality of family home care, most states are dropping the ball on protecting the health and development of young children in home care settings.

]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/most-states-fail-to-protect-ch.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/most-states-fail-to-protect-ch.html Child Care Public Policy child care quality family home child care naccrra Sun, 03 Feb 2008 12:17:22 -0500 NWLC offers new fact sheets on tax credits for working families The National Women's Law Center has created a set of tax credit fact sheets for child care advocates and family service professionals to distribute in their communities. Online resources for parents are also available. Revised to reflect 2008 tax codes, the latest fact sheets include flyers on state credits in English, Spanish and other languages, information about federal tax credits, and a tool kit to help agencies and advocates develop a community tax credit outreach plan. All materials are available from the NWLC web site's Tax Credits Outreach page.

Find out about the family tax credits available in your state.

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]]> http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/nwlc-offers-new-fact-sheets-on.html http://www.mothersmovement.org/blogworthy/2008/02/nwlc-offers-new-fact-sheets-on.html Advocacy Work & Family community outreach family tax credits Sat, 02 Feb 2008 16:48:05 -0500