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The Political Will to Change Patriarchy: Where Women Sit Matters

For inspiration today, I’d like to turn to a news story set in Rosh Ha’ayin, a municipality in the northeast of Tel Aviv. The municipality was recently promoting a children’s performance where the seats closest to the stage were reserved for men, while the seats in the back of the hall were reserved for women. They claimed that this arrangement was made to “meet the needs of the entire population, based on their preferences.

Getty Images and Dove announced a new program called #ShowUs to grant funding for women. (Image credit: Getty Images)

The Israel Women’s Network demanded that Rosh Ha’ayin end the gender segregated seating.

“Separation between men and women in the public space, particularly between boys and girls, as part of an event supported by public funding, is forbidden and violates the law,” Gili Zinger, the director of the legal department at the Israel Women’s Network, wrote to the Rosh Ha’ayin municipality.

Esports, Motorsports, Meteorology: More New Gender Lens Funding

For the better part of a decade, Philanthropy Women has provided unique content and special insights into the world of feminism in general and feminist giving in particular. As a man, I am too often horrified by the way women’s contributions in so many fields are belittled or simply ignored. I’ve been enormously proud of the work that Philanthropy Women has done over the years to provide journalism about the efforts and accomplishments of women in so many different endeavors. Please help us keep up the good work by subscribing. It doesn’t cost much, less than $10 per month, the price of 2 or 3 coffees. Unity is strength.

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – MAY 19: Danica Patrick during qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May19, 2018 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)

On a slightly different angle, I’ve started reading a book called “Of Boys and Men”by Richard V. Reeves of the Brookings Institute. I ran across a reference to it in the Washington Post, and it piqued my curiosity. As you may be aware, there has been a caterwauling of complaints about the problems men and boys face in these troubled times. Reeves wrote the book as an attempt to uncover the reasons for these difficulties. I’m about halfway through, so I will provide some comments on the book and its thesis in my next post. For the time being, let’s just say that Reeves presents an interesting case, but I’m not sure it’s the case he intended to present.

Tina Turner: Her Music and Life Represented Survivors Everywhere

Greetings to All! As Kiersten mentioned, my name is Kevin Marek, and I will be collaborating with her at PW to keep you up to date on some of the latest developments in the world of feminist giving. Without further ado, let’s see what is out there at the moment.

Tina Turner made visible the domestic abuse that many women suffered silently. Her feminist giving spans both her life story and her amazing music career. (Image credit: Wikipedia, Creative Commons)

Tina Turner: Her Music and Life Story Represented Survivors Everywhere

Tina Turner became an iconic figure in the entertainment world, and her music lives on, instantly recognizable to tens of millions of people worldwide. Her recent passing created an outpouring of sadness combined with celebrations of her legacy. She burst onto the scene in the late 1960s with the song Proud Mary, but did not become a full-fledged superstar until the 1980s. However, it was in the time between that she made perhaps her most significant contribution to our society.

E. Jean Carroll Prevails in Triumph for Sexual Assault Survivors

Greetings, friends of Philanthropy Women! This week brings some very good news: E. Jean Carroll, American journalist who sued Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation, has won her suit. Her victory is evidence of her incredible stamina and persistence in pursuing justice, and it sets a new standard for how survivors of sexual assault can take action to address past crimes committed against them.

Journalist E. Jean Carroll has won her lawsuit proving that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her. (Image credit: AP)

When it comes to feminist giving, many give with their financial resources primarily. But someone like E. Jean Carroll gave not only with her financial resources, but with her time and energy, and her gift of endurance in the long fight to attain justice as a sexual assault survivor. We congratulate E. Jean Carroll and hope many other women will follow in her footsteps.

Fighting the Tide of Women Being Taught Not to Love Themselves

Greetings and welcome to Philanthropy Women! It’s Kiersten Marek here, the founder and editor of PW. Today there are many new happenings I want to share with you from the feminist giving realm, but first I want to take a moment to acknowledge an issue that has caused difficulty for us as a publication: the phenomenon of feminist givers being taught not to love themselves, and to see funding news about their work as an indulgence.

feminist giving realm — Feminist Funded ’23 is now taking registrations for its next conference which will be in September 2023. (Image credit: Women’s Funding Network)

As women, broadly speaking, we are taught not to love ourselves, to discredit our own work, and to downplay our own accomplishments. One of the reasons I started Philanthropy Women was because I wanted to reverse that trend — to make it possible, and, dare I say, easy, to feel good about yourself as a funder of gender equality.

Ms. Foundation Honors Duchess Meghan and LaTosha Brown

Hello there, lovely philanthropy women friends! We are having a beautiful start to spring here in New England, and as we head into spring there will be some exciting new events in feminist giving. Here are just a few of the big doings in gender lens philanthropy.

LaTosha Brown and Duchess Meghan to be Honored by Ms. Foundation

The Ms. Foundation for Women announced the honorees for the 2023 Women of Vision Awards: Celebrating Generations of Progress & Power.” This year’s annual gala, marking the 50th anniversary of the nation’s oldest women’s foundation, will take place at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City on May 16. Among those to be honored are Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and (familiar to readers of Feminist Giving!) LaTosha Brown. Each year, the foundation honors visionary leaders and game-changing grantee partners committed to the Ms. Foundation’s mission of advancing women’s collective power and creating safe, just and equitable futures for all.

Top 10 Feminist Giving Moves for March 2023 and Bargain on Book

Well, hello my lovely feminist giving friends! I hope you are all getting on fine. It’s time for another update on some of the gender lens philanthropic and investing activity in the world. Before we start, I want to alert readers that we have a limited number of copies of Feminist Giving available at a reduced rate for sale on Ebay. So if you don’t already have your copy of the book, now is your chance to pick one up at a great price, either for yourself, a friend, or even your local library if you so choose. Our book is particularly suited to libraries that are aiming to be a resource for marginalized groups.

ESOMAR has released new information for best practices regarding gender for multi-country work. (Image credit: ESOMAR)

What’s Going On in the World of Feminist Giving?

1. Our Partners at Alliance are Doing it Up for Women’s History Month

Now that I have had to step back a bit from my writing to pursue a top secret second career (it’s a don’t ask, don’t tell situation, so I appreciate your cooperation!) our partners at Alliance Magazine have taken on a much stronger agenda to serve the feminist giving community with news and views on this more essential form of philanthropy. There’s lots of great content there, including a piece from the Women’s Funding Network on the importance of Black giving. They are also dedicating a whole webinar to the topic of women’s funding which will take place on March 14. Register here to participate.

What Makes An Idea Valuable? Feminist Giving Explores

Have you ever wondered why, if we care so much about gender equality in the US, we make no progress on basic indicators like wage equality, which has been at a virtual standstill since 1994?

*Feminist Giving* explores the terrain of how we give for gender equality.

One of the themes that my book, Feminist Giving, explores is the question of what makes certain ideas valuable, so valuable that they enter the mainstream of culture and become practiced in significant behavior changes.

The book demonstrates that what philanthropy does to change its behavior is very much a mirror of the rest of society. Sadly, the book concludes that it’s still a man’s world, and philanthropy remains a part of that problem.

What’s New for Feminist Giving in February 2023

Greetings friends and feminist giving peeps! Welcome to February of 2023, which promises some big new things for gender equality funding.

Before we get into the top happenings in philanthropic giving for women, I want to call attention to a new gender lens investing product. We all know philanthropic giving matters, but there is also a great deal of progress that can be made by bringing gender lens thinking to the realms of business and finance.

A New gender lens ETF is available from Hypatia Capital. (Image credit Hypatia Capital)

New Gender Lens ETF: WCEO

On that topic, I’d like to share about Hypatia Capital’s new exchange-traded fund (ETF), WCEO. This ETF is specifically designed to generate revenue from companies led by women. The fund and its founder, Patricia Lizarraga, recently had a feature in Fox Business discussing the ETF and its potential to impact gender equality. “You can’t change the world, but you can reach gender equality in your domestic equity allocation today,” Lizarraga said in the article. In its first month, WCEO outperformed the S&P 500.

A Book is a Social Change Tool. Use This Tool.

Greetings, everyone in the Philanthropy Women community, and welcome to a New Year! 2023 promises to offer some very special events, including more readings and discussions of Feminist Giving. The book is doing well on sales and Lauren Brathwaite of Candid wrote a very comprehensive review of the book, which is a wonderful read if you are thinking of picking up the book. You can read the review here.

Ozzy the cat peruses the new copies of Feminist Giving: Creating New Frontiers in Social Change. He thinks they are taking up a perfectly good box space that he would like to play in.

One of my favorite things about Lauren’s review is that she referred to Feminist Giving as a “tome” and got into the big arguments that I make in the book. As she suspects in her review, I am very interested indeed in how MacKenzie Scott is beginning to go more public about her giving. However, I notice on her website she says that they currently “don’t participate” in media stories about their work. That gave me pause to think. It seems to me that it’s a sign of a certain level of privilege to be able to decide not to participate in media stories about oneself. As a social worker who has been public facing and accountable for her behavior and practice as a professional, I cannot fathom taking such a position. But obviously, she has her reasons.

Category: Activism