Last night, history was made when Ayanna Pressley won the primary over a 10-term incumbent in Mass. District 7. Now, women like Marcia Ranglin-Vassell will face primary opponents in Rhode Island and will need help prevailing next week.
Exuberant emails from organizations like Higher Heights for America PAC say a lot about what an exciting win progressive democrats had yesterday in Massachusetts’ 7th Congressional District. History took a decided turn for progressives as Ayanna Pressley prevailed in a primary over a 10-term incumbent, and will not face a Republican opponent, so has taken the seat in Congress.
How did this happen? Kimberley Peeler-Allen of Higher Heights shared about one important strategy that may have led to this win:
The new global Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Index tracks the number of missing girls in the world, showing that China and India have the highest numbers of missing girls.
“I firmly believe that data not only measure progress but inspire it,” said Hillary Rodham Clinton recently, referring to the potential uses for the inaugural Women, Peace and Security Index, a new tool for measuring the role of women in making progress on global peace and security. Clinton recognized “the work that remains to confront the violence, injustice, and exclusion that still hold back too many women and girls around the world,” but she believes this new global index on women, peace and security will help “to inform public debate and discussion and hold decision-makers to account.”
A new study from the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago breaks down sexism state by state.
Just how sexist is the state you live in? As it turns out, we live in a relatively low-sexism state, Rhode Island, whereas states like Utah, Arkansas, and Alabama have some of the highest rates of “mean overall sexism,” as reported in a new study from the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago.
The title of the paper is “The Effects of Sexism on American Women: The Role of Norms vs. Discrimination,” which boils down to these findings:
The paper explains that sexist beliefs, especially those embedded early in life, have a significant impact on a woman’s ability to earn and to move up the social class ladder.
Both sexism in your birth state and in the state you live currently impact your wages and likelihood of having a job if you are a woman. Background sexism, the type of sexism a woman experiences as a girl, impact a woman’s outcomes “even after she is an adult living in another place through the influence of norms that she internalized during her formative years.”
Residential sexism, the sexism a woman experiences where she currently lives, impacts wages and job opportunities, due to male-dominated markets practicing discrimination.
Prejudice-based discrimination, founded on prevailing sexist beliefs and cultural norms that vary across states, drive lower wages and less job opportunities for women.
This study is helpful to have handy in case anyone tries to make the argument that the playing field is level for women in the United States. In fact, the playing field is full of major pits and grooves and is still giving men a decided advantage in the job markets. We have a long way to go before we are anywhere near leveling the playing field for women.
The Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization published new research in July of 2018 which furthers the argument that women have a significant impact on the quality of political leadership.
We’ve made the point here before, but we’ll make it again: the research is looking quite promising for supporting the idea that women make better political leaders. Some new findings recently published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization could become a big deal in today’s gendered political world, and could have huge implications for the future of civil society.
The research discovers that when women are more plentiful in the government body, that body tends to be less susceptible to corruption. Women donors would do well to invest in funding more social science research on this finding. With evidence that women are less likely to take bribes and more likely to support efforts for fair competition for contracts, this is big news for movements for gender equality in governments worldwide. More on this from Science Daily:
Study Finds Less Corruption in Countries Where More Women Are in Government
Photo from a 2018 trip to Rwanda for Dining for Women Members to learn about grantees.
Sharing food: one of the ultimate human communing experiences. Now imagine sharing food with a group of generous women who, like you, want to make every dollar they give to charity count toward helping women and girls and addressing gender equality in developing countries.
Welcome to Dining for Women (DFW), a global giving circle dedicated to funding social change for women and girls. At monthly potluck dinners, members come together and discuss today’s issues impacting women and girls, particularly the organizations being funded that month, and in the process, these 8,000-plus women raise more than a million dollars annually to fight for gender equity. Dining for Women was founded in 2003, and many chapters have already had 10 or even 15 year anniversaries.
The Women’s Funding Network Summit began with Feminist leader and journalist Marianne Schnall discussing her eight-year-old daughter’s striking question after the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Why have we not had a woman president?
Women’s Funding Network recently hosted a summit in New York, bringing together thought leadership to grow the movement for women’s equality.
The question wouldn’t go away for Schnall, and soon she found herself bringing it up to thought leaders and scholars, trying to figure out what it would take to put a woman in the highest governmental office in America.
One thing Schnall realized in this process was the need for stronger coalition-building across progressive movements. “This isn’t a women’s issue. It’s a human issue. It’s an issue of having a reflective democracy, and that’s why we need to have men be part of these conversations,” said Schnall.
Mothers of Invention, a new podcast featuring former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, and comedian Maeve Higgins, will celebrate the fascinating world of feminist climate change strategy.
The Guardian reports that former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, is launching a new initiative to call attention to feminist solutions to climate change.
Women around the world who are leading the fight against climate damage are to be highlighted by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and UN high commissioner, in the hopes of building a new global movement that will create “a feminist solution for climate change”.
Perhaps more revolutionary still, the new initiative is light-hearted in tone, optimistic in outlook and presents positive stories in what the originators hope will be seen as a fun way.
Called Mothers of Invention, the initiative will kick off with a series of podcasts showcasing the work of grassroots climate activists at a local level, as well as globally resonant initiatives such as the legal challenges under way in numerous jurisdictions to force governments to adhere to the Paris agreement goals. Scientists and politicians feature alongside farmers and indigenous community leaders from Europe, the US and Australia to India, Kenya, South Africa and Peru.
The podcast is a first for Robinson, who has focused on climate justicefor the last 15 years through her charity, the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, and as one of the Elders group, after seeing at first-hand as UN commissioner for human rights the danger that global warming presents to women whose lives are already precarious.
Here at Philanthropy Women, we are tracking the grantmaking and strategizing that is happening in the ecofeminist space, from the new Roddenberry Prize seeking solutions to both climate change and advancement for women and girls, to the grantmaking done by the Gender Just Climate Solutions award, which makes grants that share both feminist and climate strategies. We’re also showing how women’s giving collectives like Rachel’s Network are bringing feminist philanthropists together who share a vision of how to integrate climate solutions with gender equality. Stay tuned!
Left to Right: Marai Larasi (Imkaan); Nasra Ayub (Integrate UK); Emma Watson; Devi Leiper O’Malley (FRIDA–The Young Feminist Fund)
“I think supporting girls and women’s organizations is the greatest hope we have for worldwide transformative change – and my philanthropic choices are grounded in that belief,” said celebrity and activist Emma Watson, at a convening on July 10 in London, sponsored by NoVo Foundation, Oak Foundation, Unbound Philanthropy and Ariadne. The focus of the conference was on ending sexual violence.
Watson also noted that research across seventy countries concludes that women’s movements are the key factor in enacting policy change. “This makes it all the more shocking that a survey of European foundations found that less than 5 percent of funds were targeted towards girls and women.”
Alessandra Biaggi is running against incumbent, Jeff Klein, for the New York State legislature.
In this election cycle, a record number of women are taking on powerful incumbents and systems that have stalled progressive policies in states across the country. Case in point: Alessandra Biaggi, who is running for New York State Senate in District 34 in Westchester and the Bronx. Biaggi is only thirty-two years old and is a former policy aide to Hillary Clinton. She is also a lawyer who served as counsel to Andrew Cuomo.
And after last week’s enormous primary upset of 28-year old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over ten-term U.S. representative Joe Crowley, well, this moment is meeting Alessandra Biaggi. Courageously, she is taking on a sitting New York State Senator, Jeff Klein, who has led an obstructionist group called the Independent Democratic Conference, comprised of seven Democratic state senators who have caucused with the Republicans. Jeff Klein’s alliance with the Republicans has enabled the blockage of a slew of progressive legislation, including early voting and codifying reproductive health rights. Klein and the Independent Democratic Conference also blocked Andrea Stewart Cousins, a female state senator from Westchester and the Bronx, from becoming the majority leader of the Senate.
Alessandra Biaggi is progressive and smart and tough and made for exactly this moment in time.
We asked Biaggi a few questions to help you get to know her better.
Here are her answers:
What is one thing most people don’t now about you? I’m left handed.
If you could pass one law today, what would it be? The Reproductive Health Act, which would codify Roe v. Wade in NYS…no, it’s not codified; yes, my opponent is the reason.
What or who helps you keep going through the criticism and attacks inherent in a political campaign? The mantra that nothing is life and death, but life and death.
If you could have dinner with one famous woman (dead or alive) who would it be? Hannah Arendt
What’s the first line of your epitaph? They said it was not possible.
Chocolate or wine? Chocolate. I stopped drinking alcohol after the 2016 election — for many reasons — one of which was that the waters we were about to charter, I believed, required a steady and clear mind to find the truth.
Moira Jayne Walsh, Incumbent Democratic candidate for Rhode Island State Legislature, District 3, Providence. In an interview with Philanthropy Women, Walsh stated she does not want the endorsement of a party the endorses John Carnevale, who has been accused of sexual assault and domestic violence.
Great news for progressives in Rhode Island, as Moira Jayne Walsh and Bridgett Valverde prevail in their efforts to correct the Democratic party after it veered off course and endorsed some decidedly unfit candidates. From WPRI:
Bowing to heavy pressure from progressives locally and nationally, the Rhode Island Democratic Party on Thursday rescinded its endorsement of two controversial General Assembly candidates.
