The Ladder Herald

Report on Gender Revolution

Was using this for my final paper on Human Development. It's cool to see it.

Council on Contemporary Families

"A "Stalled" Revolution or a Still-Unfolding One?

The Continuing Convergence of Men's and Women's Roles

A Discussion Paper prepared for the 10th Anniversary Conference of the Council on Contemporary Families.

After over 35 years of continuous change toward more egalitarian gender attitudes and behaviors, recent signs of a slowdown have led some observers to suggest that the gender revolution is coming to an end. Evidence for this claim includes a slight dip in women's labor force participation, a rise in support for traditional gender attitudes among adults, and an increase in the age of sexual initiation among the young. In the past year, the Council on Contemporary Families has received many enquiries from the press and general public about whether the transformation of men's and women's roles has now run its course.

In a review of this question prepared for the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the Council, we conclude that these short-term countertrends do not amount to a revival of traditional family roles and beliefs. Instead, we show that the evidence overwhelmingly shows an ongoing shift toward what we call "gender convergence," an ever-increasing similarity in how men and women live and what they want from their lives.

[...]

Despite the sometimes gloomy newspaper articles about men's resistance to sharing household chores, research on families shows that, over time, each generation of men has taken on a greater share of the work involved in running a home. While men's family work has not changed nearly as much as has women's labor force participation, there is clear evidence that married men are more involved in child care and housework than in past eras.

Significantly, younger fathers spend more time with their children than older fathers do. When the Families & Work Institute compared the work-day hours Gen-X and Boomer fathers spend caring for and doing things with their children in 2002, they found that Gen-X fathers spend more than an additional hour every day than did Baby Boom generation dads. After controlling for the possible effect of the children's age, the same difference remained."

Totally Sick

Bush just vetoed the money for health care for children. As a result, 6.6 million kids could lose health care coverage beginning November 16 and millions more who need health care coverage won't get it at all.  He, and the Republicans who agree with him, are monsters.

Some facts from MomsRising:

* The U.S. Ranks 37th in the world for infant mortality
* Over 1/2 of all bankruptcy filings in 2001 were a result of medical expenses
* 12% of American Children don't have any insurance coverage at all
* One-in-five U.S. jobs does not provide health insurance, a pension, or wages high enough to support a family
* For a family of 4, one year of health insurance costs an average of $11,000

MR is organizing around this now, this is from their email blast:

RALLY FOR CHILDREN'S HEALTH CARE TOMORROW: Tomorrow evening, October 4th, MomsRising members are invited to join local rallies around the nation to protest the president's veto and to call for Congress to overturn it by the required 2/3 majority vote. In the Senate, there are enough votes to overturn the veto, but in the House, which votes first, we need about 20 more votes. These rallies are part of a national, multi-organizational effort lead by MoveOn.org.

*Click here to find the rally near you: http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/index.html?action_id=97&rc=mom_attend

The Cobbler's Children Go Barefoot; and the Doctor's Children Aren't Breastfed.

What is that proverb? Anyway—it doesn't apply!

Boo's cousin Sophie won! Score one for the children of doctors!

Here's the news:

Judge orders extra break time for breastfeeding medical student

By Felicia Mello, Globe Correspondent

A Harvard medical student and nursing mother won an appeal today in her lawsuit for extra break time to pump breast milk during her doctor-licensing exam. A state appeals court judge ruled that the National Board of Medical Examiners must grant Sophie Currier of Brookline an additional 60 minutes of rest periods on each day of the exam, which Currier must pass to graduate and begin her residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Currier sued the board September 6, arguing that it violated her constitutional rights by denying her more than the 45 minutes of rest periods allotted to all test takers. She also accused the board of gender discrimination.

Last week, a state superior court judge denied her claim, saying Currier could still find a way to expel her milk during the test or on regularly scheduled breaks.

But Appeals Court Judge Gary Katzmann overturned that decision. “In order to put the petitioner on equal footing as the male and non-lactating female examinees, she must be provided with sufficient time to pump breast milk and to address the same physiological and other functions to which those examinees are able to attend,” he wrote.

Currier, who has a 4-month-old daughter, originally planned to take the exam this week, but postponed it until October 4 in hopes of winning her appeal. She already has received permission from the board to take the test over two days instead of one, because she has dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The board also offered to allow her to bring a breast pump into the exam room and to provide her with a private room in which to express milk during breaks.

Lactating women can experience pain and risk developing infections of their breasts if they don't express milk at least once every three hours, breastfeeding experts say.

Mothersuckers vs. Mother*uckers

Also wanted to call this, "You Boob, You Lose".

I'm a member of this great group started by the female half of the team that started "Move On.org", Joan Blades. It's called Moms Rising, and it's trying to build a movement for mothers in the U.S.. You can visit it and join at Momsrising.org.

Anyway, I received an email from them this morning that says, "Dear MomsRising Member, Starting today, one of our favorite blog sites, the Huffington Post, is partnering with MomsRising to launch a series of blogs about work/life issues. We invite you to join the conversation with us in this blog space. This new column is about consciousness raising and culture change.  Very few Americans realize that there is deep bias against mothers in this country and that we are undermining family's ability to care for children."

Check it out: To read and respond to the inaugural Work/Life post in this new blog space, click here: MomsRising blog 

It also says, "Share your story: I encourage you to go to the blog and share your stories in your response Have you ever been denied a job or a promotion because you are a mother? Research tells us mothers are 79% less likely to be offered a job and offered lower salaries, but what does this mean in human terms? By sharing our stories we empower each other and remind our leaders that we need a fair chance in the work place as well as the space to lead lives outside of work."

I love how she is calling this "a peaceful revolution". I still long for revolution so fiercely, only I am so desperately hopeful that nobody will have to be a soldier when we remake this society.

In my life as a mother of young kids, I've been lucky enough to have amazing support from City CarShare, and from Streetline Networks. But I also received an email today from my sister Justine that serendipitously is about just this—

My sister Justine's wife, Boo, has a cousin, Sophie Currier, who is being denied (by the National Board of Medical Examiners) a request for time to pumpbreastmilk while she takes her nine-hour medical board test. Here's today's NY Times article about it:

"One test stands between Sophie Currier and her Harvard medical degree and a prestigious residency. But Ms. Currier says she runs a high risk of failing the test unless the National Board of Medical Examiners gives her additional break time to pump breast milk for her 4-month-old daughter.

The board has refused the request, and on Thursday, Ms. Currier asked a Massachusetts Superior Court judge to order it to give her extra time on each of two days of testing, plus a private room with a power outlet so she can express her milk in private with an electric pump. (The nine-hour exam, on clinical knowledge, allows 45 minutes for breaks.)"

The rest: NY Times piece on Sophie

It's so revealing that the medical establishment will not make provisions for doctors who are nursing mothers. It's a perfect statement from them.