Recently in Financial Matters Category

I've been getting really into entrepreneurship lately. It's strange, to be honest, to be wishing I could have taken business classes in college. I went to a liberal arts school, majored in Anthropology and Spanish, and stayed away from anything practical. But in the years since leaving school, and particularly these last few, I've started to get super excited about the idea of business and entrepreneurship.

What turned me off from business for so long was the idea that the goal had to be making money. That I could only be involved in business if I wanted to get rich off my project.

I've come to learn that's totally not true, and there are business out there that aren't non-profits (at least legally or tax-wise) but are more like not-really-for-profits. Where the owners and employees cover costs and receive salaries, but aren't in it to become millionaires.

I've also come to value the skills that are required for business ownership. Taxes, financial management, legal statuses, all of these are really valuable things to understand--even just as individuals.

I've been tagged as "the Business" by my co-editors at Feministing (check out the best birthday rap ever if you didn't see it in May) and the title is pretty accurate.

There is something about the seeming simplicity of business--meeting a need and covering costs--that is really appealing to me.

I firmly believe that one huge factor holding back entrepreneurship in this country is employer-based health care. Speaking as a self-employed person, it's a scary proposition that I could lose my coverage at any time. How many folks would choose non-traditional routes of employment if they didn't have to worry about being denied health care coverage? How many more amazing companies and inventions would we have if everyone (regardless of employment) had access to health care?

I've got plenty of dreams and ideas about what my feminist businesses could look like (not surprisingly, a feminist sex shop for example). Any of you budding entrepreneurs? If you could run your own feminist business, what would it be?

While Jos alerted us a couple of weeks ago to the anti-choice Democrats who are trying to keep abortion funding out of the health care reform plan, a recent interview with our president makes us wonder if he's caving into their efforts.

In an interview with Katie Couric this week, he finally addressed abortion funding in health care reform, but it wasn't too pleasing; he asserted he wasn't looking to "micro-manage" which benefits are covered and that not funding abortion has generally been "the tradition":

Katie Couric: Do you favor a government option that would cover abortions?

President Obama: What I think is important, at this stage, is not trying to micromanage what benefits are covered. Because I think we're still trying to get a framework. And my main focus is making sure that people have the options of high quality care at the lowest possible price.

As you know, I'm pro choice. But I think we also have a tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government funded health care. Rather than wade into that issue at this point, I think that it's appropriate for us to figure out how to just deliver on the cost savings, and not get distracted by the abortion debate at this station. (Emphasis mine)

That is a reference to the Hyde Amendment, which currently prevents Medicaid coverage of abortions for poor women. And while none of the health reform bills in Congress threaten Hyde, reproductive health advocates have been trying for decades to repeal the ban. By deferring to this "tradition," Obama seems to be signaling that he could support a public plan that excludes abortion coverage.

This is despite the fact that during his campaign, he stated that he opposed the amendment. Dana Goldstein has more. Read more about the Hyde Amendment here. And take action here.

I just did something that I've done more times in the last year than in the rest of my life combined. I responded to an email asking me for money by giving some.

This time it was an email from Ira Glass of This American Life.

Last week, it was from MotherJones. I also recently gave a donation to an organization I'm on the board of, the Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective. Other times it's been Bitch Magazine, or my college alumni association. Each time it's less than 30 dollars. Often it's only 5.

I am by no means a rich person. I'm paying my bills, I have some savings from my first few years working full-time with minimal expenses. My freelance income is modest.

So what's been motivating my recent donations? Well, the economy for one. I realize that times are tough for a lot of groups and organizations, and since I didn't really lose anything in the stock market (never had anything there to begin with), I'm doing okay. At least, not worse than I was before. I've decided I can spare what it costs to buy a cup of coffee, or a nice meal.

Another thing that's changed my perspective is being on the other end of those asks. After working for non-profits for the last three years, I've done my fair share of donation emails. I've also gotten involved in boards--I'm now on the Board of Directors of two organizations, including the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, which has a huge focus on fundraising. I'm doing the difficult work of learning to ask for money as well.

When I used to think of philanthropy, I'd think of really really rich people giving huge sums of money. The culture of giving has changed, thanks to online donation programs and groups like MoveOn.org or the Obama campaign, who encouraged people to give even small amounts understanding that if many people did, it would make a big impact.

Where do you donate?

Looks like Alaska isn't the only state with a history of charging sexual assault victims for rape kits.

A local Houston news source featured the story, in which a number of survivors confirm that despite police authorities assuring them they wouldn't pay a penny for medical evidence gathered after an assault, they end up getting letters of delinquency and denial letters for funding from the state's Crime Victims Compensation Fund.

These denial letters are generally sent due to strict guidelines imposed by the legislature as to how the bills are paid. (The survivors must exhaust any other potential funding sources like the local police department or their insurance company.) The (not-so-)funny thing about this is that this fund exists to assist survivors financially yet has millions laying around, unspent every year:

Texas State Comptroller's office figures show the fund has tens of millions of dollars left over at the end of each year.

In September 2006, the balance was $67,058,646 and one year later, the balance was $57,669,432.

In 2008, that figure was up again to $66,572,261 that was left unspent in the fund.

"A lot of people aren't going to ask. They're just going to go ahead and pay it and move forward with their lives. They don't want to keep re-living that experience," said Kelly Young of the Houston Area Women's Center.

The sad thing is, as Cara points out, that there are several states that charge victims, despite the violations committed against receiving grants under VAWA by doing it.

I couldn't find a Texas organization taking action on this (if anyone knows of one, please put in comments!), but what you can do is contact the Crime Victim's Compensation Fund directly and tell them to start putting their money where their mouth is. It's just shameful.

Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, has a piece at The Nation about her personal experiences with the healthcare system, what it has done (or I should say hasn't done) for her family and what her story says about the challenges many women are faced with in the midst of our healthcare crisis.

h/t to C!

At a town hall meeting last week, Henrietta Hughes bravely stood up in front of the room full of people to ask the president for help for those like herself who are unemployed and forced to live in their car. She said:

"I have an urgent need, unemployment and homelessness, a very small vehicle for my family and I to live in. The housing authority has two years' waiting lists, and we need something more than the vehicle and the parks to go to. We need our own kitchen and our own bathroom. Please help."

Via Feministe, we find that her question resulted in an assault by conservative pundits, and it's truly enough to make one sick. Michelle Malkin was the biggest bully, snarkily saying:

If she had more time, she probably would have remembered to ask Obama to fill up her gas tank, too... Well, pardon my unbending belief in fairness and personal responsibility, but why should my tax dollars go to feed the housing entitlement beast?

Um, I don't know about you, but this "housing entitlement beast" i.e. homelessness is a pretty damn good cause to care about and put our money toward. Of course Rush Limbaugh jumped in as well, falsely saying that she "ask[ed] for a car," with others contending that she's "using the system." It's stories like this that exposes just how truly disgusting the likes of Malkin and Limbaugh are.

Womanist Musings has more.

Lauren had an understandably strong reaction to Courtney's post last week about her daily schedule. In a follow-up post, Lauren described her own work life -- and the economic situation surrounding her -- and wrote:

The other day, when I wrote, "a room of one's own is a privilege most of us don't -- and won't ever -- have," I wasn't trying to score some dramatic rhetorical point, or punish a successful person for being happy or having fulfilling work. In today's economic hierarchy some of us will be stuck on Maslow's lower rungs while others celebrate their own impending self-actualization -- this isn't a debate. But only one of these climbers gets the microphone.

She takes this a step further -- asking how, as the feminist blogosphere comes into more prominence, the writing of Professional Feminists might diverge from that of non-Professional Feminist women. While I wouldn't identify as a Professional Feminist -- I have a full-time day job that's not explicitly in the movement -- I am an editor and writer by profession. (Incidentally, I have actually been Lauren's editor before!) And I am grateful nearly every day that I have a full-time job that fulfills both my economic needs and my personal passion. Having a job I love is a privilege. And I do acknowledge the fact that this privilege affects not only what I write here on Feministing (and occasionally on TAPPED), but how I assign and edit articles. When I recently blogged about The New York Times' coverage of how upper-middle-class two-parent families are coping with the recession's gender implications, I wrote:

I understand that it's more interesting for the Times to write about gender dynamics in two-partner families where the male is the breadwinner. But, after awhile, the disproportionate coverage of impact of the economy on the upper-middle-class sends the message that these are the people who are most affected. That simply isn't true.

I've heard many people retort that, well, the people who read/buy the Times are upper-middle-class, and so that's the population they predominantly cover. But I don't think that's the whole story. I think it has way more to do with the economic status of the editors and reporters at the paper. Their friends are upper-middle-class professionals. They hear their friends discuss gender and the recession. They write an article that, surprise, happens to focus on upper-middle-class families. In their daily lives, I'd wager they don't actually hear from too many laid-off Midwest workers. (Which isn't to say they receive no coverage -- just demonstrably less, especially considering who's being impacted by the recession.)

Bringing it all back to Lauren's post and the Professional Feminist quandary, I think much of this applies to blogging, too. Most bloggers I know (especially women bloggers), feel most comfortable speaking to their own experience and community. Understandably so. It takes a concerted, sustained effort to write about people and dynamics beyond your personal experience, your own community.

This gets thorny to pull apart, because this conversation gets personal -- and folks get defensive -- really fast. I know both Courtney and Lauren personally, I know they are both incredibly smart, talented, and driven women. I know they both come to this conversation willing to, well, have a conversation! (Which is awesome.) It's not that one has done more to "earn" a career she loves, and neither one is getting rich. While it is indeed a privilege to make money doing what you love, for most of us, it is not lucrative.

A lot of this is lurking in the background of stories about job loss and career-shifting during this recession. Work is SO deeply tied to identity in this country, for better or worse, and so when jobs are at risk, everyone (yes, women too. duh.) feels pretty damn vulnerable. Talking about how our work-lives intersect and overlap with and inform our feminism is a conversation I want to continue. As Courtney wrote in comments to her post,

The post wasn't intended to be some sort of arrogant display of my day. As I said in the intro, I'd like to hear how others' days are composed in many different professions. I think privilege comes from secrecy and I was trying to be open about what one real day was like for me for those who are interested in the fields I work in.

I've already asked a friend of mine to write a guest post about how she is coping with being unemployed, as this is an experience I can't speak to personally. I would love to publish more stories from Feministing readers about how the recession has affected you -- and about how your daily routine affects your feminism. Send them to me at ANN [AT] FEMINISTING [DOT] COM.

From England, the story of a rape crisis center that may have to close its doors due to the worsening financial situation.

There was a London rape crisis centre until about six or seven years ago that closed down when they lost their funding. They closed down without a blip of protest from the public. No one seemed to notice. It was very difficult to bring it to the public's attention. Who is interested in rape crisis centres unless they've been raped? It's a terrible situation.

We need £250,000 a year just to tick over. The Home Office bailed us out last year with £63,000, and £1m was set aside for similar organisations across the country, but there is no long-term security. We have no stability. We survive only through these ad hoc grants, so we can't plan ahead. We don't know if we will still be here in four years' time. This is a tragedy for women.

This is a problem for similar non-profits and NGOs globally. These organizations usually work off of one or two year grants, meaning that there has to be constant time and energy put into fundraising. It's difficult to plan, or hire staff, when budgets are inconsistent.

As the financial situation has unfolded, we've already seen layoffs at many non-profits. Two national reproductive rights organizations that I know of laid off almost a third of their national staff recently. Some of these layoffs are preemptive, in anticipation of a more difficult fundraising climate in the years to come. Some are necessary for the organizations to survive and deal with budget shortfalls. The most difficult part is that as the economy continues to decline, public services are even more important. Rates of domestic abuse have been shown to rise when unemployment rises--often partners under stress from money issues take it out on their partners. Not to mention that more people lose their health care coverage and face food insecurity and homelessness.

My hope is that the stimulus package President Obama is working on will help to mediate some of these affects on the public sector, at least in the US.

Via The Guardian

As this Wednesday, February 4th, was National Girls and Women in Sports Day, our friend Nancy Goldstein has a post up on Broadsheet about how the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) has taken a big hit from the recession; teams are being mandated to cut their rosters from 13 to 11 players. Here's a snippet:

It's terrible news whenever any organization eliminates 20 percent of its workforce and people suddenly find themselves unemployed in a weak economy. But as the WNBA struggles, and if it folds, it's taking along something else with it: the hopes of the first generation of Title IX-era female athletes who went through high school and college thinking they might someday actually be able to make a living playing a professional team sport.

The WNBA currently represents the only significant women's professional team sports franchise in the U.S. (The Women's United Soccer Association failed after only three seasons, in 2003, and women's football and softball have never taken off, despite several attempts.) And its inception in 1996 changed the scene for aspiring women athletes.

"For me personally, knowing that the WNBA was there as a possibility made a difference in my goal setting as a high school student, my work ethic as a college athlete and my fulfillment as a professional athlete," says Kara Lawson, 26, who chose to pursue basketball over soccer after the WNBA's inception during her sophomore year of high school. Lawson was one of coach Pat Summit's stars at the University of Tennessee prior to being picked fifth in the 2003 WNBA draft, and is now a point guard for the 2005 WNBA championship Sacramento Monarchs, as well as an analyst for ESPN.

Lawson's comment really resonated with me. It reminded me of when I was the coordinator for a girl's basketball league in Brooklyn - after their season ended, our organization (GGE) brought the girls to see New York Liberty team play, and I've honestly never seen a group of girls look more excited and inspired. So these cutbacks are not only a threat to the very existence to the WNBA, but possibly an even bigger threat to the girls out there that aspire to achieve their best in life by watching their favorite ball players on that court.

On a more positive note for the sports fans - what female athletes inspired you growing up? (Or inspire you now?)

It's been fascinating to watch the media coverage of the economic meltdown as it relates gender (and class) in our society.

In January, data showed that men's participation in the workforce was declining faster than women's. Basically, in recessions, more men tend to lose their jobs than women, hence there is a greater percentage of women in the workforce. (Hmmm... if what's bad for the economy is also bad for traditional gender roles, you'd think the right wing would have clamored a little harder for the stimulus package.)

The New York Times was inspired to publish an article on the implications for masculinity:

Mr. Steuer, 43, was recently laid off from his job at a small research business. "It's hard not to imagine yourself as the breadwinner," he said. "A lot of your ego eggs are in the job basket. I can't shake the psychology that I'm supposed to provide."

The article takes great pains to portray Steuer as a modern man, presumably to highlight the level to which these outmoded views of masculinity are ingrained in our society. (Say it with me, now: "Patriarchy hurts men, too!") New research also shows that the incidence of domestic violence rises along with unemployment. I have a hard time believing this is unrelated to issues of control and masculinity. And, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, lack of money is a common reason why a woman may refuse to leave her abusive partner.

As Emily Bazelon writes, "I'm skeptical about the broad claim that men feel the pain of layoffs more than women do." Me too. As the Times article notes, near the end:

YET while men may appear to reel more socially and psychologically from job loss, they fare far better when it comes to re-employment.

In a 2002 study, two sociology professors at Wichita State University, Charles S. Koeber and David W. Wright, found that women who were laid off and went on to look for another job were re-employed less often than men in the same position.

The realities of layoffs are just as bad -- or even worse -- for women. The Times does not provide actual data on the psychological effects of layoffs on men versus women, but I'd wager that a significant number of upper-middle-class women DO strongly see their job as tied to their identity, and are likely suffering psychological effects of joblessness as well.

A nagging problem with this article -- as with so much coverage of the economy -- is that it focuses on people of one economic class (upper-middle or upper class), with the same family dynamic: two-income families with mixed-gender partners, where the male partner earns (or earned) more. I'm guessing the gender dynamics play out differently in families where the female partner is already the primary breadwinner, in families with much lower total incomes, in families where there is a single breadwinner (yes, I think there are still gender dynamics in play when there is only one head of household). But we're not reading much about them.

I understand that it's more interesting for the Times to write about gender dynamics in two-partner families where the male is the breadwinner. But, after awhile, the disproportionate coverage of impact of the economy on the upper-middle-class sends the message that these are the people who are most affected. That simply isn't true.

UPDATE: Girl w/ Pen has more links on this subject.

Elana Schor at Talking Points Memo updated us yesterday on the dismaying news this week that the family planning revision has been removed from the economic stimulus:

A source present at today's White House signing ceremony for the Lilly Ledbetter bill tells me that President Obama gave assurances that the family planning aid would be done soon -- perhaps as soon as next week, when the House is set to take up a spending bill that would keep the government funded until October.

Obama emphasized that the family-planning aid "makes the budget look better, it's a money saver," the source said. In fact, removing the need for Medicaid waivers for family planning saves states an estimated $700 million over 10 years.

By removing the family-planning aid from the stimulus at Obama's request, Democrats "were giving a nod to the Republicans, believing they would act in good faith," the source added. And given how many GOPers voted for the stimulus bill, sounds like the family-planning aid is back on track.

I certainly hope so.

Oh Cosmo, did you really have to go there? Their latest online is about how to find and appeal to a rich man:

Landing a loaded guy has long been a fantasy for some females. In fact, your own mother may have even quipped that it's just as easy to fall for a wealthy man as it is a poor one. And high-income dudes (those earning $104,000 and up, as defined by the Tax Foundation Group in Washington, DC) are on our radar even more thanks to such shows as The Hills, Gossip Girl, and The Millionaire Matchmaker.

This includes tips like "They Have Gold-Digger Radar," "They Feel Entitled to Arm Candy," "But They Don't Want to Marry a Dummy Either." They even refer to rich guys' preference in hair color.

Between pop culture's obsession with the rich elite and the media's love of portraying women as gold diggers, it's really disappointing to see a woman's magazine only perpetuating the stereotype. But should we be surprised?

A class-action suit against New York City for refusing to provide food stamps to nearly 9,500 households was settled back in 2006, but the reimbursements are just going out now:

The payback does not quite amount to winning the lottery -- the 18 largest reimbursements just top $5,000, and most average far less. And all of the credits can be used only for food.

Still, to many who had given up on or forgotten what they were owed, the money in their accounts, some of which arrived before any notice from the government to explain it, has been a rare moment of bounty at an otherwise dismal economic moment.

Monica Ryan learned of her good fortune when she went to her corner bodega in northern Manhattan to buy bread and milk. She was picking up just the necessities because she was conscious of having less than $5 in her account. But when the clerk swiped her card, it appeared that she had hundreds left.

Yeah, it's awful that it took this long for the money to come through. But at least it's some good news for a Thanksgiving when too many people are struggling.

Thanks to Susan for the link.

So I watched CNN all day yesterday waiting for the vote on the bailout bill, but I noticed that even though I don't have any money to really lose (just the hope that they may not notice how much debt I have) I still felt stressed out. I also realized that when rich people lose money, it is a national crisis. But poor folk have trouble making ends meet every single day. Where is our news coverage?

The thing with money stress, for most of us, it is always there. So why this panic and media frenzy? Because the Dow Jones dropped? Or because we need to sensationalize everything and create fake scenarios to see how our to be presidents will react? Now, I am not saying that the financial crisis isn't real. Giving out money that doesn't exist will lead to problems. But this has problem didn't happen over night. As Naomi Klein would suggest,

[R]ight-wing governments use the shock generated by disasters or other crises to push through unpopular free-market policies when the population isn't in a position to oppose such programs.

via Chronicle Herald.

So instead of taking a jab at some shoddy economic analysis (which it seems like a lot of people are doing), I thought I would give you all a chance to share your thoughts on the economic crisis. I realized after watching the news all day I started to feel really panicked and started revisiting all my bills and stressing out about money. I also realized the spending on the war in Iraq is almost as much as the amount that is needed for the bailout.

Talk to me.

With a handy metaphor...

She is awesome.

(Transcripts aren't online yet -- I'll update with a link to the transcript tomorrow, after it's posted. Apologies for the delay!)

via Rachel.

We've cautioned before that "women voters" are not a monolithic bloc that can be won over with a single message. But as the economic downturn has hit women especially hard, it's easy to see why Barack Obama is trying to appeal to women by discussing the economy -- hitting on the issue of equal pay and highlighting Lilly Ledbetter's story.

Obama was an original co-sponsor of the legislation to reverse the result in Ledbetter's case; McCain opposes the bill because, he said in April, it "opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems." Well, yes, that would be the point of a law prohibiting pay discrimination.

The Obama campaign has asked Clinton to talk about Ledbetter when she campaigns for him. Obama, who didn't focus much on the issue during the primary campaign, hosted a meeting Monday on pay equity; the campaign released a memo contrasting Obama and McCain on women's issues. As I sat down to write this column, an e-mail arrived from the Democratic convention announcing that Ledbetter would be speaking there.

That's all well and good, but it's worth bringing up that it's tough for even the most impassioned campaign rhetoric to connect with real life. This piece from Salon last week, about a middle-class mother who takes her children to a soup kitchen for the first time, drives that point home. She describes her situation this way:

According to the NYTimes yesterday, women are now being hit as hard as men by a lack of jobs. This is not a new phenomenon but I understand what the article is getting at. It has gotten very competitive for the jobs that remain and an inability to find sustainable work has forced women into alternatives. This is in direct contrast to the idea of the "opt-out" revolution as some have termed it. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women aren't working because there aren't enough jobs.

When economists first started noticing this trend two or three years ago, many suggested that the pullback from paid employment was a matter of the women themselves deciding to stay home -- to raise children or because their husbands were doing well or because, more than men, they felt committed to running their households.

But now, a different explanation is turning up in government data, in the research of a few economists and in a Congressional study, to be released Tuesday, that follows the women's story through the end of 2007.

After moving into virtually every occupation, women are being afflicted on a large scale by the same troubles as men: downturns, layoffs, outsourcing, stagnant wages or the discouraging prospect of an outright pay cut. And they are responding as men have, by dropping out or disappearing for a while.

The excuse for men is not usually that they have chosen to stay home, it is that they can't find work, whereas for women the explanation has always been she chose to stay home, not that she couldn't find a job.

For working class families the luxury of a stay at home mom has never been an option. It has in the past been an oversight of the women's movement that women merely want to enter the workforce because they have a right to. It is often that they need to.

Via.

For those in or around the NYC area, next week holds a couple of cool feminist events. On Wednesday the 16th, NOW NYC is holding a forum with financial planner Diane MacPhee where she'll be talking about the economy affects women and how to take a hold of your moneys.

That weekend on Saturday, July 19th, the inspiring Girls for Gender Equity are having their 3rd Annual Gender Equality Festival (check back on their site for more info) and a fundraiser, "Get Down 2 Get Up" with DJs spinning dope beats at Sputnik in Brooklyn. Click here for more info.

I'm sad to say I'll be on vacation joining Jess in Martha's Vineyard that week, but I highly recommend you join the summer feminist love.

This is big.

Less than a year after she was appointed by George Bush to lead the nation's family planning office, contraception-hating wingnut Susan Orr announced her resignation on Wednesday.

Her resignation shortly followed after the the Family Research Council, the organization she was formerly employed with (along with 80 other conservative groups) called on George Bush to reinstate a "domestic gag rule." Like the Global Gag Rule, this means that eligibility for Title X funds (which covers a huge chunk of our nation's family planning clinics) will require that centers don't refer patients for abortions or share facilities with abortion providers.

Title X is the only federal funding program that provides contraceptive services to low-income individuals, and Susan Orr's job was to watch over its management. The Family Research Council are working hella hard to get this "domestic gag rule" passed, and if Bush decides to leave us with this gift before he leaves office, a lot of clinics and a lot of low-income women and men are going to be fucked.

Check out RH Reality Check for more background on this, and take action here; tell Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt that the gag rule has no home here.

After leaving my last (very long) steady job, I was terrified about money. Because there’s no financial buffer but what I save. Even though I only have myself to support, it’s something I think about every day. That’s probably a result of knowing how hard my mom worked when I was growing up to give me everything I needed and some of the things I wanted. Really, I'm obsessive.

This is all only to say that I think about money a lot. So, discovering the blog Feminist Finance a few weeks ago was fantastic for me. The writer covers practical tips to get out of debt, to buying local produce, the importance of mentoring, and a lot more. If you’re part of a couple, she’s also got a lot of interesting content on dealing with joint financial lives.

A recent post notes a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit against a company founded by Michael Bloomberg. Check it out.

Deborah Brenner is the author of Women of the Vine and proprietor of Women of the Vine Cellars. While writing the book, Deborah and winemaker, Signe Zoller met and teamed up in 2006 to launch a first-of-its-kind wine company; bottled and produced by Women of the Vine Cellars.

From 2002-2005, Deborah ran her own marketing and public relations firm, SmallFishBigPond, and worked with such companies as Cinecitta Studios of Rome, Quantel, NBC and CNBC. Prior to that, Ms. Brenner spent over 16 years working in the film, television and the post production industries and was involved in four technology startups.

Here's Deborah...

And what a great way to teach our gals about finance during this holiday season o' debt - a credit card that doesn't run out.

Thanks to Amy for the link.

The Guttmacher Institute and Kaiser Family Foundation released a report yesterday on Medicaid’s role in family planning services in the U.S.; In short, it’s the largest source of public funding for family planning services in the country, serving millions of low-income women in contraceptive services.

But sadly, there is a downside. In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, legislation that excludes abortion from government-funded health care programs. As the report will show you, women enrolled in Medicaid and other programs for that matter receive coverage for family planning services including contraception, prenatal care, labor and delivery. But abortion isn’t included unless she is a victim of rape, incest or her life is in danger.

In other words, low-income women are forced to sacrifice rent or money for food to obtain an abortion, or are forced to continue the pregnancy and stay trapped in poverty. This makes me think about what Justice Bader Ginsburg said recently about the overturn of Roe v. Wade having "a devastating impact on poor women." But how much “choice� do they really have now when they don’t even have access?

The National Network of Abortion Funds leads a national campaign with a number of other advocacy groups which aims to repeal the Hyde Amendment. Their goal is to get 20,000 signatures delivered to Congress by January 2008. So go sign the petition to help give all women the access to choose.

A new study is showing that the HPV test is actually more accurate in detecting early signs of cervical cancer than taking a pap test:

The test for the human papillomavirus, or HPV, found 95 percent of cases in which women had potentially pre-cancerous changes in the cervix. This compared to 55 percent of Pap smears, the team at McGill University in Montreal found.

"We're proposing to go straight to the HPV test," said team leader Eduardo Franco.

While this finding is obviously a huge deal, it doesn't come without a price - literally; a pap test costs between $10 and $20, while the HPV test costs up to $90.

Between the vaccine and the test, HPV is creating quite a market. I guess the uninsured and low-income can, you know, just deal with the cancer.

Let's break this piece up a bit. Reinhard Krafft, head of private banking at Sal Oppenheim jr. & Cie, contends:

'If we service a family, you not only have a patriarch, you have the mother, daughter, son at the table. Whom are you talking to? Whole families.'

Translation: Because all families are hetero, nuclear and patriarchal, of course. The article continues:

Rich women, often widows or heirs, are seen as taking a larger role, but their involvement varies across countries.

And women bankers can sometimes be more perceptive when dealing with couples. 'In some cases what we find ... (that) if you have a couple a male adviser will oftentimes look to the male and have the whole discussion with the male and it could be that the female is the decision maker around this area or it could be even their (her) wealth that we are talking about," Junkans [Dean Junkans, chief investment officer at Wells Fargo's private client services division] said. Typically a female adviser will not make that mistake.'

Translation: Women bankers may make less sexist assumptions than male bankers, but let's just rephrase them as "relationship managers."

Any women in the banking world want to weigh in on this?

Big Sister is always watching you...

This is quite a gem for your Monday afternoon pleasure. Men's Daily News urges dying rich men to put "men's rights" organizations into their wills instead of their wives so they can't feed the oppressive feminist machine.

It's funny because it's sad.

Well, kinda. Women in their 20s are out-earning men their age in several major U.S. cities, including New York, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, and Minneapolis.

To summarize the various reasons for this offered in the Times article, it's likely because these are women who flock to cities after they graduate college, and because they have yet to get married or have kids. In other words, they're very much career-focused at this point in life. One social scientist also notes that there's likely to be less gender discrimination and more professional opportunities for women in big cities.

In 2005, 53 percent of women in their 20s working in New York were college graduates, compared with only 38 percent of men of that age. And many of those women are not marrying right after college, leaving them freer to focus on building careers, experts said.

“Citified college-women are more likely to be nonmarried and childless, compared with their suburban sisters, so they can and do devote themselves to their careers,� said Andrew Hacker, a Queens College sociologist and the author of “Mismatch: The Growing Gulf Between Men and Women.�

As the article also notes, this new data stands in contrast to national figures that show the wage gap is closing at a much slower rate than in the past two decades, and in some cases, even widening.

So I don't really expect this women-outearning-men trend to continue as these women age. Those who decide to have kids will be mommy-tracked after the birth of their first child. Many will get passed over for promotions, or decide to take a lower-track or part-time job. And the second child is often what causes women to leave the workforce altogether. The article summarizes,

It is not clear whether this is the front edge of a trend in which women will gradually move ahead of men in all age groups. Typically, women have fallen further behind men in earnings as they get older. That is because some women stop working altogether, work only part time or encounter a glass ceiling in promotions and raises.

Of course I hope that these trends don't play out for my generation of city-dwelling, go-getting women. But I can't say I'm very optimistic.

Queercents, founded and headed up by Nina Smith, is a personal finance blog serving the LGBT community. Launched in April 2006, Queercents is produced by a variety of writers, including Nina.

Nina has a strong background in finances and financial planning. By day she sells software and conducts her own real estate investments--fixing and selling properties for hefty profits--and by night she runs Queercents. Nina started blogging because she was looking for a creative outlet in her life.

Here's Nina...

I can't wait to see this movie. Health care is a major feminist issue and one of the main issues, for me, with regard to who I will be voting for. I know so many people that are uninsured, so many people that get hurt and can't do anything about, people that have gone bankrupt from getting into accidents, women that are raising babies and are uninsured. The lack of access to medical care in this country is truly deplorable.

via Racewire.

Thoughts?

From left to right: Sharon Kedar and Manisha Thakor.

Sharon Kedar and Manisha Thakor both have extensive experience in the financial services industry. At various points of their careers they have each worked as financial analysts, portfolio managers, and client servicing/marketing executives for leading investment management firms with billions of dollars in assets under management. Both Manisha and Sharon earned MBA degrees from Harvard Business School and are Chartered Financial Analyst (“CFA�) charterholders.

Manish and Sharon dedicate their newly released book, On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl's Guide to Personal Finance to all women.

Here's Manisha and Sharon...

Contributed by Kay Steiger

I attended a hearing this morning held by the House's Education and Labor Committee that examined the Paycheck Fairness Act on this, Equal Pay Day. Though the PFA has been introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro 10 times, this is the first time the committee held a hearing.

A report released yesterday by the American Association of University Women found that women one year out of a 4-year college earn 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn. When the report looks at women 10 years after graduation, women are earning 69 cents to every dollar that men earn. The most significant finding of the study, though, is that controlling for all factors, including "educational and occupational choices, as well as demographic and personal characteristics," an "unexplained" 5 percent gap exists one year out of college which widens to a 12 percent gap 10 years after college. Furthermore, as Catherine Hill, research director at AAUW testified, attending a highly-selective institution does little to boost a woman's pay, and educated women experience a greater pay gap than women overall.

Some more conservative committee members denied the credibility of the study, but as Rep. Carol Shea-Porter put it, the pay gap is "easily noticed by those who live it."

Cross-posted from Tapped.

I've long been annoyed with books marketed toward women that tell you that you aren't getting ahead financially because you can't stop spending money on your appearance. A perfect example is this piece in Sirens Magazine, which tut-tuts women for blowing their retirement savings on a beauty binge at Sephora: "It's a tough financial landscape we're facing, ladies, but apparently we’re more worried about our future wrinkles than our financial security."

But this week's TIME magazine lays waste to that myth. Fewer than 5% of Americans -- equal numbers of men and women -- are compulsive shoppers. There's only a $100 difference between single men's and women's median annual credit-card debt. And what about the argument that our spending on bikini waxes, footwear, and facial moisturizer is what's setting us back?

Women do spend $1,069--$246 more than men do--on clothing every year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2004-2005 Consumer Expenditure Survey. But that's chump change compared with what single men spend on car ownership ($846 more than single women), eating out ($752 more), alcoholic drinks ($280 more) and audiovisual gear ($143 more).

Authors like Suze Orman, who sell guilt-based financial self-help books, are aptly dubbed "financial frenemies." Because the real problem is not that women buy mascara and our male counterparts don't. It's that we make 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Forbes just released its list of international billionaires, which includes more women than ever before. And the ladies of IWF are crowing that this proves women don't need anti-discrimination or pay equity laws:

This is irrefutable proof that women don’t need government programs to help them make it in the business world—a fact our friends at NOW and similar organizations are unwilling to admit.

Except for the fact that every woman in the top 100 has inherited her wealth, not shattered the glass ceiling to earn her millions. The presence of these women on the Forbes list has next to nothing to do with the obstacles faced by average working women. And, in fact, it's still a great idea for government to pay attention to how these average women are faring in the workplace. Paris Hilton's riches are no excuse to ignore the issue. (Although she did film a season of "The Simple Life" attempting to be an office intern...see above artwork.)

Statistically, women make less money. Outside of "official" statistics, I can honestly say, almost all of my girlfriends are BROKE. They are amazing, brilliant and successful and they don't have any money. Whether it be for doing jobs that don't pay much but are meaningful or for being in school. The truth is women are often painted as overspenders, but we are rarely given credit as being EXTREMELY resourceful as most of us live off of very small amounts of money. Statistically smaller incomes coupled with more external pressures on how we should look (and as we all know looking good costs MONEY) it is quite the unfair dilemma, innit.

This woman is successfully living off of 12,000 dollars a year. Could you do it?

One of the many ways women implicitly or explicitly dodge the nefarious influence of global capitalism. These women have started a system of informal banking from lack of access to credit. The best part is it is community based.

Oumar Diene works at a Senegelese non-governmental organization and has studied informal banking in Yoff village, near Senegal's capital city of Dakar.

He explains that, instead of bank accounts, Senegalese have developed a variety of local strategies to save money and raise capital. Examples include what are known in local languages as maases, tontines, and tekks.

A maas is a support group based on local traditions. Where once that meant helping a sick neighbor plow his field, today this has evolved into various forms of economic support.

Tekks are a simpler form of informal saving, in which a group of children turn over their collected change to a trusted adult for safekeeping.

But it is the second method, tontines, that have become particularly popular among women on Carabane, Ndiaye explains.

She says groups of women formed to help each other, and her group of seventeen women contributed 1000 local francs per month. That is the equivalent of about two dollars.

The idea is a sort of group savings plan. Originally developed in Europe in the 1600s, members would contribute a sum to be invested jointly, and dividends were shared equally until the last surviving member took all.

Two dollars? Global capitol flow and the way it fails to reach *certain* people makes me sick. But still people do what they must to survive.

via VOA.

A new study shows that almost just as many men are complusive shoppers as women.

While “shopaholics,� or compulsive shoppers, have generally been perceived as women, research shows that while 6% of women are compulsive buyers, and 5.5% of men are compulsive buyers.

Additionally, women are more willing to to admit their addiction to shopping than men.

· “A college-educated woman with one child can easily pay a ‘Mommy tax’ (lost lifetime earnings) of $1 million.�

· “Consider that in the Army a family that makes below $28,000 annually pays no more than $43 per week for childcare, or around $2,000 annually. And then compare that to the national average cost of childcare, which can rise to $10,000 per year or more.�

· “In terms of infant mortality rates, the U.S. tied for 38th in the world with Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, and the United Arab Emirates in 2003.�

These are just some of the harsh realities Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner and Joan Blades researched and discuss in their book, The Motherhood Manifesto: What America’s Moms Want—And What to Do About It.

I spoke with Kristin from her home in Kirkland, Washington. Here’s Kristin…

Check out this ABC News article from yesterday that connects the Forbes madness with the gender pay gap in the U.S. and asks its readers, “Is there a war on women who work?�

I love it. ABC News has actually done quite a bit of Forbes ass-kicking since this story emerged. Kudos!

No shit. I love how these articles talk about women working like it happened yesterday, as though working class women haven't been working for a while (not to mention that work in the house is WORK). But let me not digress. This study found women are not feeling too good about their financial state.

When asked "How secure do you feel financially?" just 10 percent of the women respondents said they felt extremely secure, the survey found. Fifty-seven percent said they felt somewhat secure, and 33 percent said they didn't feel secure at all.

Women's feelings about money are important because they are increasingly likely to find themselves responsible for managing their own financial affairs. Some never marry, others outlive husbands and divorce is a common phenomenon in American society.

No kidding!

Asked what the barriers were to getting involved in managing savings and investments, more than 40 percent of the women surveyed said a lack of knowledge was the biggest impediment. Others said they found finances to be confusing or said they were too busy with families or their careers.

I don't find finances confusing. I just don't make any money. But I do think this is something young women need to be talking about. Women are never taught about finances because it is assumed they will marry someone who will worry about it. Now what if we aren't gonna do that?

via AP.

USA Today reports that there has been a growth in black female entrepreneurship. There have been more businesses started by young, black women since the government started counting (which quite frankly, was not very long ago), but anyways...

As women take entrepreneurship's lead, marketers from banks to tech companies are tapping black women as a new source of revenue. "It's a huge opportunity," says Angela Burt-Murray, editor in chief of Essence, a leading lifestyle magazine for black women.

Black women are launching companies for many of the same reasons spurring other women. They've gained corporate experience, but a glass ceiling keeps them from rising to the CEO's office. They're better educated. Self-employment offers more flexibility to care for children and aging parents.

Start-up costs have fallen as computers and other technologies grow cheaper. And the economy is shifting even more to retail and service businesses well-suited to corporate refugees.

Research from the Small Business Association found that black women owned 547,341 companies in 2002, up 75% from five years before. For men the jump was only 29%. It is predicted that soon more black women will be owning businesses then men. Now as mentioned above this is also due to the glass ceiling which stops black women (disproportionately) from being able to reach top corporate jobs.

But I prefer small businesses anyway.

via USA Today.

The Federal Pension Protection Act was signed by George W. Bush yesterday, in which two provisions will extend financial protections to same-sex couples.

Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese's statement on the bill:

“For gay couples and all Americans with non-spouse beneficiaries, death and taxes weren't only certain, but also times of great and unequal financial difficulty. . . In a challenging political climate, we persevered and helped to secure critical federal protections that will make difficult times for domestic partners a little easier."

While this is definitely good news, I can’t help anticipating that when gay marriage supporters come-a-knockin’, Georgie Porgie will use this to say, “But I gave you some rights!�

Here’s details on what the bill does exactly for the LGBTQQ community.

A study in Canada found that a large percentage of women end up financially insecure after the death of their husbands.

The study found that the adjusted income of senior widows dropped 13.2 per cent in the five years after the death of their husband, while the income of widowers increased by 5.8 per cent in the same period.

In addition to experiencing an overall decline in median family income, more widows also fell below the low-income threshold. Five years after the spouse's death, 8.7 per cent of women were living in poverty, compared with 5.1 per cent of men. Among seniors who did not live below the threshold before their spouse's death, 8 per cent of widows and 4.3 per cent of widowers had slipped into poverty five years later.

Many of the women within this particular generation (that had the option i.e. middle class or wealthier) did stay home and "take care of the family". As a result they rarely have a pension for themselves. This study will obviously look different as the proceeding generations, either by choice or necessity, most women DO work, but I wonder how different. And what about women that never marry or people that can't get married, like gays? Hm Hm, I guess they just stay poor. Interesting.
via GlobeandMail.com

This is disturbing. (And yes, I realize it's most likely a parody. Still gross.)

It’s called Plastic Assets, and gives you free breast implants with your credit card. Woohoo! Just what every gal wants in life, to go shopping and have fake tits! Let’s not forget a free lip injection for each friend you refer! (Yes, that’s an actual part of the deal.)

You can also choose a credit card that matches your new breast size, from B to DD, with a B card specialized for “Tweens and teens still growing in every way.”

Oh. My. God. They might as well just say that the prepubescent look is SO not hot. (So get those boobs before your friends do!)

Via Nerve.

Reuters had a “Top News Article” today on a British survey revealing that women spend a crapload of money on clothes they will never wear.

The home insurer Churchill found that, on average, women have 14 items of clothing in the back of their closets that they haven’t worn in the past year.

In the end, they will have spent more than $22,000 in a lifetime on clothes they will never wear.

They happened to very briefly mention that men on average had nine items of clothing in their closet they hadn’t worn.

While we could get deeper into this in terms of consumer culture and its effect on women, I think these dudes are trying to make a simple point here: We’re all obsessive shoppers that are shitty with money.

I would expand on this, but I have to run to the mall.

New research shows that for every year a woman in her 20s waits to have children, her lifetime earnings increase by 10 percent.

Part of that is because she'll earn higher wages—- about 3 percent higher—- for the rest of her life; the rest is because she'll work longer hours. For college-educated women, the effects are even bigger. For professional women, the effects are bigger yet—- for these women, the wage hike is not 3 percent, but 4.7 percent.

It isn't exactly news that women benefit financially when they decide to have a career first and children later. But the new study makes it easy to calculate exactly how much ground you're gaining or losing depending on when you choose to have kids.

Surprisingly, the research also shows that the availability of paid family leave has no effect on the "postponement premium." This contradicts other things I've read about family leave:

Research shows that leave policies covering childbirth and infant care significantly increase mothers’ return to work. Providing wage replacement during leave also has a significant effect on women working later into their pregnancies and returning to work faster. This increased time at work leads to higher earnings, both by avoiding periods without income and by keeping women on a career development track.

I'm not an economist or an expert, so I'm not sure what to believe.

But this was also surprising: Women who bore their first child after age 30 accumulated more wealth by age 60 than earlier child-bearers and childless women.

So if you want to make a lot of money, have children, and have them after age 30. Of course, if you're relying on someone else to pay the bills, none of this matters. Feel free to "opt out."

via Guardian Unlimited...

The figures, published 30 years after the introduction of the sex discrimination act, show that in the year to April 2005, women working full-time earned on average 17.2% less than their male colleagues.

"Every thinking person would agree that it's not right for women to be paid less than men - but that's what still happens even after 30 years of equal pay legislation," said Kate Bellamy, the society's senior policy officer.

Well not every thinking person, because there still is a wage gap. Either that or not every person thinks, which I buy.

Statistics show that with each child they have, women lose ground on wages when compared to non-mothers.

It's been dubbed the "Mommy Wage Gap":

For the first child a woman has, the wage differential in comparison to nonmothers is from 2 to 10 percent less.

For the second child, the gap is from 4 to 16 percent less than for women with no children.

It's not surprising that the primary caretaker's wages suffer as the family grows. But I can't stand the fact that this conversation never revolves around mothers' and fathers' respective levels of involvement in parenting.

Indeed, polling shows "American workers are divided as to which parent has to work harder to achieve work/life balance."

Oh, come on. If that's really true, then why isn't there a Daddy Wage Gap?

According to the BBC, a new report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC) found that individuals under 30 accounted for 15% of all personal bankruptcies in 2003-2004. That figure was almost double that of the 2001-2002 level.

The study also found that young women are more likely to declare themselves bankrupt. Though men outnumber in women in the number of bankruptcies by nearly 2 to 1, the PWC study found that the number of women in irreversible financial difficulty rose more than 45% over the last two years.

The main culprits? Expensive college educations, overuse of credit cards, and rising interest rates. As a seemingly professional academic, I know the feeling. (sigh). But debt is one area where I definitely *don’t* want the ladies catching with the men…

According to the BBC, a recent study by a British financial website found that women investors are consistently better at investing in shares than men.

In a sample of 100,000 portfolios, the average woman's share portfolio grew by 17%, while the average man's rose by just 11% (Over the same period, the British stock index climbed by 13%).

So what does this all mean? The study speculated that women were more successful because they favored a balanced portfolio-strategy instead of more risky stocks. In contrast, men tended to go for "fad" stocks and riskier investment strategies.

These kinds of observations are interesting. On the one hand, here we have the propagation of old gender norms, in new financial language (i.e. women are nurturers and caregivers who won't take risks).

On the other hand, if you have ever been approached by a meat-head financial services guy in a bar, it does not take a great mental leap to think that testosterone is directly linked to herd-mentalities and reckless behavior.

Thoughts?

-- Contributed by Brendan Sweeney

A new financial report found that current divorce settlements are damaging the retirement prospects of many women.

According to the BBC, only 1% of divorces involve a pension-sharing order (where a private or workplace pension is divided between a divorcing couple). These orders are designed to safeguard women who took time away from the office to raise children or care for family.

Malcolm Cuthbert, director of financial services at Killik, explains that, "After the matrimonial home, pensions are normally the biggest asset in a divorce settlement." Therefore, by overlooking the importance of integrating pensions into the asset-division process of a divorce settlement, many women are ending up *super* short-changed. (sigh).

My friend Gary recently sent me an article from the Wall Street Journal. (He knows just how to please me). The article is called "Girl Power as Boy Bashing: Evaluating the Latest Twist In the War of the Sexes," and before reading the piece, I groaned. I hate when people attribute things like cuts to men's college sports (or affirmative action) to girls "robbing" men of things they deserve. It's so tired to claim that women's progress is somehow meant to punish men.

Luckily, I was basically wrong. The article actually deals with the economics of the tween consumer market. (Shocking! An economic analysis from the Wall Street Journal!) The author shows that kids are now spending millions on products promoting the gender war. He points out the popularity of things like insult-laden clothing lines, confrontation-packed reality TV shows, and advertising that defines girl-power as boy-bashing.

Most of the girl power/boy-bashing argument focuses on the popularity of the David & Goliath "boys are stupid" clothing line, which is sold in 2,500 outlets and has an annual income of $100 million. As many of you know, the clothing line sells the infamous "Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them!", "Boys are smelly," and "Boys have cooties" t-shirts.

I think this is an interesting point. I don't think, as people quoted in the article suggest, that this trend is a product of Title IX, and shows girls trying to get a leg up by pushing boys down. That seems like a far-fetched and quite serious claim. I do think, however, that this trend is useless, obnoxious and, given that people can see it as a negative product of feminist advances, potentially damaging. I'm also tempted to wonder why this article essentially ignores the AMAZING amount of anti-woman products selling millions out there. But alas...

What do you think?

Check out the brief but good article from the Village Voice, "Where The Welfare Queens Went", a simple reminder of the failure of our current welfare reform system. Jarret Murphy writes:

"The people who left AFDC could be different from the folks who've recently enrolled in SSI or Food Stamps. And even if they are the same people, getting Food Stamps or SSI might be an improvement over receiving AFDC. But it doesn't seem like the 'self-sufficiency' the White House boasts about. It seems like welfare reform has done no better than welfare at curing the underlying problem, which, once upon a time, was called 'poverty.'"

Check out this article from CSMoniter.com on new possible legislation working its way through Congress that will make it much more difficult (and expensive) to declare bankruptcy. The bill, if passed, will hit women the hardest.

During a time that personal bankruptcies have become more common, the bill’s aim is to promote personal responsibility and reinstate more power to creditors. Even without the reform, 150,000 more women find themselves filing for bankruptcy than men per year. Single mothers are in the worst shape: they are fifty percent more likely to file for bankruptcy than married parents, and three times more likely than childless couples.

Fabulous. And it’s so refreshing to see that our government is taking care of this problem! Sigh.

Thanks to Michael for the article.

Meet Dr. Farrell. He's the asshole of the week that the NY Times Business Section decided to give in-depth coverage. He's a pseudo-scientist that believes he's finally figured out the gendered wage gap. His answer: women self-sabotage.

"Women, he believes, methodically engineer their own paltry pay. They choose psychically fulfilling jobs, like librarian or art historian, that attract enough applicants for the law of supply and demand to kick in and depress pay. They avoid well-paid but presumably risky work - hence, the paucity of women flying planes. And they tend to put in fewer hours than men - no small point, he says, because people who work 44 hours a week make almost twice as much as those who work 34 and are more likely to be promoted."

Ummmm, yeah. But where is the analysis on how women are pushed out of partnerships and senior level positions when they become pregnant. Or how women are *still* left tending to the majority of childcare and house work. And how no matter how many hours we put in, we will still *never* be eligible for the boys club. I don't care how you spin it, it is just plain *wrong* to blame women for their lower pay. (sigh).

Now I guess that because Dr. Farrell served on the board of NOW in the 1970's we're supposed to think that he's not so anti-feminist after all. That he's just presenting a new paradigm of economic analysis. Ummmm, yeah.

"It is O.K. to trade a fatter paycheck for more time with children and hobbies. Just recognize that society did not force the choice on you. 'Feel powerful and happy that you have control over your own life,' Dr. Farrell said. 'It's better than feeling like an angry victim of discrimination.'"

Well, you know what. I think anger is a pretty valuable tool. And rather than just accepting wage discrimination or blaming myself & other women for our low wages, I say that we keep giving the Dr. Farrells of the world hell.

One final thought--could the Times *really* not find anything better to publish than this propaganda? Well, hey, maybe in the post-Summers media climate, backlash is cool.

Although the majority of America contain a gender wage gap where women earn approximately 75 cents to men’s dollar, we find that about 15 random counties in the U.S. have a different case. In fact, women are the ones raking in the dough, reports NPR.

The counties are in the western part of U.S., like Kings County, Texas. There, women generally earn 30 percent more than men. I could never live in Texas, but it sure is tempting!

The fact is that this is one serious cowboy country. Residents: less than 400. Cows and horses: more than 10,000. No stoplights, restaurants or supermarkets. This is the reason behind the wage gap, for much of the work here is defined as “men’s work”, while more women work at the local courthouse and the school, which typically pay more than being a ranch hand.

Yet a wage gap that favors the women doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s gender equality in this little town. The ranches are still run by men, men control the courthouse, while both the principal and superintendent at the school are men.

I didn’t expect any more surprises myself, but ‘tis an interesting find!

Check out yesterday's article from the Village Voice, "Superwoman 2.0", which discusses the economic struggles that that our generation has to endure as young women in American society.

There is also another article on this issue on the generation debt that is specifically directed towards men, "I, Breadwinner?", which deals with young lads' own economic conflicts that can arise.

Interesting articles, but I was a bit disappointed with the heteronormative/nuclear family vibe.

I'm curious to know what y'all think, so feel free to comment...

Reuters reports that things aren't looking good for Bush's social security plan. In case you haven't been following, his plan allows workers to divert a portion of their retirement contributions into an individual investment account. Sound good? Think again...

Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America's Future, a progressive platform of labor, minority and women's organizations explains that, "Bush's plan [would] dismantle America's most successful social protection and anti-poverty program." Why? Heidi Hartmann of the National Council of Women's Organizations explains that, "Social Security is critical to women, because it offers lifetime guaranteed benefits, higher returns for low-earning workers, cost-of-living adjustments and spousal benefits for widows and divorced women." In fact, more than half of elderly women would live in poverty without the limited protections of social security.

While critics contend that the stock market generally *is* the only way to make long-term returns on investment, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond challenges this assumption, explaining that, "African Americans cannot afford to see their future raffled off in a risky stock market gamble." Further, those individuals who do manage to turn a profit will find that their returns are "taxed" by administrative costs. For those who earn less & invest less, the administrative costs will be proportionally greater and the net returns smaller. (sigh).

So who exactly stands to benefit from this plan? John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO contends that: "The only group that would benefit from privatization is the financial service industry, to the tune of nearly one trillion dollars in fees to manage the private accounts. This would be the largest windfall for that sector in American history." Wow--imagine that--Bushie in the hand of big business. Shocking.

What's depressing is that women already receive the dregs of the current Social Security system. Thanks to the gender wage gap, women have less income to pay into the system. If you couple less retirement benefits with a longer life expectancy, women have to make a little stretch a lot further. While not ideal, *at least* the current Social Security provides benefits for life and adjusts for inflation. That's a *lot* more than can be said for the market.

Women don't need the stock market to increase their benefits. Rather, they need administrative changes to the current system--like crediting the work of caregivers and increasing survivor's & divorcee's benefits. Click here to send a letter to Congress telling them to just-say-no to the privatization scheme.

According the National Organization of Women (NOW), a report has been released by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) on women’s economic, health, political, and social status in the U.S., concluding that -- at the rate we’re going -- it will take about 50 years before women's paychecks will be equal to men's, and that it will take a whole century before women will gain at least half the seats in Congress. Woohoo, we’re almost there, ladies! (I don't even know if that's sarcastic or not.)

Reuters reported yesterday on Kerry's attempts rile up women voters in Wisconsin. He promised to promote equal pay policies and increase the minimum wage ($7 from $5.15) and lashed out at the "false assurances'' of the Bush regime. My favorite quote:

"Before the president complains about his job, he ought to come here and spend the day with you. He might learn something about how, day after day, the women of this country juggle so much with such grace and strength."

While I don't think that Kerry can cure [all of] our economic ails, he will be a *big* improvement. Under the Bush administration the gender wage ratio fall from 76.6 cents to 75.5 cents (relative to a man's dollar earnings), poverty ratios steadily grew and the unemployment rate for women grew 37%. (sigh).

Not to mention that Bush doesn't even promote equal pay among his own staff. As Feministing reported back in July, leaked White House salary figures showed the rampant sex pay discrimination within the Bush administration. Bush women with similar titles and positions earn about 78 percent of what Bush men earn. Wow. Talk about a miserable job...

Kerry summed it up pretty well yesterday: "The women of America can write the future of America if they go to the polls and make their voices heard.'' Considering that more than a million women have lost their jobs under the Bush administration, I would say it's *definitely* in your economic interest to get busy at the poll.

As this month is what we call Breast Cancer Awareness Month, others have a different name for it -- Breast Cancer Industry Month. Breast Cancer Action (BCA), a grassroots organization of breast cancer survivors and their supporters, thought this particular title was more appropriate for the month of October.

In recognition of this month, BCA has also recently released (with author Barbara Ehrenreich) an online flash movie and email campaign exposing the extreme lack of organization amidst 30 federal agencies and dozens of private foundations and pharmaceutical companies funding research on breast cancer. This campaign is coming from BCA’s Breast Cancer Puzzle Project, which is pushing for more coordination of research funding.

In the flash movie, BCA points out that despite the estimated millions of dollars raised into breast cancer research, it is unknown how much dough is actually being raised and where it’s all going. Since these various corporations created Breast Cancer Awareness Month 18 years ago, breast cancer rates continue to rise. Every 2.5 minutes a woman is diagnosed. Every 13 minutes a woman dies from breast cancer.

The email campaign urges women and men to question how the funding is being used by these companies and agencies, and to mobilize and help them ask research funders to coordinate their undertaking in finding the environmental causes of, and more efficient and less toxic treatments for breast cancer.

Think Before You Pink, another project of BCA, encourages consumers to be smart about who they give their money to in the breast cancer field. The project features the movie on its website. So if you have flash, definitely check it out!

Special thanks to Rebecca for the info.

Uh oh ladies. An article in the Chicago Tribune details increased spending among women in their teens and twenties on beauty products. While putting your best foot forward is always a good thing, it's not a great idea when it comes at the expense of your savings account.

It turns out that we are spending more than twice as much today on waxing, tanning and lipstick as our moms did in the 60’s.

Companies who have been documenting our spending have found that we tend to [over]pay for our beauty regimens in cash and then charge necessities like groceries and gas. As a result, money that should be going into a savings account is spent paying off a credit card balance.

The article urges young female consumers to set goals (like paying off your credit card, or saving $50 a month), try DIY services (L'Oreal Jet Set works great for me) and spend on quality (salon hair color lasts a lot longer than the stuff in the box).

Oh yeah, and pay your bills online. Women in their 20s rack up a huge amount of debt on late fees alone.

The bottom line: you don't have to abandon your beauty regimen -- just make sure you spend as much time researching savings & investment options as you do at the salon.