It’s up and it’s down. It’s the hemline.

Hemlines are the litmus test of fashion history as a cultural study. Economist George Taylor coined the term “hemline index” to explain how skirts got shorter or longer depending on either a “roaring” or Depression-era economy. But what does today’s style say about our current economic situation?

First seen on designer runways last season, longer-length skirts are now hot on street style blogs, with women everywhere working the new silhouette. They’re calculating how to look slim in this look (cinch the waist), what shoes suit it best (flats and wedges), and why the proportions require a complete rethink of what to wear on top (sleeveless tees and fitted vintage denim jackets feel right).

I’ve been working my own take on this trend with a thrift shop find: A Ralph Lauren, double-layered jersey knit dress that hits at the calf. It’s a look that recalls the minimalism of the 90’s with its emphasis on sleek American sportswear. No one symbolized that era of elegant “throwaway chic” like Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (so we shouldn’t be surprised that her name keeps popping up in fashion blogs and magazines).

At the time, a Newsweek article cited designer Michael Kors praising Bessette-Kennedy’s eye for “proportion,” for her skirts were always just the right length. “That is unusual in someone so young,” he says, as if speaking of a child prodigy. It’s funny how random lines from magazines inexplicably stay with you. Fifteen years on, the idea of a “right length” skirt space as observed by a theatrically directorial fashion designer seems so quaint.

Because here’s the thing. Blowing Mr. George Taylor’s theory out of the water is the emergence this spring of the flirty flared shorter skirt. Just as we’re all getting our heads wrapped around long skirts, here comes a fresh mini. Not any mini, mind you, but a bubble hemmed, brightly patterned, ruffled and twisted thigh-baring one.

Perhaps it’s time for a new theory. If there’s a “hemline index” anymore, it seems to be indicating that it’s just fine to wear any length without having to ask if it’s in keeping with the times.

The post Skirting the Issues appeared first on EcoSalon.

Women everywhere share common challenges.

Do women lack confidence? Is there a natural tendency to blame women victims in every culture? Do women in developed countries have similar problems as women in developing countries?

I recently attended the Women in the World 2011 Stories and Solutions summit. If you caught up with EcoSalon last week, you may have read our summit coverage on child trafficking and girls in sports. As I listened to the different topics, ranging from women on the front lines, to women business leaders, to a woman who wants to build a floating hospital on Lake Tanganyika, to Hillary Clinton’s address, I noticed three persistent themes in the varied panel topics. Confidence. Victim-blaming. Strength.

Confidence

Interestingly, confidence cut both ways. Women like Divya Keshav and Eva Walusimbi lit up as they told about how they started their own businesses and were able to contribute to their families and their communities. Divya built a thriving accessories business in Haiti with the help of Diane von Furstenberg before the earthquake wiped out her shop and all her hard work. Undeterred, she is in the process of rebuilding, strengthened by her previous success. Her growing confidence was plain to see due to the support and praise from von Furstenberg (who was also present at the summit).

Walusimbi is part of Solar Sister, an Avon-type women’s business network supported by ExxonMobil’s Women’s Economic Opportunity that sells solar lights to rural residents in Uganda. She beamed as she told the audience how she helped women have safe lighting so they could extend their work day into the evening and girls could study after their chores were done. Other women from developing countries told similar stories of feeling immeasurable pride in themselves when they were supported and encouraged by others – whether they were starting a business, recovering from a trauma, or fighting for women’s rights.

However, during at least two sessions, The Marzipan Layer and New Ways to Lead, the panelists talked about the tendency of women in the U.S. to lack confidence, to have difficulty negotiating for themselves, and to understate their worth during job negotiations. While women in developing countries, who are only beginning to be able to explore opportunities, are building their confidence in themselves, women in the U.S. who have many more opportunities, are seen as still suffering from a confidence problem.

Victim-Blaming

Victim-blaming is a universal issue. In Stealing Beauty, we met Yem Chhuon and her daughter, who were victims of an acid attack by her husband’s mistress. The panelists explained that acid attacks are meant to severely injure, but not kill their victims, and they are carried out by both men and women. Acid is an easy weapon to get, and assault carries a light sentence, if it is even prosecuted.

Acid attacks are the equivalent of burning a scarlet letter onto victims’ faces. Society’s first instinct is to believe that the victim did something to deserve the attack, and since most often the victims’ faces are affected, it is the first reaction they get from everyone they meet for the rest of their lives. If it sounds barbaric, that’s because it is. But it has also arrived in the U.S. Even as we were learning about acid attacks in Manhattan, there was one reported the same day in Brooklyn. And it’s not the first one in the U.S.

Other panels focused on the widespread problem of rape in developing countries and how to stop it, the cultural attitude that allows it, and the victim-blaming that accompanies it. However, that’s an attitude that is present everywhere. Sadly, victim blaming is practically a recognized sport in the U.S. For every tragedy, there are people who respond from the heart, showing empathy and support, and there are always those who believe that somehow the victim brought it on herself. What was she wearing? What is her sexual history? These inappropriate and subtly accusatory questions are all too common.

Recently, there has been a furor over the victim-blaming of an 11-year-old victim in Texas who was raped by 17 men. Mother Jones took the New York Times to task over what it perceived as their victim-blaming reporting, but the residents of the town itself seemed more concerned about the effect this crime would have on the accused men (including two basketball stars and the son of a school board member) while few showed any sympathy for the child victim.

After CBS reported the sexual assault of CBS reporter Lara Logan in Egypt, a frenzy of public reaction swept across the Internet. Shockingly, several public figures showed little concern for Logan. Nir Rosen joked about Logan’s assault on Twitter, saying she was “probably just groped, like thousands of other women,” resulting in his dismissal from a fellowship at NYU. Debbie Schlussel publicized flagrantly cold-hearted comments on her blog including, “so sad, too bad, Laura.” Even other reporters seemed to blame it on her looks. Some of her colleagues rallied to her defense, but they were all but drowned out by the controversy.

Many sites that reported on her assault were inundated with comments from readers ranging from insensitivity to claiming that it was her own fault for being there, and worse. NPR was forced to close their comments due to their inappropriate nature, and its editor scolded commenters equally for victim blaming and for vilifying all Egyptian and Arab men. Saying that she should not have been there because she is a woman, in my opinion, is still victim-blaming, dressed up in a benevolent chauvinism.

In our piece on child trafficking, we already discussed the victim-blaming attitude that persists for young girls. Evidently there are no circumstances where victims cannot somehow be blamed. There have been vicious tweets blaming the Japanese people for the recent earthquake. Hearing and reading about it everywhere has become profoundly depressing. Why is there such a persistent need to blame the victims of crimes, particularly women?

Strength

While there were grim stories shared at the Women in the World summit, there were also many stories of strength, bravery and accomplishment.

Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright demonstrated that although their politics are vastly different, they have much in common in their support for women’s rights and opportunities. They both called for more women to join politics and make their voices heard.

One of the most powerful moments of the summit was when Hillary Clinton spoke. She introduced a partnership between the Seven Sisters colleges (Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe College, Smith College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College) and the U.S. State Department, to launch a new Women and Public Service Initiative – another milestone in her lifelong work on the behalf of women.

Host Tina Brown and other female titans such as Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, Zainab Salbi, Founder of Women for Women International, and Kirsten Gillibrand, U.S. Senator (NY) also demonstrated through their accomplishments that women today have more opportunities than at any other time in history. Yet, we still have so many obstacles to overcome, and there remains a vast divide between women and men on the uneven playing field of respect and common decency. In many ways, some attitudes toward women have not progressed much, even in developed countries.

Will Equality Solve These Problems?

How do we build confidence in all women, eliminate victim-blaming, and continue to celebrate women’s strength and accomplishments? In Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown’s debut issue of Newsweek, Kathleen Parker writes an article about how “women make lousy men.” She posits the idea that women are striving so hard to be equal to men that they are losing sight of what it means to be a woman. That women are trying, in effect, not only to be as good as men, but to be men. “It turns out that women make lousy men, a fact for which we should feel grateful rather than apologetic.”

She writes, “Women have tried to fit into a male-constructed world and found it either uninviting or inflexible to their needs.” She goes on to say, “Until women are equal partners in the human race, we are less secure and surely less interesting…When women achieve parity in boardrooms and legislatures, they’ll no longer have to twist into male versions of themselves but can help fashion a world that is a better fit for them and the human beings they create.” Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that women are just as valuable as men, but their identities and needs will always be different. Maybe just that concession could make a difference in how women are perceived, treated, and appreciated.

As for the cure for victim blaming? I wish I knew.

Image: Wrote

The post 3 Issues Women Around the World Confront in Common appeared first on EcoSalon.

Women in the World 2011 Child Trafficking panel.

I’ve never thought much about Ashley Judd one way or the other. She has always struck me as a nice enough person (insofar as you can tell these things from interviews and magazine articles). However, after seeing her speak at the Women in the World 2011: Stories and Solutions summit, I will never dismiss her as someone I don’t know much about again – if I had the chance, I would be friends with this woman.

Judd was on the agenda to be a part of a panel on child trafficking in the U.S., and I didn’t know what to expect. Was she just going to introduce the panel? Actually take part? When the session started, she came out onto the stage alone, and her knowledge, commitment and story completely captivated me.

She spoke about her work fighting against child and labor trafficking for the last seven years, and about how, recently, its ugliness and cruelty had scarred her own life. She struggled to keep from crying as she told us how her friend’s daughter, a fourteen-year-old girl she had known from birth and held in her arms all of her life, had recently been held against her will and forced into prostitution for five days before the authorities found her.

After an argument, the girl ran away from her parents in the Atlanta airport and was later picked up by a pimp. Judd held it together as she told us how this girl had been forced to have sex with up to fifteen different partners each day, how she had aged in just that short amount of time and looked hard and worn, how she had bruises on her body and now has multiple STDs. Judd didn’t break down on stage, but there were tears throughout the audience.

The title of the panel was No Such Thing: Trafficking of Girls in the United States. It refers to two things: the denial we all want to cling to – that this doesn’t happen here in the U.S. – and that there is no such thing as children consenting to sex. The panel consisted of:

The Honorable Jeanine Pirro, TV Host, former District Attorney and Judge
Ashley Judd, Activist and Actor
Sharon Cooper, MD, FAAP, CEO of Developmental and Forensic Pediatrics, P.A.
Doug Justus, Retired Portland Police Sergeant
Malika Saada Saar, Founder and Executive Director, The Rebecca Project for Human Rights

The Facts – We See No Evil

Saar began by laying out the numbers – 100,000 to 300,000 children (most of them girls) in the U.S. are subject to sexual violence and trafficking every year. Most of the girls are between the ages of 11-14 and are American-born. Saar stated that there are more American-born girls being trafficked for sex than foreign nationals. She said, “These girls are not seen as the victims of child rape. These girls are seen as the bad girls.” So it’s easier to look away. To ignore the problem.

Saar went on to say that most of these girls are escaping a home where they were sexually violated, but that act makes them vulnerable to trafficking. Our society encourages women who are being abused to run away from the situation, but when girls run, they have few resources and become easy targets for pimps.

One of the problems, Dr. Cooper explained, is that the age of puberty for girls is getting younger, with girls’ breasts beginning to develop around age nine, and their bodies becoming sexually mature by age 13 to 14. However, girls’ brains are not fully mature until around age 22. This combination makes girls vulnerable to being taken in by pimps in sheep’s clothing who turn them into “compliant victims.” Cooper says they conduct extensive training on how to spot victims, because people have a hard time seeing the victims in these cases.

A Victimless Crime? – We Hear No Evil

In 2000, a federal law was passed outlawing sex trafficking. Currently, sex trafficking is only second to drug trafficking, and the punishment for buyers and sellers is substantially less, if it is prosecuted at all. Men are learning that it’s easier to sell a girl. Girls are reusable. The men who sell them are rarely prosecuted and the men who buy them are rarely prosecuted. If they are, the penalties are usually a fine or a misdemeanor. That makes trafficking in girls a very attractive business.

Pirro said that she looked up the statistics for prosecutions of sex trafficking in New York City (which is a major hub) for 2009. In addition to the federal law, New York has its own trafficking law. Can you guess how many prosecutions there were? Eight. For the entire year. In the first six months of 2010, she reported six prosecutions on record. I wonder how many prosecutions of underage child prostitutes there were during that same period.

Doug Justus admitted that when he took a new position in the Portland Police Department pursuing sex offenders and traffickers, they asked him how he would get the District Attorney’s Office to prosecute his cases. He was surprised. He had been a detective for 27 years and always had his cases prosecuted, but once he began his new role, that changed. No one wanted to listen.

Justus said, “I hate to say this, but it’s a man’s world. Men run the court system…When I would walk in there, they would say, ‘it’s a victimless crime, they are consenting adults, and the community doesn’t care because it’s behind closed doors.’” They don’t have to see, and they don’t want to hear.

He goes on to tell about a case where they had a valid search warrant, gathered solid evidence, and when he submitted it, he was pulled aside and told, “Don’t ever bring that here again, good luck in the future, and this conversation never happened.”

We Don’t Apply the Laws in Place to Buyers and Sellers – We Speak No Evil

So who is the criminal? “We criminalize the girl,” Saar said. “This is the only instance of child abuse where we put the child behind bars.” She goes on to say that we don’t need new laws, we simply need to apply the laws we already have to the buyers and sellers, and not use them against the girls.

There are less than 100 beds available for domestic victim treatment. So even if a judge does listen, where can they send a girl to be safe? Not to the abusive home that drove her onto the streets, not back to her pimp, so where? The answer, most often, is into a detention center where they feel hurt, ashamed, criminalized, and further victimized.

[Author’s note: I wondered about foster care, but this panel didn’t address that avenue. Perhaps the panel members believe that in foster care these girls would not have access to the type of counseling they need after such victimization.]

The panel went on to discuss the high-profile cases of Lawrence Taylor and Jeffrey Epstein, wealthy buyers who were given light sentences. In May 2010, Ex-NFL player Lawrence Taylor was arrested after paying a 16-year-old runaway for sexual acts. In January 2011, he pled guilty to two misdemeanors and received no jail time.

After a lengthy investigation into multiple counts of child prostitution spanning years, Palm Beach millionaire Jeffrey Epstein pled guilty to felony solicitation of prostitution and procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution. He received a sentence of 18 months in jail, but only served 13 months and went to work every day. During his additional year of house arrest, he visited his home in New York and his Caribbean island.

And what about the men? Who are they, these consumers of innocence? Judd said, “They are our fathers, our brothers, our husbands, uncles, cousins and friends. The guy who gets out of the taxi before you get in, the one on the stairmaster next to you at the gym. It is so common.”

Let Them Be Seen, Be Heard, and Have a Voice

There is a determined attitude to see these girls as bad kids, prostitutes, asking for it, there by choice. We don’t see them, we don’t listen to them, and no one speaks up for them. And the numbers continue to grow. How do we change that way of thinking?

Saar believes that we need to see this for what it is: not child prostitution, but child rape. Underage children cannot consent to sex under any circumstances. The children are the victims and the buyers and traffickers are the criminals.

We need to hear the victims. Saar spearheaded the removal of the Adult Services section from Craigslist. Several victims Saar was working with decided to write a letter to Craig Newmark, owner of Craigslist, describing their experience of being sold through the Adult Services section. Instead of publishing their letter as an opinion piece, and exposing it to censure, they ran it as an ad in the San Francisco Chronicle (Newmark’s hometown paper). A month later, they ran the same ad in The Washington Post, and four weeks later, the site was shut down.

We all can speak – in words and actions.

Judd suggested we start by attacking the marketing that sexualizes girls at a young age. “We absolutely have to push back against the continuing sexualization of children…We have to complain to our retailers who sell clothing for children that is extremely age-inappropriate, we have to boycott products, and we have to let media outlets ranging from MTV to network TV know that that stuff is simply not acceptable, and I think that women at the household level are going to be the ones who have to organize this rally cry and resistance.” Men seeing children as sexual beings is a growing problem.

Saar adds that:

• 1 in 4 girls will have been sexually violated by the time she reaches the age of 18
• 60% of female victims of rape are raped under the age of 18

A small organization called Text to Change in Africa is raising awareness of child sex trafficking in Cameroon using cell phones. It would be great if there were some way to expand that idea in the U.S. In some cities people can report potholes and traffic problems to their municipalities using their cell phones – it would be helpful to be able to report cases of suspected trafficking directly to police departments in the same way. And, in any way possible, we should tell our legislators that they should take these cases seriously and prosecute.

Girls in both the U.S. and abroad have a tough time being children. Their childhoods have become minefields, and we must speak up and say that children should be able to be kids longer. You don’t have to be a parent to affect the next generation of girls and boys.

The post Child Trafficking in the U.S. – See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil appeared first on EcoSalon.

News editor Andrea Newell reports from the Women in the World Summit.

I was pleased to be invited to cover the exclusive Women in the World Summit (#WiW11) in New York March 10-12 at the Hudson Theater. It is the second annual summit hosted by Tina Brown, Editor-in-Chief of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and it brings together women from around the world to discuss issues affecting women both in the U.S. and abroad. The agenda included speakers such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, moderators such as Christiane Amanpour, Juju Chang, Mika Brzezinski, and Lesley Stahl, and panels with guests like Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condoleeza Rice, Ashley Judd, Lydia Cacho, Diane von Furstenberg, Sheryl Sandberg, John Donahoe, Amy Chua, and more.

Considering the host, the powerhouse speaker lineup, and the topic, I expected the summit to be bigger, but there weren’t more than 200 attendees. Although Newsweek and The Daily Beast had a significant news presence, I only met four writers from other online news outlets beside ours. I’m sure there were more, but we commented amongst ourselves about the lack of outside coverage. Indeed, it was puzzling. These women, many prominent ones among them, came from all over the world to tell their stories, but who’s listening?

Although the subject matter was, at times, heavy on the heart, the Hudson Theater is a stunning venue. The theater lobby was full of men and women in business suits interspersed with women in their colorful, native garb. A sea of dark grays, blues and black punctuated by vivid colors and metallic sparkle. The ornate carving is beautiful, the lighting is dramatic and it is an intimate setting to listen to these women and their amazing stories.

Although all the sessions are now available online, there was something magical about these moments “in real life”. Being there was to see Ashley Judd nearly dissolve into tears when she talked about her friend’s daughter, to feel her anguish from 75 feet away. Being there made women’s issues all the more real – walking past the women in their bright colors, hearing their beads clink, and listening to their lyrical voices as they connected with members of the audience in the lobby during the breaks.

At EcoSalon, we believe that women and green go hand and hand. We are concerned with all that is conscious, which means not only being concerned about the environment, but about how people are treated. We simply cannot have progress of a piece; you cannot have one conscious world without the other. That’s why we wouldn’t have missed the Women in the World 2011 summit and the opportunity to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing women – and men – right now. While all of these quotes have been captured in streaming video, the ones that left the strongest impression on me are the ones shared here.

“If you knew them, you’d care.”

Zainab Salbi, Founder and CEO of Women for Women International, talking about the women she met and photographed on her trip to Congo

“The role of women in the democracy movement is hammering home the point that the treatment of women in any society is a marker of its civilization, and its respect for the human dignity of every individual – in fact the very measure of democracy itself.”

Tina Brown, Editor-in-Chief, Newsweek and The Daily Beast

“We’re here because we believe. We believe in ourselves and we believe in our fellow human beings. We believe that justice will prevail over time, because justice has to prevail over time…Most of all, we’re all here because we believe in action.”

Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

“I’m here to say that women matter.”

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director, World Bank

“We arrest the girl. We criminalize the girl. This is the only situation of child abuse where we put the child behind bars.”

Malika Saada Saar, Founder and Executive Director, The Rebecca Project for Human Rights, talking about child sex trafficking

“Women and girls around the world taught me this lesson: If you do not have real opportunities to exercise your rights, how can you choose freely? I know my rights. I have survived rape, incarceration, and an assassination attempt for exercising my freedom to be an echoer of other women’s voices. And here I am, making a free choice that millions of our sisters cannot make. Until we walk the path together, I’ll keep writing.”

Lydia Cacho, Journalist and Author, reading from her book, Slaves of Power: A Journey to the Heart of World Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls

“I design, but more importantly, I decide. I am a job creator.”

Divya Keshav, Owner, Krishna International, talking about the opportunity to own her own business

“A female college graduate earns $1.2 million less than her male counterpart.”

Statistic from The Marzipan Layer session

“[Marketers have learned that] girls really make a lot of buying decisions…so not only are we marketing more to girls, but we are sending messages to girls about what power really looks like…so what’s often being sold to girls is that power is about being sexual and looking sexy…Clearly this is a time where girls have more opportunity than they’ve ever had before, but at the same time, the messages they’re getting are deeply confusing.”

Rachel Simmons, Author and Co-Founder, Girls Leadership Institute

“Where women do not have the opportunity to fulfill their God-given potential, it is far less likely that democracy and prosperity go hand in hand. It is far less likely that peace and security are present.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State

In the coming days, I will be sharing more about the summit, its topics and what we can take away from it. It’s not just about the hardships of women and girls in developing countries, but about identifying girls at risk in the U.S., encouraging all girls to be leaders, and becoming aware of the plight of women and girls everywhere. It’s about seeing our many similarities, rather than focusing on our differences. It’s not about being up with women (and down with men) but about recognizing how much women have to offer the world, yet how often they are not empowered to contribute.

From my vantage point in the press balcony before a session.

The post Women in the World Summit 2011: Most Memorable Quotes appeared first on EcoSalon.

That’s the question that researchers at Newsweek magazine have been asking over the past 18 months during their quest to create the inaugural NEWSWEEK Green Rankings list.

Assisted by KLD Research & Analytics, Trucost, and CorporateRegister.com, they have analysed and ranked the environmental performance, policies, practices and reputations of the S&P 500 largest US companies.

The results, published in a 12-page special section in the September 28th issue of Newsweek (and also online at Newsweek.com), make for interesting reading.

Technology companies dominated the top of the list while energy, utility and coal-mining companies sat primarily at the bottom of the list. And only one oil company made the top 100.

According to Newsweek’s Green Rankings, highest green honors go to technology company Hewlett Packard, followed closely by Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Intel, IBM, State Street, Nike, Briston-Myers Squibb, Applied Materials…and Starbucks.

Many will argue that despite the extensive research, analysis and evaluations these rankings are imperfect. After all, comparing environmental performance across industries is a tricky business. Not all industries exact an equal environmental toll.

But you have to applaud the team at Newsweek for making an effort and trying to provide a snapshot of how green (or not green) America’s largest companies are.

The full Green Ranking list can be seen here. Check it out. You might be surprised to discover the amount of effort and actions that many of these companies are engaged in.

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