Women and men who work in politics, social organizations, and general business tout women’s issues as an all-emcompsming arena that needs support — and for good reason. Women are, most definitely, not treated equally in most parts of the world.

But it also got us thinking — is the term “women’s issues” actually harming women?

Why “women’s issues” exist

We started thinking about the gendering of issues after we saw that three, American women mayors recently spoke on Politico’s podcast about the labeling of political women’s issues. The mayors, Jennifer Roberts of Charlotte, North Carolina; Catherine Pugh or Baltimore; and Jackie Biskupski of Salt Lake City, discussed that typical women’s issues impact everyone. Everyone cares about schools and health care, so why are these causes singled out as women’s issues?

Part of the reason that women’s issues get packaged as such is because political campaigns break down the population in categories to better research and reach out to the public.

“In doing statistical research to put together the platform, we break down each segment by gender, race, and socioeconomic background,” Richard Holt, a political consultant with Sirius Campaigns, says.

“When it comes to implementing the message, we tend to want to micro-target each particular demographic and I believe when we do that, we create the situation that you discuss.”

After all, when communicators speak directly to women, their message often is more effective. But this premise could make men feel like they don’t need to be concerned about the issue, Holt explains.

Making women’s issues everyone’s issues

Women have always had to work harder for recognition.

This reality has been in the spotlight since the run-up to the 2016 presidential election and well after the election took place.

Think about language

Language matters. That’s why evolved people now say “police officer” instead of “policeman” and “flight attendant” instead of “stewardess”.

“This gender neutral language goes both ways,” Amanda Ponzar, chief marketing officer at Community Health Charities, says.

Selling feminism

The sale-ification of women in traditional male positions isn’t helping matters. In recent years, PR executives describe their women clients as “lady doctor” or “lady CEO”. These fake, overly commercial terms make a woman’s success seem kitsch rather than important. Unfortunately, this schmaltzy sales tactic and specified population targeting is used because it works.

“When we’re isolating campaign dollars, sending a mailer to men about protecting women may not be as effective at getting them out to vote as highlighting my candidates plan cuts their taxes,” Holt says.

“It’s all about getting out the vote and that is perhaps where this disconnect begins to happen. [However,] there are other ways to highlight these issues, such as making them a part of the formal platform — something I think we should seriously discuss.”

Women’s health affects everyone

Women’s health is one issue that men could easily learn to support. When women don’t have access to comprehensive health care, the men who love them are affected, too.

The trick to selling women’s health care to everyone is to not treat the issue as a separate cause. For example, when women’s issues are discussed separately, it makes them appear “less than”. But in reality, most men care just as much about women’s issues as they do all other causes.

“All men have mothers and most men have friends or family members or loved ones that are women,” Ponzar says.

“Making pregnancy, children, etc. a ‘women’s issue’ doesn’t make sense. We all have mothers, and children are both male and female. Plus, most women don’t get pregnant alone. This is an all-people issue. But so are many issues like the environment and clean air. Just general human issues we should all care about.”

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The post The Big Problem With ‘Women’s Issues’ — They’re Everyone’s Issues: #NowWhat appeared first on EcoSalon.

Karl Lagerfeld hosted a staged protest feigning support for women’s rights during the highly-anticipated Chanel catwalk show during Paris Fashion Week last month. Was he making a mockery of women? Or truly embracing the issues women face today?

Rightfully so, it’s hard to take anything Karl Lagerfeld does seriously. After all, he once said: “Everything I say is a joke. I myself am a joke.” No one would dare argue with him over that. But he’s also made crude and insensitive remarks, particularly about women, like dismissing their concerns over size-zero models as nothing more than the whinings of “fat mommies with bags of crisps,” reports the Guardian. He’s said “no one wants to see curvy women” – a blanket statement that shows his prejudice and insensitivity.

So, what then was he doing in Paris sending Cara Delevingne out onto the catwalk with a megaphone and plopping a banner reading “Women’s Rights are More than Alright” into Kendall Jenner’s hands? Emma Watson’s He for She campaign, designed to help the world understand and support the principles of gender equality, was also represented in the show. “To a soundtrack of Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman broadcast from transistor radios on classic Chanel gold chains, which swung from the young women’s shoulders like the brand’s signature 2.55 bags, models including Gisele Bündchen and Georgia May Jagger came in two or threes, smiling and chatting. The mood this set was very different from the usual silent, single-file parade, which as a rule exudes about as much joie de vivre and personality as a queue for airport customs,” reports the Guardian.

The looks just happened to match the protest theme, even with a masculine edge to them: “[P]sychedelic, with paint-splatter coats, rainbow tweeds and pastel tie-dye bags, worn with peacock-toned eyeshadow and flat gold shoes. The protest theme was hinted at in accessories: a crystal-studded whistle worn as a pendant, nestling among strands of pearls; a bag printed with the legend Make Fashion Not War.”

What everyone seems to want to know is whether or not Lagerfeld has truly developed a sensitivity to women’s issues, or could he just be co-opting them to sell more products?

“I think he was harking back to Coco Chanel’s feminist values – she was very much a strong and empowered woman. I think this just shows that fashion, feminism and empowering women do not have to be mutually exclusive,” Trish Halpin, editor-in-chief of Marie Claire told the Guardian.

Yes, Coco Chanel was a strong and empowered woman. Karl Lagerfeld? Not so much. Plus, in its post-Coco iteration, the Chanel brand has scored an “E” rating—the lowest possible sustainability rating from the group Rank a Brand. In other words, while Coco may have stood for female empowerment, it’s not a hallmark credential in manufacturing its products today. Cara Delevingne may get a megaphone with her makeover, but what about the woman who sewed her Chanel bag? Does she even get a lunch break?

Co-opting feminism to push a runway agenda, which perpetuates a number of myths about women, isn’t a boon for empowerment. It hides the inequality going on behind the runway–the horrors the fashion industry creates for all women—from those forced to create the products, to those forced in other ways to buy them season after season. If Lagerfeld really wanted to send a message of empowerment for women, he would have sent the signs out onto the runway all by themselves, and sent the models out for ice cream.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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The post Karl Lagerfeld’s ‘Feminist’ Protest During Paris Fashion Week: Real or BS? appeared first on EcoSalon.

SoulPancake partnered with Darling Magazine to have a series of conversations about some of the issues that women face on a daily basis. This episode discusses women in the workplace. And it is full of great advice from real women–women who have done things in the name of achieving status and power than men would never have to do.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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The post 80 Percent of Women Admit to Wearing Shoes that Hurt …In Order to Feel Powerful [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

On 19 January 2014, the official One Billion Rising 2013 documentary short premiered at Sundance.

The campaign highlights the fact that one in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. That amounts to one billion women. So in 2013, one billion women and men danced together around the world to end violence against women and girls. The campaign is calling on men and women to rise again this year on February 14th. Watch the touching video below and for more info, visit OneBillionRising.org.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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The post This is What One Billion Women Dancing Together Looks Like [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

Yet another example of rampant sexism in the professional world, this time, in the form of a legal memo.

Women make up over 33 percent of the legal profession, and more women than ever before are graduating law school and getting jobs at the nation’s top law firms. Yet they still have to put up with flagrant sexism.

It reads like something from the 1950s, but a sexist legal memo that recently surfaced on Above the Law is actually a product of this decade. Clifford Chance, an international law firm with 3,400 legal advisers in 25 countries is under fire for a memo titled Presentation Tips for Women. The shocking legal memo reminds women not to giggle or say the word “like” when making a presentation. And that’s just the beginning.

First off, why do women need a separate list of presentation tips? Whomever pulled this thought-provoking work together obviously had their reasons. Read on–the memo is filled with a slew of stereotypes including “You’re a friendly professional, not a professional friend.” You know, because those women always want to be your best friend [insert sarcasm here]. Other mind blowing tips in the legal memo include:

• Don’t giggle
• Work through your nerves: don’t drink caffeine; eat something but not too much; and don’t drink alcohol. (Because women are such lushes.)
• Don’t take your purse to the podium.
• Wear a suit, not your party outfit.
• Wear understated jewelry, nothing jingly or clanky
• Make sure you can stand in your heels, not trip, and don’t rock back on them.

But none of the tips compares to my very favorite ridiculously sexist comment of all, “No one heard Hillary the day she showed cleavage.”

Yes, that happened. So while women have made progress in the legal field, it’s no thanks to the sexist individuals like the author of this law firm memo.  Thank you Above the Law for bringing it to everyone’s attention.

Related on EcoSalon:
The Most Ridiculous Quotes About Women 
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Image: didbygraham

The post Sexist Legal Memo Tells Women ‘Don’t Giggle, Show Cleavage’ (And Other Fun Tips!) appeared first on EcoSalon.

In mainstream media stories about women’s issues, men are quoted much more than women or even relevant organizations.

The past year has been a politically turbulent one for women’s issues with restrictive legislation over women’s health being proposed and passed in many states. The presidential election is heating up and print and online media is filled with news about all of these changes. With all of the debate, it would seem important to get women’s perspective on issues related to abortion, birth control and Planned Parenthood, yet a recent study shows that men are dominating the conversation in the mainstream media, with very little input from women or even the impacted organizations.

The 4th Estate studied the 2012 election coverage from November 1, 2011 to May 1, 2012, for a total of 2,750 print articles and TV segments that contained 50,754 quotes. And the numbers show that women’s voices are very, very faint, if they’re heard at all. The study reviewed 35 major national publications, including USA Today and the New York Times, and when talking about abortion, men owned 81 percent of the quotes, with women at 12 percent and organizations at 7 percent.

The numbers are only slightly better for stories about birth control (men 75, women 19, orgs 6), Planned Parenthood (men 67, women 26, orgs 7) and women’s rights (men 52, women 31, orgs 17), but overall women are extremely underrepresented in national media on issues about women. From this, it’s easy to see how so many of these measures are being not only proposed, but pushed through.

In Michigan, where some of the most restrictive birth control/abortion legislation is making its way through the legislative process, many women and organizations that came to the legislative session to ask questions and participate were not allowed to speak or ask anything. Two female Democrat Representatives were banned from speaking after they protested the bill and Rep. Lisa Brown said, ““I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but no means no.”

Although women are all but missing from those venues, there have been a few victories. In February, during the time the 4th Estate was studying election coverage, women did manage to make themselves heard when the Susan G. Komen Foundation tried to quietly sever ties with Planned Parenthood. The resulting uproar caused the charity to quickly reverse itself. While an overwhelming number of new legislative measures impacting women have passed in many states, some have been defeated.

Since men clearly control the conversation about women’s issues in the media, it’s no surprise that they control the conversation about other election topics, as well, including the economy and foreign policy. On general topics, men had 76 percent of the quotes in USA Today, 67 percent in the Washington Post and 65 percent in the New York Times. Major media has similar ratios and top TV news shows snubbed women even more with Hardball listening to men talk 81 percent of the time and Fox News, 77 percent.

Another study, The OpEd Project, found that out of 7,000 columns it reviewed from September 15, 2011 to December 7, 2011, women penned 33 percent of online opinion columns, 20 percent of print columns and 38 percent of college publication columns. The good news is that female authors are gaining ground. The study reports, “Overall we have seen approximately a 6 percentage point increase in some of the nation’s top commentary outlets in traditional media. This represents a 40 percent increase for women compared to women’s representation six years ago.”

If women aren’t represented in national media and our female lawmakers are punished like schoolchildren, what chance do women have? Brands understand that social media is a formidable tool for expressing opinions, and have learned to listen to consumers (which include women). Maybe politicians (especially those who use new media tools) will learn to listen, too. When the government ground to a halt over Planned Parenthood funding, women took to Twitter. And, while they don’t have a traditional national media platform, independent female bloggers/writers, especially mothers, are a huge presence on the internet.

In this election year, with so much at stake, women must be heard not only on women’s issues, but all issues to present all sides. Women make the majority of household purchasing decisions, we are more than half of college graduates and are half the workforce. We’ve shown that we do have an opinion (Komen), but now we need to work harder than ever to be heard through smaller channels, social media, and any other method at our disposal. Only then can the conversation include everyone, and decisions be made with the input of all citizens.

 The 4th Estate

Image: UMWomen, SMirk, Leader Nancy Pelosi

The post Can You Hear That? It’s the Distant Echo of Women’s Voices in Mainstream Media 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.

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