Everything about this is excellent!
Pantene Breaks Down Every Sexist Workplace Stereotype in One Ad
12 Thursday Dec 2013
Posted Ourselves
in12 Thursday Dec 2013
Posted Ourselves
inEverything about this is excellent!
28 Thursday Nov 2013
Posted Ourselves
inI love football. So does Condoleezza Rice.
The money quote is at 2:07 when she admits that she woke up at 3am to watch the Super Bowl from Israel. Condi, that’s me every football season. I feel your pain. But it’s so worth it. I assume my experiences trying to talk the guys at Lion’s Den or Mike’s Place into switching to the Georgia game is a bit different from what you must have experienced, but there’s nothing like watching your team win when you’re so tired you can only smile.
The video’s a part of a campaign that Sam Gordon got in on (link for our Sam Gordon story above).
I adore this girl’s spunkiness. The whole video is just one big “I rock. Handle it.” My favorite part starts at 1:22
The parents would actually come onto the field and, like, grab their boys by the face mask and be like, ‘You don’t let this girl beat you!’ and they’d get so mad at them, just yelling at them. ‘Get that girl!’ and I’d still beat them [giggle]
I love football. And I love people who love football.
Happy Thanksgivukkah!
19 Tuesday Nov 2013
Posted Ourselves
inGo watch the pop-up online telethon Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can Choose.
Or just follow #TexasWomenForever (or #VagNapkin) on twitter.
I’ll write an explanation tonight 🙂
UPDATE: (9:28pm Eastern)
All the women of Orange is the New Black signed a call sheet. It’s being auctioned now. I love technology and the fact that this pop-up auction fundraiser drive is possible.
29 Tuesday Oct 2013
Posted Our parking lot, Ourselves
inTags
Elena Kagan, Nelson Shanks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, United States Supreme Court
We’ve enjoyed moments of humor provided by the women of the Supreme Court.
Now, they’re getting their portrait shown in the National Portrait Gallery. Here’s the description:
A major step in women’s struggle for equality came on March 3, 1879, when Belva Lockwood became the first woman to argue before the Supreme Court. In the 1940s, distinguished jurist Florence Allen was considered for the Court, but opposition, including from the sitting justices, precluded her nomination.
In 1981 Sandra Day O’Connor (born 1930) became the first woman to serve on the Court. O’Connor, a graduate of Stanford Law School, was serving on the Arizona Court of Appeals when President Ronald Reagan nominated her as an associate justice. O’Connor retired from the Court in 2006.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (born 1933) graduated from Columbia Law School. She was serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia when President Bill Clinton nominated her as an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1993.
Sonia Sotomayor (born 1954) received her J.D. from Yale Law School. She was serving on the United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, when President Barack Obama nominated her as an associate justice in 2009. She became the first Latino to sit on the Supreme Court.
Elena Kagan (born 1960) graduated from Harvard Law School. She was President Obama’s solicitor general when the president nominated her as an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 2010.
Nelson Shanks was commissioned to create this portrait to recognize the accomplishments of all four justices. He has drawn on the traditions of Dutch group portraiture for his composition, and the setting is based on interiors and a courtyard within the Supreme Court Building in Washington.
Sophia, it’s time for you to return to America so we can go the the Portrait Gallery and Seneca Falls.
21 Monday Oct 2013
Posted Life Imitating Art, Ourselves
inTags
I’m working on a longer blog post about the World Bank, West Bank, and grad school, but I called my older, PhD brother today at midnight to complain about grad school and wanted to share something that’s been bothering me. I have a presentation on Tuesday on transitional justice, with Rwanda as the case study. Most of the articles I’ve read, the interviews of officials I’ve watched, and the documentaries I’ve spent hours slogging through trying to make sense of the nitty-gritty details were not as detailed as an article I’d just run into and I was concerned the scholar may have been a bit too eager to draw conclusions.
I also called to just complain about my transition from practitioner and researcher back to academic, and that grad school makes me feel as though I’m living in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation. Why? This:
Foundation, the first installment in Asimov’s series by the same name, is a dystopian novel about a galactic empire which has declined to the point that near-anarchy reigns among the planets (yes, I’m a gigantic nerd, but Asimov is someone you really must read). There’s an excerpt that has always stuck in my mind:
From Foundation, Part II The Encyclopedists, Chapter 4
Hardin remained silent for a short while. Then he said, “When did Lameth write his book?”
“Oh – I should say about eight hundwed yeahs ago. Of cohse, he has based it lahgely on the pwevious wuhk of Gleen.”
“Then why rely on him? Why not go to Arcturus and study the remains for yourself?”
Lord Dorwin raised his eyebrows and took a pinch of snuff hurriedly. “Why, whatevah foah, my deah fellow?”
“To get the information firsthand, of course.”
“But wheah’s the necessity? It seems an uncommonly woundabout and hopelessly wigmawolish method of getting anywheahs. Look heah, now, I’ve got the wuhks of all the old mastahs – the gweat ahchaeologists of the past. I wigh them against each othah – balance the disagweements – analyze the conflicting statements – decide which is pwobably cowwect –and come to a conclusion. That is the scientific method. At least” – patronizingly –”as I see it. How insuffewably cwude it would be to go to Ahctuwus, oah to Sol, foah instance, and blundah about, when the old mastahs have covahed the gwound so much moah effectually than we could possibly hope to do.”
Hardin murmured politely, “I see.”
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the conversation I sometimes fall into in grad school. The professors are great. Many of them have incredible field experience. It’s just.. sometimes.. just because some dude wrote something down on a paper doesn’t mean it’s correct, or that it’ll work. Fellow student, the professor is not giving us these articles because we’re supposed to parrot them. Think a little, friends.
06 Sunday Oct 2013
Tags
Deeds not words, Jutta, public speaking, rhet, The Eloquent Woman, Women in politics, Women's suffrage
A friend of the Gates, has guest blogged over at The Eloquent Woman’s blog (one of our favorite spots in the Innernetz).
(I don’t know who owns this picture)
In the piece, she analyses an old speech from the suffrage movement (insert teh battle-cry DEEDS NOT WORDS)
We like! Here are her three tips to women speaking in public:
When you speak, speak: Her style flows briskly, with long sentences and little variation in the vocabulary. This makes it sound at times almost like an extempore speech, especially in the passages where she is exhilarated: “But now, now we must rejoice, now the sunbeam has returned, and with greater truth than the first time, since now all women and all servants have been included, so that we now in truth can sing: This day – the 5th of June 1915 – will be celebrated by the blue flowers of the field and by the Danish women”. However, the clear structure of the metaphors and the sharp focus indicate that the speaker had planned what she wanted to say. The oratorical style draws the audience in, making it clear that they are being directly addressed and not merely having a paper read to them.
Build bridges to opponents: Bojsen-Møller and her movement won the battle as well as the war. But she ends with a strong call for unity as the nation moves forward with the new Constitution. She does so by both acknowledging the opposition (“It is probably the women who are the happiest with the new Constitution”), and clearly appealing to shared values, namely God, King and country. These are also traditional conservative values, and she references them implicitly and explicitly, quoting famous theologians as well as male opinion makers and her own father; speaking respectfully of the late king who signed the first Constitution; and mentioning God when saying women “are sinners just like the men.” Again and again she emphasises that this great day is for Denmark as a whole, and that what matters now is the country. The very last sentence reads like a prayer “King of kings, only you can guard the land of our fathers.”
Use the setting: The physical surroundings in which a speech is delivered matter, and can help you illustrate abstract points if you mention the setting to your audience, and provide them with your own interpretation. The ceremonial genre of speeches is an especially good format to play on the blurred lines between the conceptual space your words create and the actual space in which you deliver them. Bojsen-Møller mentions “this mountain”, the present locality, several times, and uses a story of another mountain as a metaphor when she speaks of the struggle to climb the mountain and achieve the goal: “the new Constitution was ratified.” After the speech, the audience had to walk up the steep hill, in the heat of June, wearing their festive – and heavy – clothes. Bojsen-Møller’s words and imagery of labouring to ascend would very likely have echoed in their ears, reminding them of the political struggle that had just been won. This way, the words’ meaning transcended the speech itself.
Read the full post here
17 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted Ourselves
inTags
CNN, GCC, Iran, reblogging this, Syria
relevant and timely thoughts…
15 Sunday Sep 2013
Tags
AtGotC Seal of Approval, CJ Cregg, Department of State, Marie Herf, State Department, Syria, west wing
Twitter invited me to watch the State Department Briefing today. So I did. I had the opportunity to watch a Ms. Marie Herf handle the journalist pool and, I must say, I was impressed. So I did the logical 21st century thing and did a bit of online stalking. I found out she’s a friend of a friend of mine who worked the Obama reelection campaign. So of course, I told him of my girl crush and he promised to pass it on, proof, ladies and gentlemen, that the whole world is a tiny place, not just Israel.
You can (and should) watch Ms. Herf in the video here. It takes only a couple minutes of watching to fully grasp her awesomeness.
She comes in with a big binder and can be a bit stiff, but she’s only 32 and started the job relatively recently. I’m excited to see her come into her own and get into a groove behind the podium. I’m sure she’ll do big things.
As a powerful young woman in control and walking the halls of power, Ms. Harf definitely gets the AtGotC Seal of Approval.
…that’s the second or third I’ve handed out. I think it’s time for a little photoshopping.
15 Sunday Sep 2013
Posted Our village, Ourselves
inTags
America, Brene Brown, kate mulgrew, Kathryn Janeway, Orange is the new Black, star trek, vulnerability, women in hollywood, women in space, women on TV
So, as Vera said in the previous post — sorry for the hiatus. We were in America… albeit seperately (yes, yes, we will do that road trip *together* one day, and no it won’t be when i stop keeping kosher [which is nevaaaah] – but when vera gets enough money to buy us a car to travel in style. also, i need to learn not to offend americans quite as much)
and whilst there, i was caught up in the GENERICA-pop-americana phenomenon that is “Orange is the New Black”
And yes, binge-watched it like pretty much everyone else. and loved it madly.
(a colleague of mine was asking me “but how? with all the lesbians?” as in “you’re a nice religious girl, Y U enjoy this show?” So i had to explain that yes, my sense of what I will watch is restricted by religious norms but seeing a woman’s breats really doesn’t offend me – i mean, i have breasts. breats are not scary to me. and i don’t care so much if women are kissing women. and despite the very aggresive “look there are lesbians here!”-elements in the 1st episode, the show is at least by my standards far less racy than say game of Thrones (which i stopped watching after like three episodes. )
But back to the show- I loved it because of all these terribly complex female characters. FINALLY real women on TV!
on of the actresses said it eloquently in a Huffington Post interview last week:
It is a phenomenon, what’s happened to this show. And I think it’s because we have watched so much television that holds up women falsely before us. The beautiful woman, or the woman who always wins, or the woman who’s desirable to every man. And the standards are constantly, impossibly raised for women — Hollywood does that.
Suddenly you walk into these walls [of the prison] and you’re surrounded by creatures you not only understand, but who reside within you as well. And there’s a deep release. It’s almost existential. You’re finally with people you get, people who could beyou within two seconds, people who are you. There’s something for every woman to relate to on a visceral level in this series. And that I don’t think has been done ever before, do you?
It’s Red speaking, the Russian chef. Who happens to be Kate Mulgrew who’s made a cameo on this blog previously (she captained a star ship as Kathryn Janeway – actually, there are 4 posts with Janeway [on West Wing characters getting killed on Voyager; on buzzfeed picking up belatedly on that story; on women in power being called ma’am and hating it, oh and that time Vera had to teach me what fanfiction is], so now she gets a tag.)
But I also think the show teaches us something about surviving the jungle that is your job (i am not comparing my office to a low-level security prison!)
Of course the ONE thing you should not learn from OITNB is the (probably accurate sadly) insistence that d vulnerability is there to drag you down and must be hidden. As Brene Brown teaches us : Dare to be vulnerable (this is also the book Vera gave me as she left me behind in the middle east to go get her degree in “Merica)
13 Friday Sep 2013
Yes, I butchered the John Steinbeck title, but whatevs. Sophia and I have been spending the summer, after those deadlines, decompressing and traveling IN AMERICA (though not together. Which makes us sad. But as soon as Sophia stops keeping kosher, I promise you all to take her on a tour of the American South so she can learn the different types of BBQ the great area south of the Mason-Dixon offers). Sophia was on vacation, but I was traveling from my old hometown in California to New York, where I’ll be attending university this Fall for a Masters program.
Now that we’ve returned to schedules, of a kind, we can revive our love – bringing you interesting tidbits of news, things you should be paying attention to, and random rants about things that we get excited about (or over, as the case may be). You may see me a bit more academic, as I live, breath, and eat International Relations theory these next nine months, but we’ll get through it 😀
We’re really excited to get started again, and hope you’ll continue to comment and engage as we discuss events in the Middle East, women’s issues, and anything else that tickles our fancy.