International Women’s Day began 99 years ago. With so much progress accomplished since 1911, yet so much more remaining to be done, it seems to me that it’s time for women to change our approach to something closer Sojourner Truth’s.

Her advice to women as she stated it in the above quote to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of the influential anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, when they met in 1853, comes from a position of knowing her own power. Despite being been born into slavery and experiencing oppression, poverty, and discrimination far greater than most women reading this blog in 2010, Truth was way ahead of many of us in her perspective about how to advance equal rights.

Without question, in many places around the globe, women remain as oppressed as Sojourner Truth--born Isabella Baumfree in Ulster County, New York, and once sold for $100 and a herd of sheep--was before she “walked off” from her master.

But even in the most gender-repressive societies such as Yemen, there are Sojourner Truth-like women and girls such as ten-year-old Nujood Ali,

I am writing a book entitled No Excuses  that explores women's relationship with power and why this is the moment to use our "power-to" for good in life and leadership.

I have one chapter in that gives nine specific Power Tools women can use to make changes they want in their workplace, in politics or civic life, or in a personal relationship, with concrete examples of what has worked, or what you tried and it didn't work but you learned from it.

The Power Tools are:

Know Your History (and you can shape your future)

Define the terms—first

Use what you’ve got

Carpe the chaos (chaos is opportunity)

Embrace controversy

Wear the shirt (of your convictions)

Create a movement

Employ every medium

Tell your story

It can be something large or small--they are all valid and important. You can also send photos or video for website use if you wish.

To participate, just answer these questions, initial the release, and e-mail them back to me at gloria@gloriafeldt.com. Or you are welcome to share them now in teh commenst section below. Brief but specific answers are best:

1. Was there a moment when you knew

RHRealityCheck asked me to answer this question for the 1/22 anniversary of Roe v Wade. What does choice mean to you?

What does choice mean to me? Forget about Roe v Wade and legalities for a moment. Just a few minutes ago I received this message via e-mail from a professional colleague:

I saw my granddaughter born last March and it is because I value life that I

value choice.  I think we should speak out for ourselves - perhaps even

as grandmothers who know a thing or two.  

So speaking as another grandmother who knows a thing or two (ahem), I'll be happy to tell you what choice means to me. 

Even though I worked within Planned Parenthood for over 30 years, in roles ranging from local volunteer to national CEO, I've never diminished the passion for what I believe is women's human right to make their own childbearing decisions, and I still get goosebumps when someone says to me--as happens almost every day even though I've been on my own as a writer for four years now--"You saved my life." I know what they mean. It isn't me they are talking about but about things like the birth control pill that allowed me as a 20-year-old

How do you think women advanced during the last decade? (We can deal with the backward steps in another post...at the beginning of a new year and new decade, let's start with a nod to the advances.)

Here are my two top-of-mind, unfiltered answers that I sent to Katha, mostly to the positive.

1. The rise of social media has given women the opportunity for a much bigger voice individually and collectively. The asynchronous, information-rich technology and the ability to create "rooms of one's own" appeal to women who have for so long been overtalked by louder male voices. As a result women are over 50% of bloggers and 57% of the people on Facebook and Twitter. Social media offer a way to connect, share, find support systems, and organize.

You know, like Madonna sings, we're all new again in the New Year--"like a virgin for the very first time."

Virginity is a social construct that has been use to disempower women through the ages. I can't wait till Therese gets the film finished and encourage you to help her do so. Check out her blog and while you're there take the quiz to see how honest you are about sex. if you really want to know that is :-)

Our new trailer! "How To Lose Your Virginity" from Trixie Films on Vimeo.

On the heels of the Senate’s defeat of anti-abortion measures, Bart Stupak published a defense of his amendment in the New York Times (“What My Amendment Won’t Do,” 12/8).  His aggressive protest clearly illustrates the crusade against women’s rights won’t stop any time soon.
 
The Women’s Media Center is proud to announce the launch of its new media campaign NotUnderTheBus.com, a platform that amplifies the voices of women and organizations devoted to a health care reform that is fair to women.
 
NotUnderTheBus.com’s first call to action is to stop the Stupak Amendment, the Hatch-Nelson Amendment, and others like them which are the most draconian restrictions on women since the 1977 Hyde Amendment that cut federal funding for abortions by Medicaid.
 
NotUnderTheBus.com will serve as an aggregator and media resource center in the fight to safeguard women’s reproductive rights in the national health care reform debate.
 
“Women must not be thrown ‘Under the Bus’ in health care reform!” says Jehmu Greene, President of the Women’s Media Center. “We won’t let Congress run over women’s health, because our health care is central to the health of America; it is not for sale! We are furious that our reproductive rights and our health have been compromised by politicians in Congress, who in the skirmish for political gains oppose national health reform to the detriment of more than 16 million women.”
 
NotUnderTheBus.com calls on all women and men who support women’s equality to take the initiative, climb aboard and start driving the bus right down Pennsylvania Avenue to ensure that health care is fair, safe, and accessible to all.
 
To speak with WMC President Jehmu Greene, or to book other experts on health reform, health care politics, or women's reproductive rights, please contact Rebekah Spicuglia, (212) 563-0680, rebekah@womensmediacenter.com.  
 
About the Women's Media Center: The Women's Media Center is a non-profit organization making women visible and powerful in the media. The WMC ensures that women are represented as they are: powerful newsmakers, informed experts, and sought-after media professionals. Please visit WomensMediaCenter.com to learn more about our work.
 
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Lilith Magazine asked me to review Michelle Goldberg's The Means of Reproduction. The book waspublished earlier this year and at first I thought this review would be a bit dated. As it turns out given the health reform debate in which women's reproductive health is once again the battering ram for Republicans who want to kill reform and controversial fodder for the pundits, the subject matter couldn't be more timely. In particular, Goldberg's discussion of the damage done globally to women's health by the Helms amendment shouts the warning about what might well happen in the U.S. if the Stupak-Pitts amendment prevails.

Michelle Goldberg's captivating book, The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World (Penguin Press, 2009) is perfectly timed to remind those who came of age post-Roe v Wade and might think they can relax under an Obama administration, just how much work is left to do. An investigative journalist and author previously of Kingdom Coming: the Rise of Christian Nationalism, Goldberg has imbued this long-running story with fresh power by telling it in her young feminist voice.

The Means of Reproduction' is a sweeping history of U.S. foreign policy on international family planning that spans four continents and the covers issues such as birth control, abortion, HIV/AIDS, their intersections with environmental concerns and economic development, and the gender politics of all, while staying in intimate touch

How does Wonder Woman do it? She is able to stop the bad guys—even convince them to reform—without ever killing! Her gender-bending strength and power is matched only by her compassion in seeking peace and justice. The question, CAN WONDER WOMAN CRA-AC-CK GENDER STEREOTYPES? is paramount as this icon and superhero confronts the sexism prevalent at the time of her creation in 1941 as well as today.

So how does Wonder Woman do it? What lessons can we learn from her today?