Today is the 90th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, also known as Women's Equality Day. You probably (hopefully?) know that the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote (okay, theoretically…this was many years before the passage of the Voting Rights Act so in reality we are probably talking about white women who were married to white men who owned property who got the right to vote but let's celebrate anyway, okay?).
But how much to you really know about women's suffrage and the struggle to get the 19th Amendment passed? Here is a video that should help. Watch carefully. There will be a quiz. No really. There will be a quiz.
Okay, now for the quiz. Go to 9 Questions About 90 Years of Suffrage on the MS. magazine blog. Get ready because it is hard. I got a 4 our of 9 which was rated as "just passed" but I am pretty embarrassed.
How much do you know about women's suffrage in the U.S.? How did you do on the quiz? What do you teach your kids about the right to vote in the U.S. – particularly who got it when?
Many in the U.S. hadn't heard of "blood diamonds" until the popular film with Leonardo DiCaprio. The mining and sale of diamonds from Sierra Leone, the Congo and other African countries have long financed and fueled war, slavery and unspeakable violence in parts of Africa.
Here is a video that can help. Humorous and informative, the actors and activists in it explain what conflict minerals are, how they hurt people, and how a simple pledge to purchase products once they are available without conflict minerals can help draw attention to this problem.
Raise Hope for Congo, the organization that made this video, also has educational materials for individuals and schools that can help in learning about conflict minerals and the situation in the Congo. It also has activist resources for such projects as taking a campus conflict mineral free.
While the content is not appropriate for all ages (at what age do you explain the concept of rape to your kids?), learning about Congo's present and past can help our children make a safer world for all children – including those in conflict regions.
How do you teach your children how their spending affects people in other parts of the world?
After much speculation on the impact of a new federal law requiring certain employers to give unpaid pump breaks to certain employees (and my advice to Curb Your Enthusiasm), the U.S. Department of Labor has issued a Fact Sheet.
Fact Sheet #73: Break Time for Nursing Mothers under the FLSA restates the requirements of the amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act which went into effect this past March and which requires unpaid breaks for certain employees to pump breast milk and private space in which to pump.
While the text of the Fact Sheet provides little clarification of the new law – the penalty to employers for violating the law is still unclear – and is not an official position statement or regulation, it may indicate the Department of Labor is better prepared to accept complaints than it was in March.
Employees seeking more information should "call [the DOL] toll-free information and helpline, available 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in your time zone, 1-866-4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243)." While there have been no public reports of employees using this new law, I have also seen no reports of the DOL rejecting complaints. Any nursing mother having trouble with employer compliance with the federal workplace pumping law should feel free to write about it here.
While this same behavior happens every day in elementary schools across the country, J.W. attends an elementary school in the Louisiana Recovery School District (RSD). Created to accommodate the children whose families returned to post-Katrina New Orleans, unlike most elementary schools those in RSD have armed police officers on-site who follow the direction of school principals. In J.W.'s case, according to the SPLC Complaint:
The lawsuit seeks relief for J.W. and all the students of RSD under the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. constitution for unreasonable search and seizure. As well J.W. asserts state tort claims for the physical and emotional injuries suffered as a result of this brutal policy and practice.
However, Louisiana is not the only state that allows corporal punishment in public schools. Do you know if the school your child attends allows school staff to physically restrain students and, if so, under what circumstances and with which methods? Can your child be held back from striking another person or can your child be chained to a chair and left unattended? Should a six year old ever be shackled?
Hands Across the Sand is a movement with a simple message: NO to offshore oil drilling, YES to clean energy. In the literal wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, there seems no better time to join hands at the waters' edge in solidarity with others who wish to protect the world's oceans.
I am spending a few weeks with my family at the New Jersey shore. Knowing a Hands Across the Sand event was planned for yesterday, my eldest son and protest buddy came with me in search of a gathering. We had to do a bit of searching – knowing only cross streets and that we would be looking for some unknown number gathering at 11 a.m. and holding hands beginning at noon (local time) the world over. We has just about given up when we saw this:
It looked like perhaps six or seven people off in the distance but we ran toward them and as we got closer, they looked like this:
And when we reached them, they looked like this:
My son and I joined the line and as it grew closer to noon, the line grew longer.
The mission for this event was to join hands across the sand silently for fifteen minutes, 12 p.m. to 12:15 "draw[ing] a line in the sand and embrac[ing] a clean energy future." We held hands and even though none of us had signs or chanted anything, people asked, "Is this about the oil spill?" Strangers saw a line of strangers holding hands looking out into the Atlantic Ocean and knew: yes, this is about the spill and drilling and protecting the oceans. And more people joined the line. And then it looked like this:
And at 12:15, we all walked into the ocean together still holding hands.
Hands Across the Sand is a movement made of people of all walks of life and crosses political affiliations. This movement is not about politics; it is about protection of our coastal economies, oceans, marine wildlife, and fishing industry. Let us share our knowledge, energies and passion for protecting all of the above from the devastating effects of oil drilling.
While Hands Across the Sand began in Florida just this past February (and before this most recent horrible oil spill), yesterday's event was international and co-sponsored by a long list of environmental and other activist group including MoveOn.org, Greenpeace and Clean Water Action.
And I was there wearing this T-shirt from We Add Up you can get by clicking through the sidebar. Ten dollars of your purchase of this limited edition BP Oil Spill T-shirt goes to the Gulf Restoration Network.
Not long after I first started using Twitter – which was about the same time I finally began this blog – there was a great deal of Tweeting about BlogHer '09. It sounded like the place everybody who was a female blogger wanted to be. There was controversy – something about "swag," excessive freebies that made people look and feel all cheap and whore-y. But I joined BlogHer, saw that I would never be able to get into the advertising network (it is full up for pretty much ever) and hoped I would get to the next BlogHer conference and learn those secrets people were swearing they learned in between getting all that controversial stuff.
In the autumn, tickets for BlogHer '10 went on sale and I did something I only do with music concerts and the ballet – bought a ticket as soon as I could. The conference is in New York City, a few hours by train from where I live so that made the decision easier. If there had been a plane ticket involved, I wouldn't have considered going. It is out of character for me to buy a ticket to a conference that has nothing to do with work, social justice, children or some combination of all three. As the conference was fewer and fewer months away, I was a bit worried buying the ticket was a bad idea. There was a "popular girls" feel to the world of BlogHer. I didn't use the site. Few bloggers I read were going to be there. Other blogger conferences happened without me and reports back seemed to be about products and selling stuff – not about activism or information or being a good writer. As I worried more and more that I had succumbed to that urge to join an "in crowd," I finally began to hear of bloggers whose work sorta had to do with mine going. A handful. I might be all right.
And then it happened. A blogger who had attended the #NestleFamily junket wrote a post drawing attention to BlogHer's announcement that Stouffer's, a Nestle brand, would be a conference sponsor.
I didn't blog about #NestleFamily. I wrote about it in the January/February 2010 Mothering magazine where I am Politics Editor and the most comprehensive on-line coverage of that incident can be found at PhD in Parenting here and at follow-up posts on that blog.
This is not a post about why I boycott Nestle but I do. It is not only its sale of infant formula in flagrant and infamous violation of the WHO Code. It is the combination of corporate conduct, including the use of child slaves to pick cocoa beans, that led to the boycott and my decision to participate in it. I am sure I get a Nestle product by accident now and then but I work pretty hard at keeping Nestle products out of my life. The roughest spot I have been in was speaking at a La Leche League conference recently. I was speaking in a few minutes in a ballroom so hot and humid rare flowers would have grown happily. For medical reasons, I must have a large supply of water at all times. You would be hard pressed to find me these days without my giant BPA-free water bottle (a great speaker gift- thank you UNC-Greensboro!) in my hand but I hadn't flown it out with me. I put the need for water in the speaking room in my contracts. I went to the fridge in the back of the room to grab some water bottles and there they were – Nestle water. I wasn't the first to see them. There was already a crowd of conference attendees grumbling about Nestle in the room. The conference organizer was at my side soon and then she was out the door to do something I don't even want to know about to the hotel employee responsible. But I needed to go on and I needed water. And I drank the Nestle water.
Yeah, that story sounds a bit much but it is true. So when I read that a Nestle brand was going to be one of the eighty or so sponsors of BlogHer '10, I knew I had a problem. There was some behind the scenes posting about who was going to do what and whether BlogHer might do something. I thought that perhaps even if Nestle was going to be at the conference, perhaps they could sponsor a particular event I could avoid, rather than the entire conference. Just my impression, but I don't think BlogHer organizers cared less. Conference sponsorship for BlogHer is a "show me the money" enterprise. And from the discussions about previous conferences – samples, products, brands, stuff, stuff, stuff – I should have known that before I bought my ticket.
A few bloggers who oppose Nestle corporate practices have written posts about why they are going to BlogHer anyway. They have been criticized and they have been supported and they have been mocked by people I criticized for going to #NestleFamily. And a handful of us – four by my count – are boycotting BlogHer. It's my decision. I made it. I'm proud of it. And I think it is sad so few people care. Someone even had the gall to criticize me for refusing to sell her my ticket.
So have at me people. What are you willing to do to stand up for what you believe is right? If you boycott Nestle, what do you do to avoid using its products? And, an important question to me, why do you think so few people are boycotting BlogHer?
Until McDonald's gets a gluten-free menu I can't eat there, but this kind of corporate conduct makes me more likely to consume a company's products. And perhaps some day extreme right-wing groups will learn that their boycotts are a reason I will see a film.
Now McDonald's is showing an advertisement in France that I love. Watch it and then I will explain why.
This ad is the subject of much controversy from both the right wing and queer press. Queerty.com has mocked the effort and comments there and elsewhere note the contrast between the cheerful boy and his being closeted with his dad. Would a teenage boy hiding his sexuality from his father be that happy about it? I doubt it. It is not a realistic scene.
But gay teens need to see themselves in commercials. The ad does strike me as sweet and does seem likely to make gay teens feel less alienated. The tag line "Come As You Are" sends a good message about welcoming diversity. Yeah, there is a sexual double entendre but perhaps it isn't there in French. The French corporate statement about the intent of the ad is implausible.
Seriously? Gay marriage isn't legal in France. But still, I like the ad. I know at least one gay teen who would see himself and feel good. Nice try McDonald's.
Now watch the ad again. It will make you feel good about what the world might be like in that place between where we are now and where we will be when teenagers can talk openly with their parents about being gay.
While I hope to write more about addiction, a condition from which even the most dedicated attachment parent may not be spared, today I want only to express deep sadness that a mother has lost her son.
Here is a video by South African musician Johnny Clegg called Osiyeza or The Crossing.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Department on Womens Health, is having a contest to choose the cover photo for an update of its Easy Guide to Breastfeeding. I popped over there when I saw the notice on Twitter and thought the choices weren't very interesting. They are generic photos, none of which clearly show a latched baby. I decided not to vote because I didn't like any of the three choices. There was something just plain vanilla about all three.
Elita over at Blacktating has a great post on why I saw vanilla. Mother and child in all three photos are white. Not only do I agree with her on the impropriety of having only white babies to choose from but I find some of the comments to her blogs disturbing. Go over and have a look.
Even if one thinks it is legitimate to chose a representative baby by the skin color of the majority of babies born in the U.S (a questionable criteria, in my opinion), take a look at the U.S. Census Bureau data on the "race" of women who have given birth in the previous twelve months for 2006-08. Add up all the people who identify as non-white in some way and compare that number to the number of those who identify as white. "Average U.S. mom" is not "white."
In the three photo choices, both mother and child are white. I don't have the statistics (I don't find either the U.S. Census or the website for the Census Bureau particularly user-friendly), but I suspect the number of non-white babies born in the U.S. is even higher than the number of non-white mothers. So making both mom and baby white is even more inaccurate if we are using the "average dyad" criteria for choosing the appropriate government document cover photo.
I am not arguing that there is any particular physical characteristic that makes one photo a better choice than another. I don't think the mother or child have to be part of the majority race (if indeed the U.S. still has one). I would vote for the photo I think is more beautiful or most what I associate with breastfeeding. I would chose the photo that seems most realistic or perhaps even most interesting or most compelling. But if the U.S. government is truly asking people to make a choice, we have to be given choices. "White, white or white"? No contest.
The workplace pumping provision of the federal health care bill sounds like great news for women who pump breast milk in the workplace. Who could complain about a federal requirement that all employers give reasonable unpaid breaks to employees who need to pump for their nursing infants? On closer examination of what the law actually does, I think many of you will complain.
On its face, the new law, Section 207 (r) of the Fair Labor Standards Act(FLSA), requires unpaid break time for employees to pump breast milk for a child under age one. In a country that truly supports breastfeeding mothers and their children, women should be paid for pumps breaks. Children should breastfeed until at least a year so mothers can pump for as long as their children need them to. The new federal law has a hardship exception for employers of fewer than 50 employees. It is still unclear how many employers will evade the new requirements under an as yet undefined hardship exception.
But the problem with the new federal workplace pumping law is much bigger than all that. The problem is that there may be no way for most women to use it at all.
Go back to the FLSA. To be covered by new Section 207 (r) you have to be an employee to whom the FLSA applies in the first place.
Basically that means that if you get a salary, you are probably not covered by the FLSA and not entitled to whatever new federal workplace pumping benefits there are. Well then, the exempt workers should at least be happy for the nonexempt – the hourly workers, those women covered by Section 207 (r), right? Well, hang on.
The first thing I researched about the new federal workplace pumping law was whether there was a penalty for employers that don't comply. Finding the answer is much harder than it would appear. Go back and read the text of the bill. No, you didn't miss it. There is nothing about enforcement, penalties or remedies.
But you can't stop there because new subsection (r) is an amendment to Section 207 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. (I know this is confusing but ride along with me.) So you need to go to the FLSA and read Section 207. See if Section 207 has some enforcement, penalties or remedies. Hmm. Nope. So then you read the entire FLSA. (Actually, you don't need to unless you want to. I reread it for the first time since law school.)
There are lawyers who do exclusively FLSA work but, fair warning, I am not one of them. You can find the penalties though. Section 216, which is long and convoluted. From what I can tell, penalties are available if the employer's violation resulted in lost wages or unpaid overtime pay. But Section 207 (r) specifies that pump breaks are to be unpaid. So it appears that an employee would have to get fired to have lost wages. And women don't want to get fired over needing to use a breast pump at work.
In the real world, if an employee can't get pump breaks or a pump space, she needs an order, either from a court or a government agency, requiring the employer obey the law. What she needs is an injunction. But for injunctive relief under the FLSA, you need to look at Section 217. Did you read it? No mention of it applying to Section 207.
So what will happen to an employer who refuses to comply with the new federal workplace pumping mandate? So far, I haven't been able to find a labor lawyer who can tell me. And that makes me wonder whether the answer is "nothing at all."
The Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, has the ability to issue "Administrator Interpretations" which clarify what the FLSA means. However it is unknown when any will be issued concerning employer obligations under Section 207 (r). Unless there are complaints filed, Wage and Hour will have no reason to issue any "Interpretations."
Now, some employers are going to provide break time and pump space to all employees who need them. Some employers already do. As I wrote in Pumping 9-5 in Mothering back in 2008, 26% of all U.S. employers provided some sort of lactation support in 2007. But the study from which that figure comes does not specify how much lactation support. It is unlikely that a quarter of all U.S. employers give both unpaid break time and a place to pump that meets the requirements of the new FLSA Section 207 (r): "a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public."
So what should you do if you are an hourly worker whose employer is not complying with FLSA Section 207 (r)? Contact the U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division at 1-866-487-9243. Look around the Wage and Hour website. Have a confidential conversation at the toll free number. And then, if you would like to share your story with others, e-mail me. I am currently collecting information from workers whose employers refuse to comply with FLSA Section 207 (r). Until we know whether this new federal law can actually help women pump in the workplace, I will be writing the stories of women whose employers fail to comply with it.
has been blogging about Henry and the circumstances that led to his death at her blog, 
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