Hip, hip, Latinas!

Hispanic Business magazine lauds successful Latinas making an impact on America's workplace by naming 20 to their Winner's Circle of Elite Women. They include an astronaut (Ellen Ochoa), California State Senator (Gloria Romero), IT entrepreneur (Nina Vaca), and a university president (Dr. Elsa Murano, Texas A and M).
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?idx=94479

The Case for Women Leaders

Alternet has excerpted part of Madelin M. Kunin's Pearls, Politics, and Power (Chelsea Green, 2008), which states the case, not just for more women leaders, but leadership more in the recently-identified women's style of running things. It's provocative. A too-brief runthrough of the difference between transactional leadership, said to be clearly masculine, one of hierarchy and command, and transformational, a more feminized process that's shared and premised on common purpose, led to an obvious irony. Hillary Clinton's style seems nearly textbook transactional, while Barack Obama's is transformational.

I don't know whether she gets to those other women who've learned to act mega alpha because they think that's the only way they'll be heeded. And, I'm wondering, too, about those pearls.

The B**** is back

Just when you thought we were getting cozy with Women's History Month and other niceties, Ellen Snortland of AlterNet dug up for us our pet controversy: that over the B word. Snortland's is a powerful, provocative and convincing argument that if being called a Bitch means you're no more Mrs. Nice Guy, that's as it should be. She says, I would like to see the word "bitch" elevated to its proper place in the English language, transformed from sexist epithet to a word of adoration and awe.
Read the piece, "Is 'bitch' the new Black?", and let us know what you think.

Campus Lockdown: Women of Color Negotiating the Academic Industrial Complex

DATE: Saturday, March 15, 2008
TIME: 10:30 AM - 5:00 PM
LOCATION: Michigan Union, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
For more information & to register online: http://www.woclockdown.org/

Campus Lockdown: Women of Color Negotiating the Academic Industrial Complex The Campus Lockdown Conference is organized by undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Michigan. Its aim is to promote dialogue on the politics of women of color scholarship in a post-Proposal 2 (anti-Affirmative Action) environment. Women scholars of color from universities across the country will participate in critical discussions of a host of issues relating to politics, pedagogy, and campus climate for women devoted to pubic scholarship. The conference is intended as an organized community forum space and all attendees are encouraged to contribute to the day's ongoing conversations.

Statement of University of Michigan students and faculty in support of UM Native American Studies Director Andrea Smith's tenure case. | Action alert.

Speakers:
Piya Chatterjee, University of California, Riverside
Angela Davis, University of California, Santa Cruz (via teleconference)
Rosa Linda Fregoso, University of Southern California
Ruthie Gilmore, University of Southern California
Fred Moten, Duke University
Clarissa Rojas, San Francisco State University
Haunani-Kay Trask, University of Hawai'I

CO-SPONSORS: University of Michigan Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program, Center for the Education of Women, Department of History of Art, Department of Women’s Studies, Division of Student Affairs, Michigan Student Assembly, Museum Studies Program, Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs, Students of Color of Rackham Native Caucus, William Monroe Trotter Multicultural Center, Women of Color in the Academy Project

March 8 is International Women's Day

Visit the official IWD site to learn more, support it, get a logo link to display on your site.

Also added this week at IMDiversity.com:

Women's History Month Profile 2008

Annual Census release paints statistical portrait of U.S. women at work, school, home, business and beyond

More readings will be added to our women's village news section and in other villages throughout the month, including updates to the annual Asian Pacific American Wall of Fame at the Women's History Month @ Asian American Village and the Women's History Month - Latina Wall of Fame at Hispanic American Village, and more...

BLACK COLLEGIAN Profiles NASA Astronaut Joan Higginbotham

Of interest at our sister publication, THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online, new features have been from the paper magazine's first semester edition, including its engaging cover interview with NASA Astronaut Joan Higginbotham, discussing her career path en route to becoming only the third African American woman astronaut.

The interview is part of the edition's theme section on Careers in Science, Engineering & Technology.

Incidentally, for flight buffs, the upcoming edition will include a Black History Month section feature commemorating Vernice Armour – The First African-American Woman Combat Pilot.

Addendum--The Steinem stew

Just minutes after posting my op-ed rejoinder to Gloria Steinem and the other second wave feminists for their blinkered view of America’s race-torn society—for those not caught up in the fray, Ms. Steinem posits that women are a more aggrieved minority than African-Americans in Why Women are Never Front-Runners —I received an email from a friend, a woman of “good politics.” With a subject line, “How it would feel if Hillary is elected president,” I opened to a video of a woman standing over a man on the floor; she is kicking him repeatedly in his private parts while he doubles up to shield himself from the assault, groaning in agony.
It gave me great pause. Although I still think Steinem’s argument skewed, divisive and inappropriate, the video made me realize that what many of us see as Senator Clinton’s unpleasant and aggressive personality has been used by Hillary haters of the Stone Age and the Right to evoke and legitimize deeply-held misogyny. What’s very often relegated to personal bad behaviour—and misogyny--in personal relationships has been projected onto Clinton as a very, very dangerous emblem of “all women” or all women who don’t know their place. Yep, along with the racists, this campaign is bringing them out of the woodwork.
So, heads upped, I’ll have to give Steinem’s victimization some wiggle room. But, I must still ask her to talk to women of color, not just from Smith or Smith-Barney, and to African-American men of all stripes, before she again sets back the cause of progress.