More than half a century before the COVID-19 pandemic normalized working from home, Lillian Vernon (1927-2015) launched what would eventually become a multi-million-dollar catalog business from the kitchen table of her modest home in Mount Vernon, N.Y. Her accomplishments as a pathbreaking entrepreneur were recently recognized with the installation of an exhibit: “Lillian Vernon, Kitchen Table Millionaire,” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Author: Bonnie Stabile
Bonnie Stabile, Ph.D., is associate professor and associate dean for student and academic affairs at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, where she founded and directs the Gender and Policy Center. You can follow her on Twitter @bstabile1.
At the National Mall, Artist Tiffany Shlain Is Rewriting Women into U.S. History
Tiffany Shlain’s Dendrofemonology, presented by the National Women’s History Museum and Women Connect4Good, remakes the historical tree ring into a timeline of the story of women and power in society.
The feminist history tree ring will be on display from Nov. 1-4, 2023, at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Amplifying Women’s Congressional Power
Intentional efforts advanced by citizens, academics, party leaders and actors across sectors can amplify women’s power—and staying power—in the halls of Congress, supporting them in their belonging as effective representatives of previously underrepresented constituencies.
“In addition to all the tremendous work that is happening right now to help get women elected, we need to be doing more to support them after they get elected,” said Dr. Maya Kornberg, political scientist, research fellow in the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice and author of Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process.
‘Half of Men’: The Legacy of Iran’s Gender Apartheid
“What’s happening in Iran is not a movement for reform. … It’s not a movement just for equality for women. It is a revolution. The slogans that they’re chanting could not be more clear. … They want a fundamental political change in Iran.”
U.S. Rape Culture Is Sidelining and Silencing Future Female Leaders
The recent CDC report on the health of U.S. high school students was sharply contextualized by chief medical officer Dr. Deborah Houry’s headline-grabbing remark at the report’s release: “America’s teen girls are engulfed in a growing wave of sadness, violence and trauma.”
Rape culture is defined in part by its tolerance of subjection of women to a continuum of threats. Rape culture is also characterized by sexism, which involves normalized denigration and dismissal of women. Failure to address these conditions for young girls creates more hurdles on their paths to success and the possibility of public leadership—where the ranks of women leaders continue to be proportionally much smaller than they are for men.
Half a Century of Data on American Women and Politics
At the time of the Center for American Women and Politics’ founding, there were so few women in politics that some male colleagues wondered aloud what the organization would even study.
Five decades later, in a year marked by critical milestones and mixed outcomes for women’s rights and representation, the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers Eagleton Institute of Politics is celebrating its anniversary as the original and preeminent source for data, research and resources regarding women in American politics and public life. Ms. spoke recently with Debbie Walsh, CAWP’s director for the last two decades, about the significance of that half-century mark.
Misogyny’s Gatekeeping Role at Judge Jackson’s Supreme Court Nomination Hearings
The historic hearings held last week for the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court made plain the virulent misogyny leveled at women—especially women of color, and Black women in particular—who dare aspire to positions of power in the public sphere.
Rape Rhetoric and Russia’s War on Ukraine
As in the case of many an abusive ex-partner, Putin has threateningly hovered and glowered over Ukraine since the country declared itself independent in 1991.
This playbook of bullying and domination is well known to those who study sexual and interpersonal violence, with parallels both implicit and explicit. For years, witnesses have stood on the sidelines while Putin raged and menaced.