More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The first year I could vote, the choices for president were Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater or the incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ won—the largest landslide in U.S. history. Voting for him as a first-time voter felt consequential.
This year, I’ll be voting with two very special first-time voters: my twin granddaughters, in the swing state of Georgia. Our daughters’ and granddaughters’ future is in danger.
Heat kills more people in the U.S. than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined.
Earlier this month, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev announced the organizing committee for COP29, which will be held there in November. The list included 28 appointees, including Azeri government ministers of energy, health, finance and economy, among others. What the list did not include: women. Not one woman on the list.
The backlash was swift and thunderous. Global women leaders are speaking out: “Many of the key successes of the COP process, including the Paris Agreement, were delivered by women leaders, working closely with their male colleagues.”
As Joan Baez, one of my favorite songwriters/performers/activists from my political ‘coming of age’ era, once said, “Action is the antidote to despair.”
Tuesday, Nov. 7, is Election Day in the United States, and voting is one action we can all take as U.S. citizens—and a privilege for every person living in a democratic country—to fend off the despair so easily experienced given the wars, the violence, and the rollback on rights in so many places today.
There are times throughout recorded history when women have stepped up, spoken up, and taken action to resolve border and boundary disputes, to protect their cities, communities and families, and to demand and negotiate peaceful resolutions of long-term conflicts.
I am reflecting on those times today as the suffering, death and destruction in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, and the violent oppression in Iran and Afghanistan, seem beyond our ability to do anything that would mediate the violence or end the suffering. Yet, sometimes, women have come together and accomplished just that.
After the warmest summer on record, I’ve moved two climate-themed books to the top of my stack. In addition to my activism on climate, I’m also preparing for TEDWomen 2023 in October. As TEDWomen’s editorial director, I work with speakers—and it’s not unusual that some of them have also written books. Here are a few that I am reading as I help them write their talks.
And of course, I anticipate the release of 50 Years of Ms.: The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine That Ignited a Revolution on Sept. 19!
The number of women leading Australia’s largest companies has risen from a dismal 5 percent in 2020 to 30 percent today. Even still, the country’s working women still face many challenges. There is a gender pay gap (13 percent), and a lack of support for childcare and other family support systems, including paid parental leave. These are the same challenges that women face in the U.S. despite study after study recognizing these barriers to gender equity in business.
Two steps forward for Australia is good news. But so many more steps forward are needed for equal representation and economic equity, and for families, communities, companies and countries everywhere to truly thrive.
The first recorded “Woman’s Day” was observed across the United States on Feb. 28, 1909. The following year, according to the International Women’s Day history timeline, “more than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination.”
I think we can all agree that it’s more than a little frustrating that more than a century later, women across the world are still demanding equality in many of the same areas. Here in the United States, the Equal Rights Amendment—first drafted and introduced in Congress in 1923!—still hasn’t been formally published as the law of the land.
A new documentary film entitled Oh, Sister! features the stories of six Ukrainian women who are facing the challenges of the ongoing Russian invasion, and fighting for peace, justice and freedom in their country.
In the midst of troubling Taliban action, my dear friend Shabana Basij-Rasikh—the co-founder and president of the country’s first and only girls’ boarding school—keeps me updated about her mission to educate Afghan girls in middle and high school.
“Educated girls become educated women who change the world. And maybe even save it.”
