Welcome to the Blog for the Women's Economic Empowerment Initiative that advocates for women’s economic well-being and leadership in order to achieve, and possibly exceed, the policy goals for American women that are documented and adopted in the 2020 Democrats Abroad Platform.

Initiatives:
Women's Economic Empowerment

Team Leader: Carol Moore
Contact: [email protected]

Letter from the Editors

Every March 1st we become as aware as ever that our work for Women’s Rights is not over.  Women’s History Month is there to celebrate, commemorate, and honor all the women and girls who have trail-blazed for equal opportunity and rights, and the Global Women’s Caucus is very excited. We have an extensive Women’s History Month “living library,” which includes background information, historical facts, biographies, links to online events and exhibits, suggestions for books and films, graphic templates, and social media content. Test your Women’s History knowledge with our online WHM trivia quiz! We will be updating these materials throughout the month.

This year, we join the National Women’s History Alliance with their theme of “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories”. After the overturning of Roe v Wade last June, we believe it to be crucial to remember the women that have written our history. This month, we want to showcase 31 women who have shaped feminism. Stay tuned and watch our social media accounts.

The GWC is growing, and we need your help. Join our team for this very important year. Consider volunteering with us, help friends and family register to vote, or donate! Make sure you’re registered to vote in 2023 here!

We hope you enjoy this edition, and we look forward to seeing you at our events!

Jo Meszaros and Shannon Parry, Communications Co-directors, Global Women’s Caucus

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The serious side of ‘mansplaining’ has been lost. That’s where the harm begins.
Rebecca Solnit

The key context of the word inspired by my 2008 essay is that mansplaining is one part of a huge problem – of who gets listened to, and who gets believed.

I have a file on my desktop titled Mansplaining Olympic Tryouts, mostly screenshots of some of the most epic specimens I’ve come across on social media or that people have steered my way. They’re grimly hilarious: a man explaining vaginas to a noted female gynaecologist, a man telling Sinn Féin adviser Siobhán Fenton to read the Good Friday agreement (she replied with a picture of herself with the book she wrote on that agreement), and the famous incident with Dr Jessica McCarty, about which she tweeted: “At a Nasa Earth meeting 10 years ago, a white male postdoc interrupted me to tell me that I don’t understand human drivers of fire, that I def needed to read McCarty et al. I looked him in the eye, pulled my long hair back so he could read my name tag. ‘I’m McCarty et al.’”

The word mansplaining was coined by an anonymous person in response to my 2008 essay Men Explain Things to Me and has had a lively time of it ever since. It was a New York Times word of the year in 2010, and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018; versions of it exist in many other languages from French to Icelandic, and the essay itself has appeared in many languages including Korean and Swedish. People often recount the opening incident in that almost 15-year-old essay, in which a man explained a book to me, too busy holding forth to notice that I was its author, as my friend was trying to tell him.

But pretty briskly the essay moved from the amusing to the terrifying: I then recounted an incident in which a middle-aged man explained to a very young me, chuckling, that when his neighbour ran out of the house naked in the middle of the night screaming that her husband was trying to kill her, he was confident that she was crazy and her husband was not murderous, simply because of his assumptions about gender.

Here’s what almost everyone seems to miss about mansplaining, including those doing the formal studies as well as the people telling the funny stories. It’s one corner of a colossal problem, in which biases, statuses and assumptions warp everyday life and allocate more credibility, audibility and consequence to some people than others. All this creates what I think of as inequality of voice. Whether you’re trying to convince doctors that your pain is real or neighbours that your husband is trying to kill you, it can be a life-or-death issue. It matters in offices, classrooms, conferences, boardrooms, in hospitals, on the street, in bedrooms and at dinner tables.

One high-profile recent incident of people who assumed they had the authority to control the narrative came with the police murder of Tyre Nichols, one of many incidents in recent years where video told a very different story to the one told by the police. Somehow they seem to assume that they have the impunity that comes with controlling the narrative, which in cases like this mean literally expecting to get away with murder. Inequality of voice is one of the most powerful elements of inequality of all kinds. Children and elderly people are routinely treated as incompetent witnesses to their own lives and needs. Poor people, immigrants and people with disabilities are likewise treated as subordinates and incompetents.

Non-white people are too often assumed to be less trustworthy, less qualified to speak and act in many kinds of situation, and – to state the obvious – too often regarded as criminal simply on the basis of colour.

There are a lot of stories about people of colour being assumed to have stolen the vehicles they drive or be the servants at posh gatherings; I’ve heard from some of the latter first-hand. There have been many studies about how often women and people of colour are ignored or disbelieved when they report pain, sickness and injury, and how that impacts health outcomes. Black women in the US have a disproportionate incidence of dangerous medical experiences related to pregnancy and birth because of unequal access to care – and to credibility. Even tennis star Serena Williams was at first dismissed when she reported a postpartum pulmonary embolism.

People have also tried to render the word gender-neutral, which would make it meaningless. We have lots of other words – arrogant wanker, patronising idiot, Dunning-Kruger prize winner, for example – for acts of misplaced condescension. But reducing the issue to incidents of being merely patronised in conversational exchanges misses what matters. A phrase I often use is “dosage is cumulative”. If you spend your life being assumed to be less competent, less qualified to speak and less worthy of being listened to, more likely to be mocked, ignored or insulted, it inhibits your willingness to speak up and participate. So it’s not just what happens in the moment that matters, but how it shapes how we perceive ourselves and others in the long run.

The credibility gap turns into a hugely harmful thing with sexual assault and gender violence, in which men have historically been believed over women. It often brings on victims’ despair about reporting such abuse, because if you will not be believed, and if you will be mocked, shamed, harassed or even criminalised for reporting abuse, why would you bother? Almost all sexual abuse involves a perpetrator with higher social status, and a big part of that status is the ability to control the story and suppress other versions. It’s what serial rapists like Harvey Weinstein and serial child molesters like gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar relied upon during decades-long criminal careers. Inequality of voice isn’t just what happens after such crimes; it’s too often what perpetrators count upon beforehand.

It’s great that the word mansplaining exists, along with spin-offs such as whitesplaining and westsplaining (the latter for North Americans and western Europeans explaining the invasion of Ukraine and eastern European politics with narratives centred on our political histories rather than theirs). But everything loses meaning when it loses context.

Mansplaining’s meaning requires the broader context of intersecting inequalities and assumptions that play out in everyday life, with consequences that are occasionally amusing but too often nightmarish. My goal always was to advocate for a democracy of voice, for equality in who gets to speak, who’s heard, and who’s believed and respected when they speak, across all categories.

• Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist

Reposted from URL: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/09/mansplaining-word-problem-rebecca-solnit?CMP=share_btn_link

Letter from the Editor

Dear Member,

The results of the ‘22 midterm elections are an attestation to the hard work, commitment, and persistence of our membership body. Because of you and your vote, we were able to block a ‘red wave’ and keep our majority in the Senate. This feat further demonstrates that the democratic party is most aligned with the will of the people, as our numbers endured redistricting and discriminatory voting restrictions. Our will has triumphed, and we will continue to work for equality and justice for those who are continually marginalized.

Democracy has prevailed, but it continues to stand on precarious ground. While we all take a moment to breathe, we must remain dedicated to the task at hand. The Global Women’s Caucus is mobilizing our members to vote in the Georgia runoff. WE NEED OUR GEORGIA MEMBERS to make sure to, once again, cast your vote for the future of our nation. We are counting on you!

As the GWC continues to grow, we need your help. We have open positions in Communications. Consider volunteering with us, help friends and family register to vote, or donate! Make sure you’re registered to vote here!

Lastly, this will be my farewell newsletter as your GWC Communications Co-Director and Newsletter Editor. It has been an honor to work alongside such incredible and outstanding women for the last two years. I have learned so much from this position, and although I may no longer be speaking to you all from here, you can be sure I will be marching alongside you no matter where we are. 

We hope you enjoy this edition, and we look forward to seeing you at our events!

Stayce Camparo, Communications Co-director, Global Women’s Caucus

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Letter from the Editor

Dear Member,

Today we celebrate Equality Day, and the anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution that prohibits States and the Federal Government from denying the right to vote on the basis of sex. The struggle for this right was not won by all at the time of ratification, and is under threat today. The Global Women’s Caucus is asking you to join us in commemorating and celebrating this struggle by helping to mobilize our base for the ‘22 midterms so that we can exercise our right to vote. With nearly 9 million Americans living abroad, we have the power to make impactful and lasting changes this election. As the Republicans pursue tactics to undermine the democratic practice of free and fair elections, we will fight back by voting in numbers and sending the loud and clear message that we will not, and cannot be quieted!

November marks the pivotal moment in deciding our future. We have the chance to ensure that pro-choice and pro-equality candidates win their seats, and WE NEED YOU! First, we need you to register to vote in your State to receive your absentee ballot here. Then we need you to help us Get Out the Vote, by contacting everyone you know who is eligible to vote and making sure they are ready to cast their ballot as well. Lastly, please help our efforts by checking out our GOTV Equality toolkit here. With your help, we can win in November!

We hope you enjoy this special edition filled with voting information, events, and stories of motivation from our leaders and members!

Stayce Camparo, Communications Co-director, Global Women’s Caucus

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Letter from the Editor

Dear Member,

This is not lightly stated: the Republican party is blatantly pursuing an agenda to strip the rights and freedoms from women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and our youth. They have succeeded in the establishment of a conservative Supreme Court that is threatening the long fought-for protections of equality and rights. They are pursuing tactics that undermine the democratic practice of free and fair elections. They are doing this without full representation of the people and they are not heeding our cry!

We find ourselves at a pivotal moment in the course of deciding our future. The Global Women’s Caucus is preparing to mobilize our members to make sure we Get Out the Vote in November for the midterms. We have the chance to ensure that pro-choice and pro-equality candidates win their seats, and WE NEED YOU! 

As the GWC continues to grow, we need your help. Join our team for this very important midterm year. Consider volunteering with us, help friends and family register to vote, or donate! Make sure you’re registered to vote in 2022 here!

We hope you enjoy this edition, and we look forward to seeing you at our events!

Stayce Camparo, Communications Co-director, Global Women’s Caucus

 Join us

Letter from the Editor

This June, the Global Women’s Caucus celebrates 30 years of sisterhood, progress and growth. Starting at the country-level in France, the Women’s Caucus has grown into a global entity with a mission to mobilize voters and raise a strong unified voice on the issues that impact American women, both stateside and abroad. Our tenets: educate, build community, and promote activism, are the beacons that guide our leaders and members to continue to be active American citizens, regardless of where we live.

Join us June 18th, as we celebrate together from the place it all began. If you can’t join us in Paris, we welcome you to create your own event to discuss the issues and future of the Global Women’s Caucus.

A final note on the state of reproductive rights: We know you are angry. We are angry too. Our democracy and rights are being threatened by only a few, with the lone goal of oppression and control over a female’s right of choice. TAKE THAT ANGER TO THE MIDTERMS! As the GWC continues to grow, we need your help. Join our team for this very important midterm year. Consider volunteering with us, help friends and family register to vote, or donate! Make sure you’re registered to vote in 2022 here!

We hope you enjoy this edition, and we look forward to seeing you at our events!

Stayce Camparo, Communications Co-director, Global Women’s Caucus

 Join us