Whose Nation?
Until a group achieves full equality within society, it’s important to remind everyone else what problems still exist and how to correct them. The new A Woman’s Nation — aka The Shriver Report– does this through articulate writing based on thoroughly vetted research.
The report is an interesting though not compelling account of the historical and continuing work-related struggles women still face in America — well expressed, backed up and foot-noted (hundreds of these). It then offers a number of reasonable, intelligent solutions that would give women the respect, compensation, job-linked flexibility (this recommendation applies to men too), and other benefits they need and deserve.
Before continuing, it’s time to answer the question almost everyone was curious about a few weeks ago. I know why TMZ nabbed Maria Shriver, cell phone to ear and talking while driving, as well as leaving her car for a long time in a Santa Monica red zone during a doctor’s appointment.
It’s because she was exhausted after her whirlwind media promo tour, during which she did her best to enthuse about the report’s groundbreaking revelations, which don’t exist; and to entice audiences to read the “provocative study that (the collective they involved) expect will spur a national conversation about what women’s emerging economic power means for our way of life.” I studied the entire report (though not every word), without finding anything new or provocative to me. I would have loved to, though.
If Maria Shriver’s name or Oprah’s were not attached to this report, would it have attracted close cooperation with John Podesta’s Center for American Progress (CAP)? How about donations from The Rockefeller Foundation, Time magazine, Hewlett-Packard Company, Cisco Systems, Inc., Visa, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Marcy Carsey and additional “financial partners?”
Google searches haven’t helped me find details about total funding for this project. One could consider that whatever sum it turns out to be might have been better spent actually serving some of these struggling women and their families? Not that it would have been…
Read it for yourself. Let me know your reaction. If I’m wrong, I want to see what I missed.
Reprinted with permission from the Valley Democrats United newsletter, Margie Murray, Editor, where the article first appeared.
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