Open Letters To The New President
Comments (0) I don’t generally play the fan girl and I don’t ever advocate the adoration of any person in this way, but I did find some fascinating statements in these letters. I didn’t vote for him. But I am interested in watching him to see what occurs within his administration.
In their latest issue (hitting newsstands January 27), Ms. Magazine has collected a stunning array of letters and remarks from feminist icons and activists across the country, written directly to President Barack Obama.
Some of the more memorable among them:
SOW EDUCATION, REAP REWARDS.
To solve the most challenging problems facing our world, President Obama should actively promote global gender equality. For every additional year of education a woman receives beyond the fourth grade, her average family size drops by 20 percent, her children’s mortality rates drop by 10 percent and her risk of HIV/AIDS infection drops by over 50 percent.
—KAVITA RAMDAS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, GLOBAL FUND FOR WOMEN
ENSURE WOMEN CAN EARN.
The road to social parity for women of all cultures, including Afghanistan, is the same: universal education for girls, access to health care and family planning for women, and, above all, the means to earn money. Earnings give a woman a voice in the family, the society and her own destiny. Nothing else will elevate a woman as quickly in any culture, including our own.
—MAVIS LENO, CHAIR, FEMINIST MAJORITY FOUNDATION’S CAMPAIGN TO HELP AFGHAN WOMEN AND GIRLS
ROOT OUT MILITARY RAPE.
As commander in chief, President Obama can direct the military never to tolerate or hide the sexual persecution of its women again, and to lift the ban against women in combat, which denies them the respect they have earned. Today, even as women soldiers are fighting and dying in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, their treatment by their comrades is a national scandal. They are sent into combat without official recognition, one-third are sexually assaulted and almost all are harassed. Here is Obama’s chance to take on military misogyny at its roots.
—HELEN BENEDICT, AUTHOR OF THE FORTHCOMING THE LONELY SOLDIER: THE PRIVATE WAR OF WOMEN SERVING IN IRAQ (BEACON PRESS, APRIL)
DEAR PRESIDENT OBAMA:
I have received so many breathless letters myself and now it’s role reversal time. You have reawakened a disillusioned and passive electorate and begun healing racial wounds that have crippled us for centuries. I believe, like you do, that America today is not as intolerant and bitterly divided as we are encouraged to be by the mainstream media and the military industrial complex that dictates its messaging. It is my sincere hope that our national discourse will rise to your example and employ more humility and maturity in the political arena. I look forward to working with you. ¡Viva democracia!
—ANI DIFRANCO, SINGER-SONGWRITER
BROADEN HEALTH CARE.
Create health care systems that are culturally competent, linguistically accessible and geographically centered in underserved communities. It is imperative for our nation’s leaders to make the health of women of color a priority.
—ELEANOR HINTON HOYTT, PRESIDENT AND CEO, BLACK WOMEN’S HEALTH IMPERATIVE
RE-ROUTE U.S. MONEY.
It’ll be a long hard slog for our new president to correct all the ways American policies deepen the marginalization and poverty of women in developing countries. From the boatloads of cash we send to patriarchal, undemocratic regimes such as Saudi Arabia to the trade policies that allow U.S. corporations to exploit the labor of some of the most impoverished women in the world—it’ll take more than the brush of a presidential pen. In the meantime, can we at least not spread sexist dogma with our aid dollars? Billions in U.S. funding for HIV/AIDS prevention require recipients to preach abstinence and condemn prostitution. It doesn’t work, it’s dangerous and it should end, straight away.
—SONIA SHAH, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST; AUTHOR OF THE BODY HUNTERS: TESTING NEW DRUGS ON THE WORLD’S POOREST PATIENTS AND CRUDE: THE STORY OF OIL
REMEMBER THE THREE R’S.
Feminists understand that equality for women and girls will be sustained when government makes progressive education a national agenda. As we study and learn together we create community. Making literacy and democratic education available to everyone is the necessary foundation for responsible citizenship. Without education, diverse populations cannot communicate across boundaries.
—BELL HOOKS, AUTHOR AND DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR IN RESIDENCE, BEREA COLLEGE
DON’T FORGET THE POOR.
The most urgent problem facing women and girls here and around the globe is poverty and its dire consequences: poor health, dying young, illiteracy, violence, HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, dependency, bleak futures. Women continue to be unsafe in their homes, their workplaces, refugee camps and in war-torn spots around the world. Their families, not just middle-class families, need the president’s ear.
—BEVERLY GUY-SHEFTALL, FOUNDING DIRECTOR, WOMEN’S RESEARCH & RESOURCE CENTER, SPELMAN COLLEGE
ELEVATE WOMEN SCIENTISTS.
President Obama can encourage young women to enter careers in science and technology by appointing distinguished women to influential positions in such federal agencies as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Young women need to believe that they have a place in science, and success breeds success.
—SHIRLEY M. TILGHMAN, PRESIDENT, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
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