Clinton confirmed as secretary of state by 94-2 vote – CNN.com.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. Senate approved the nomination of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state Wednesday by a vote of 94-2.
All we have to say is “YES!”
Hillary did it! And we are very, very proud of her.
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I’m a big believer in proclaiming “Women of the Year.” I believe in identifying positive role models to give us 
all something to aspire to.
It also helps to give us hope when some of our goals….such as electing a woman to the White House… seem, at times, to recede before us, like those refracted heat waves that appear to form shapes, then vanish in the desert, leaving us wondering where is our palm lined pool of shimmering water? Nothing but miles and miles of dry, hot desert when it comes to women’s presidential aspirations. But, better to light a candle than curse the darkness. The candles women have lit and carried in the past year, or a bit over in one case, include some of the following outstanding women:
The New York Daily News named their New Yorker of the Year saying: “Hillary Clinton proved a woman of resolve and class.”
We couldn’t agree more. And she did a lot more than that. She made it more feasible for a woman to run for President of the United States, and she upped the ante for contenders to 18 million votes. But Clinton’s skills as a campaigner, we predict, will be overshadowed by her skills as a serious decision maker and global negotiator. I, for one, am heartened and relieved that , at least, the second phone call which comes in at 3am will be to Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
I don’t believe in “book-ending” Governor Sarah Palin with Clinton, but neither do I believe in ignoring her plucky candidacy. She was called on and she took up the challenge, energizing her party and becoming a celebrity in the process. Common wisdom has it that she made Tina Fey a bigger celebrity in the process as well with her Saturday Night caricatures of Palin. I don’t deny those caricatures were fun, of a type, but I will find them a lot funnier when we actually do have a woman in the White House.
I think we should give Queen Elizabeth of England some appreciation if, for nothing else, endurance. She fills that classic 
requirement: 50% of winning is “just showing up for the job”. Queen Elizabeth has shown up for over 50 years, if you only count the years since her coronation. ( She also, for example, presided over public events and, during the war, trained as a driver and mechanic, and drove a military truck making her the first, and so far only, female member of the Royal Family to actively serve in the armed forces.)
I met Benazir Bhutto in San Francisco in 2001, I believe. Although there was some controversy surrounding her I always admired her and found her speaking inspiring. “Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state,[5] having twice been Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988–1990; 1993–1996). She was Pakistan‘s first and to date only female prime minister. She went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan on 18 October 2007, and was assassinated on 27 December 2007, after departing a PPP rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, two weeks before the scheduled Pakistani general election of 2008 where she was a leading opposition candidate. The following year she was named one of seven winners of the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights.
I think Bhutto provides another example of a woman persisting in her beliefs and showing up in the face of personal danger. Although she died a few days before 2008, it is now time to mark the anniversary of her violent death. I salute her and say farewell.
I know there are many, many more women who should be saluted and honored in 2008.
I would nominate all the women who worked so hard for their candidates in 2008.
I would nominate all the mothers and daughters and wives who worked to maintain their families and those who lost loved ones in national service in conflicts abroad.
I would nominate all of us who have persevered, despite an unlevel playing field and personal challenges.
I suspect that might be all of us.
If you have women you think should be named women of the year, please do write and share with us who they are.
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Want to see real change? Obama is nominating someone for a Cabinet post, Secretary of Labor, who 
has been about change all her life, and who has shaken up the old boy’s club doing it.
Hilda Solis, according to Harold Meyerson in the Los Angeles Times is “the Latina daughter of immigrants, a product and champion of the labor movement, a staunch environmentalist, an ardent feminist and one of the gutsiest elected officials in American politics.”
Now, that’s what we’re talking about.
“I’m very excited,” said Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “This is an extraordinary moment for all women, but especially for the Latino community.”
One of seven siblings and daughter of Nicaraguan and Mexican parents, her father a union shop steward, Solis has been concerned all her life with the lives of the working poor. ” In 1996, as a first-term member of the California state Senate (and its first Latina member), Solis did something elected officials just don’t do: She took money out of her own campaign treasury to jump-start an initiative campaign to raise the California minimum wage. Californians passed it overwhelmingly.”
In the state senate, Solis focused on cleaning up the air and environment in factory neighborhoods and projects to improve poor communities. She stood up against domestic violence in cultures where male dominance and female submissiveness were ancient and ingrained habits and families often turned a blind eye to this type of abuse.
In 2000, in another gutsy move, Solis challenged a member of her own party for his seat in Congress and won by 69% to 31%. Her victory signaled a tidal wave of change that had been building in L.A. with the influx of immigrants and the gradual transformation of red neighborhoods to blue.
Coming from a Waspy backround, but partnered with an Hispanic, living in a vibrant city with over 50% Hispanics and imbued with Latin culture and having lived in Latin America for five years, I had long seen the handwriting on the wall. As the Latin population has grown in all of the U.S.‘s major cities, new identities, forged by the challenge of equal rights and labor struggles, education, immigration, bi-lingualism and other daunting issues, have created new power for Latinos who are seizing success in virtually every arena of life in the U.S. From cinema to restaurants, singing to salsa. Latinas are no longer on the fringes of power, but in the white hot center.
I wanted for Latinas and Latinos the same thing I seek for women in our culture: genuine equity. And, after many years of working for women’s rights, I realize that comes from two things: succeeding in pocket book issues and wining office in politics. So I was appropriately thrilled to learn of Hilda Solis’s nomination to prominent office, where she will, without a doubt, be a groundbreaker.
“It was no coincidence that shortly after Solis’s 2000 victory, virtually every Democratic elected official in Los Angeles marched alongside striking union janitors. As the janitors could (and did) attest, Solis’ victory had been theirs too.
“Known as a coalition builder in Congress, Solis has continued to focus on labor, immigration and environmental issues, “coauthoring the Green Jobs Act, providing federal funds for job training in retrofitting, solar panel installation and other environmentally friendly occupations.”
Hilda Solis is clearly a change agent. She has a proven record of change. And, once in office, we will look forward to her, with passion and her hallmark fearlessness, continuing to transform the landscape around her.
If you ask me, Hilda Solis is change we can believe in.
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Women’s groups have begun a “Cabinet Watch” to keep track of how many women Obama actually selects to lead in his administration. Until recently, the picture looked pretty bleak. Obama had appointed only four women out of 16 announced cabinet positions. That score should improve today when Obama will announce his pick to head the SEC: veteran regulator. Mary L. Schapiro, will be the first woman to chair the SEC on more than an interim basis.
Once dismissed by the head of the Chicago Board of Trade as a “blond, 5-foot-2-inch girl,”and dissed by then New York state Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer….. remember him, the guy whose career imploded along with his resignation as Governor of New York in a call girl scandal? Schapiro has risen through hard work and tough, smart moves to the top of the heap. Sound familiar?
Schapiro has gained respect for her investor first principles, her willingness to listen and an exemplary record of expelling crooks and cracking down on unsavory practices and sales abuse. Something the current SEC has notably failed to do. Certainly they failed to detect Bernard L. Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme and failed to provide effective oversight of the kind of abuses that led to the current financial collapse. I mean, that was the SEC’s job, right?
In a recent speech, Schapiro said “Clearly, our regulatory system failed to compensate for the failures of market discipline and failed to appreciate the interdependencies of financial institutions and the risks they shared. The system did not allow regulators to stay ahead of this crisis and prevent it from ever occurring.”
So, the “old boys club” has had their shot at regulating the markets and look where that got us. In a mind boggling recession and still headed South. As has been said, a woman has to be twice as good to get the same job as a man. Now, at last, a woman has a chance to go in and straighten out the mess we’re in. She’s done it before. My bet is, she will do it again. I certainly wish her well. And chalk up another first for women.
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Many have characterized Obama’s cabinet picks as “A Team of Rivals,” borrowing from historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s description of Lincoln’s cabinet.
But, in fact, Julian Zelizer in CNN.Politics.com maintains Obama’s team is shaping up as a group of Clinton-era centrists and that Bill Clinton must be smiling.
“The most striking characteristic of the current lineup ( including Senator Clinton) is how the personalities reflect the centrist vision of the Democratic Party promoted by Bill Clinton and his colleagues at the Democratic Leadership Council in the 1990s.
Obama has called on experts who aggressively promoted globalization and deregulation on economic matters, pushed for welfare reform, and accepted the necessity of military force and a strong defense. There are exceptions, but overall thus far, it appears Obama will be advised from the center.
Some of Obama’s core supporters are surprised and upset with his choices while others say his choices are a logical reaction to the crises facing his administration.
A close look at Obama’s development since 2004 suggests centrism should have been expected. There is little evidence beyond his history as a community organizer to indicate Obama is left of center.
That’s part of the irony of the attacks made by Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin against Obama for his association with 1960s radicals and statements about progressive taxation.
When Obama was introduced to the national scene at the 2004 Democratic Convention, his keynote speech focused on the need to overcome political polarization and long-standing divisions. In the most famous part of the speech, Obama said, “there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America.”
This is far from the rallying cries of Sen. Ted Kennedy who has enthusiastically defended the liberal tradition of his party.
During his presidential campaign in 2008, Obama’s policy proposals were not at all radical. Indeed many of his key positions looked much more like those of Bill Clinton than Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson.”
So Hillary Clinton may be a perfect match, after all.
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Feminist Law Professors ; Congratulations to Bev Perdue, North Carolina’s first woman governor!.
AdvancingWomen.com joins Feminist Law Professors in giving our …..
Charlotte Observer account of her victory here. Excerpts below:
Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue rode a national tide of Democratic support Tuesday to become the first female governor of North Carolina.
Perdue, who has held office in Raleigh for nearly a quarter century, was propelled into the governor’s office despite a sweeping drive across the state and the nation for new faces and change. …
… Perdue’s victory makes her the 30th woman to serve as a governor in the United States. She rarely spoke about the possible precedent but won in a state that didn’t officially pass the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote until 1970. In the 19th century, the first bill allowing women to vote was sent to the state legislative committee on insane asylums.
–Ann Bartow
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As we look back at this long, I think exhausting, electoral season, I guess we can feel lucky we have a democratic process, with a peaceful instead of bloody change of regimes. None-the-less, I can’t help feeling that the light it has shone on the prevailing attitudes towards and treatment of women candidates has illuminated some dark places in our hearts and has been, at least metaphorically, both brutal and bloody.
No one has addressed this better or managed to make more incisive points than the esteemed Lynette Long or other guests who’ve posted on her blog. Some, I believe, have really gotten down to some root causes and effects which I’d like to share with you, from a non-partisan, but pro-woman standpoint.
Artemis March in a guest post Lynette Long: SARAH PALIN: A RORSHACH FOR FEMINISTS discusses where women stand today, both with how they are portrayed in the media, and their standing as candidates in the political parties:
“The truth is this: A woman can’t deal with sexism solo. She has to have a Greek Chorus to amplify, interpret, and spin with, for, and about her. And, after 40 years, there is no Greek Chorus for women at the national level. Nada. Zip.
After 40 years, feminist organizations and spokeswomen have not been able to create a cultural context that would make it impermissible to attack women and perpetrate the kind of vicious misogyny directed at Hillary Clinton and now at Sarah Palin. It would be a tall order given that patriarchy has been organizing our social world and our culture for 5,000-6,000 years. The only good news here is that the behavior of the DNC has made it transparent to many of us that we’ll never get there by being an appendage of the DNC and held hostage to Roe.
If establishment feminists had any real clout with the DNC, Hillary would be taking the oath of office on January 20. Rather than attacking women candidates who don’t fit their precious self-image, leftist so-called feminists and those wondrous postfeminists should get over themselves. If they had done that a year ago, Hillary would be on her way to the White House, and we wouldn’t be in this mess of opting between which set of candidates scares us less.
Sarah Palin is a rorschach for the Left and for feminists. She has exposed the boundaries and implicit rules for inclusion in their clubs, thereby sparking a much needed dialogue about what feminism is and can be. She has thrown into relief the limitations of establishment feminist strategies, and blown open the door to alternative strategies. Sarah Palin arrived on the national scene at the moment when many Hillary supporters were recognizing an old political truth: If you can’t walk away from the table, you have no bargaining power. If you have no alternatives, you will get nothing but crumbs.”
And speaking of alternative strategies, Greta Van Susteren came up with an alternative strategy on Lynette Long: ARE YOU KIDDING??? FROM GRETA ON GRETAWIRE.
“I can’t get over it….are they nuts?”, Greta asks about women who portray themselves as leaders for women but proceed to attack other women running for office.
Their inertia (and now criticism of those who disagree with them) has made them utterly irrelevant. I will give them credit for starting the ball rolling for women (that was yesterday) but now (today) they are in the way. Now they are putting a stop on women. They are hurting women. I can’t figure out why….
Real Feminists are DOERS — working ! Role models! Taking a chance! Showing everyone women can! And yes, Feminists are Governors and Governors are Feminists! Feminists are not women drinking the kool aid – blogging with each other how terrible the world is to women. That doesn’t help. Frankly, that’s lame…really lame.
Yes, there is sexism in the world and lots of it — but a real Feminist goes out and fights it…and fights it by becoming a role model, being successful, showing we can and we want to…and a Feminist has independent thoughts and positions – yes, dares to disagree with the women who are stuck in the past …those women just blogging …thinking “woe is me..there is sexism out there that stands in my way..that is why I have become so utterly pathetic where only my very small crowd of equally pathetics will listen….I am so unhappy and it must be someone else’s fault.”
You don’t have to agree with Governor Palin on all issues or even one issue to know that she truly IS a Feminist. She is out there being a role model…she is a doer on a giant level..she takes hits from the media and she keeps going..nothing is stopping her…in fact, she doesn’t have time to sit around and complain. She creates more opportunity for women each day than one can quantify. This is what women wanted. Yes, women can be Governors..engineers…..run for Vice President…professional athletes…news anchors…professors….business owners….lawyers…doctors….and even astronauts. We wanted women to have choices…we wanted it so that women had equal opportunity to succeed.
Feminists should be excited for what Governor Palin has done for women — you don’t have to vote for her but you should give her credit for what she has been doing and is doing for women.”
And the following comment by Greta really hit home with me. I keep getting hate emails from one side or the other, attacking one candidate or the other. And the thing that both puzzles and galls me is that these are from people who never sat in a phone bank calling to ask for support, never block walked, never painted a sign or planted it in a lawn, never attended a rally or donated a dollar to either party. And yet a day or two before one of the most important elections our country has held, they believe a flood of spam hate email will actually influence, convince and carry the day. Wake up!
So I join Greta when she says…
“Get over it. Here is an idea: instead of sitting on your keyboard sniping at other Feminists …get off your a** and campaign for the other ticket! That’s a novel idea: DO! and make yourself relevant again! who knows? you might even become happy!”"
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Lynette Long: Palin Displays Her Feminist Side – From the Washington Post.
AdvancingWomen.com adheres to a strictly non partisan policy, but we do support women and we’d like to see a lot more of them in office and a lot more of them recognizing and talking about positions which will help women. So we’re always glad to see another excellent post by Lynette Long who is very outspoken on her pro-women positions.
Lynette Long
HENDERSON, Nev. — Extolling the virtues of equal pay and opportunity for women, this afternoon GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin framed her White House quest in terms of feminist values.
“I have a question for the women in the audience,” the Alaska governor began her speech here at the Henderson Pavillion, underneath an arching white tent. “Are you willing to break the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America?”
Palin surrounded herself onstage with two higher-profile defectors from Sen. Hillary Clinton’s camp — Lynn Rothschild, a member of the Democratic Platform Committee, and Elaine Lafferty, a former editor-in-chief of Ms. Magazine — along with Shelly Mandell, the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women, Linda Klinge, the vice president of Oregon’s NOW chapter and Prameela Bartholomeusz, a small business owner and member of the Democratic National Platform Committee….
Lynn Rothschild, former Hillary Clinton Supporter
And while Palin has spoken repeatedly on the stump about shattering the “glass ceiling” with her candidacy, this afternoon she lashed out at Democratic nominee Barack Obama as a hypocrite who fails to treat women — including Clinton — as equals.
“When the time came to make a decision, Barack Obama couldn’t bring himself to pick the woman who got eighteen million votes in the primary,” Palin said of Obama’s vice presidential pick, comparing it to the discrimination women face in the workplace every day. “The qualifications are there, but for some reason the promotion never comes … You’ve got to ask yourself, why wasn’t Senator Hillary Clinton even vetted by the Obama campaign?”
Elaine Lafferty, former editor-in-chief Ms. Magazine
Palin went on to suggest Obama discriminated against women employees in his own Senate office, as opposed to GOP presidential nominee John McCain.
“There is a difference between what Barack Obama says and what he does,” she declared. “Out on the stump, he talks about things like equal pay for equal work, but according to Senate records, women on his staff get just 83 cents for every dollar that the men get. What is with that? Does he think that the women aren’t working as hard? Does he think they’re 17 percent less productive?”
“I know one senator who does pay women equal pay,” she added, referring to McCain.
Within minutes of Palin’s remarks, Obama senior advisor Anita Dunn issued a statement saying, “Senator Obama has fought for equal pay for an equal day’s work, while Senator McCain has suggested that women don’t get equal pay because they need more education and training. While Senator Obama has proposed a plan to help working women, the McCain-Palin campaign offers just more negative attacks and distortions.”
An Obama aide who asked not to identified said that women on McCain’s staff earn more comparable salaries to men on staff because they occupy more senior, high-paid posts in the Arizona senator’s office, not because Obama discriminates against women.
Palin went on to say, if elected, she would pursue policies such as flexibility in labor laws so women could engage in more telecommuting and would push for a tax code “that doesn’t penalize working families.”
“Working mothers need an advocate, and they will have one when this working mother is working for all of you,” she said, as the crowd cheered.
A former high school basketball player, Palin then launched into a detailed discussion of Title IX, a 1972 law that banned discrimination in any educational program or activity that receives federal financial assistance. The law applies to a broad range of activities, but it has helped ensure high schools and colleges provide equal funding for sports programs and other measures in which men and women participate.
Palin said that she had benefited from Title IX, and for women of her generation, “Over time, that opened more than doors to just the gymnasium. It allowed us to view ourselves, and our futures, in a different way.”
While she credited feminists with the enactment of Title IX — saying, “We owed that opportunity to women, to feminists who came before us” — Palin quickly emphasized that Americans who embraced a different ideology could also push for gender equality. “A belief in equal opportunity is not just the cause of feminists. It’s the creed of our country.”
Toward the end of her remarks Palin seemed to echo the theme that Clinton touted as First Lady: that women across the globe deserved the same rights that American women enjoy, including freedom for sex trafficking and honor killings. “If I am elected, these women will have an advocate and an defender in the forty-seventh vice president of the United States,” she told the audience.
Let’s hope that either candidate who is elected will choose to advocate for and defend women. It’s high time.
For more posts by Lynnette Long, go to Lynette Long
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Image by Surfer Labor via Flickr
Fourteen million people watched Saturday Night Live when Sarah Palin dropped by and took over the stage and the microphone from her late night clone/imitator Tina Fey. In some circles there is no higher compliment or touchstone than to be parodied by SNL. It means you’ve arrived.
There’s little doubt Palin has energized the conservative Republican base and drawn huge, enthusiastic crowds when she speaks. Is she critiqued, marginalized and mocked by the liberal elite? Yes, many of them. Will it make a difference? Maybe not, since the liberal elite are not voting for her anyway. I did read a report from one woman, a Democrat and not a Palin fan, who said, out of curiosity, she attended a Palin rally: “Whatever they may say, Governor Palin is a star. The moment she took command of the stage I knew I hadn’t seen such star power since Bill Clinton’s personality filled the stage. So whatever happens in the election, I think Sarah Palin is going to be a huge star in the Republican party.”
Peggy Noonan, conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and Ronald Reagan speech writer, a member of her own party, does not much like Palin: “There is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office.”
Even if that were true, if Palin ever does get elected to higher office, she certainly wouldn’t be the first president we could say that about. What do you think? Do you find Sarah Palin refreshing and energizing, or ready for the icy trail back to Alaska and the arctic wilderness? Let us hear from you.
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The Women’s Conference 2008 – Be Who You Are…an Architect of Change.
A non-profit, non-partisan organization and forum, The Women’s Conference educates, inspires and empowers women through an annual convention and the WE Empower network. Under the leadership of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver, The Women’s Conference has grown from a small government initiative for working professionals into a far-reaching organization, a life-changing experience, and an international network of women from all walks of life, backgrounds and perspectives.
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
First First Lady Maria Shriver is calling on all attendees of The Women’s Conference 2008 to help alleviate the food shortage in California. As Honorary Chair of CaliforniaVolunteers, she believes that all 37 million Californians have the ability to serve and make a positive impact in their communities. By launching the largest statewide volunteer matching network at www.CaliforniaVolunteers.org, the people of California can connect with thousands of volunteer opportunities.Lady Maria Shriver is calling on all attendees of The Women’s Conference 2008 to help alleviate the food shortage in California. As Honorary Chair of CaliforniaVolunteers, she believes that all 37 million Californians have the ability to serve and make a positive impact in their communities. By launching the largest statewide volunteer matching network at www.CaliforniaVolunteers.org, the people of California can connect with thousands of volunteer opportunities.
Shriver has transformed the Women’s Conference into one of the nation’s largest and most successful one-day women’s conferences, with past speakers including Oprah Winfrey, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Jane Fonda, Queen Noor of Jordan and Suze Orman. She also created the Minerva Awards (named after the Goddess Minerva on the California State Seal who epitomizes courage, wisdom and strength), given annually at the conference, to highlight the achievements of California women who make extraordinary contributions to their communities and the state.
This is the type of community building and empowerment which AdvancingWomen.com fully supports and is dedicated to supporting. Do you have any thoughts or stories you want to share with others, any experiences about how you’ve helped empower others or been empowered yourself? If so, please do share them.
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