mmo Noteworthy

Past Editions: 2004

December 2004

More stay-at-home moms in the U.S.? Depends on how you look at it. A new Census report on America’s Families and Living Arrangements; New book compares working hours in the U.S., EU; World Health Organization’s “Great Expectations” series on maternal health; New Report on Women in the United States from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research; Coming soon to a nation near you: Social insecurity: experts and women's advocates say the Bush administration’s plan to privatize Social Security is mad, bad and dangerous to everyone; Just Don’t Do “It”: New report reveals inaccuracies in abstinence-only education programs; More reproductive health news: Study finds first-time caesarean births rising, U.S. voters favor nomination of Supreme Court Justices who support Roe v. Wade; Elsewhere on the web: Do babies derail the careers of academic women? Plus links to more articles, commentary and essays of interest from Women’s eNews, AlterNet, and LiteraryMama.

November 2004:

What America can learn from Europe and Canada about supporting working families; New reports and fact sheets on the benefits of early education, women and poverty, the economics of domestic violence, and job retention for low-wage working mothers; Child care in the news; Caitlin Flanagan watch; Challenges to reproductive rights; Low-wage workers forced to work off the clock; Elsewhere on the web: Essays and commentary from Katy Read, Sarah Buttenwieser and Meredith Michaels, plus an assortment of news stories and commentary from Women’s eNews, AlterNet, Ms. Magazine, and Salon.

October 2004

Got Votes? Dozens of organizations and web sites offer technical information and issues guides for women voters; the MMO lists its top picks; New reports on America’s low-wage workforce: two new reports propose policy solutions to improve conditions for low-wage workers and their families; Generation and Gender in the Workplace - a new report from the Families and Work Institute; 60 Minutes does the Opt Out Revolution - once more into the fray…; Elsewhere on the web: From Brain, Child Magazine: Stacey Evers on dads and domesticity; From TomPaine.com: Planned Parenthood’s Gloria Feldt on “conscience” or “refusal” clauses that allow health care providers to refuse to provide certain services or information; From Salon.com: Katy Read on The Cult of Personality and Rochelle L. Levy on the sadness of being a former stepmother.

September 2004

It’s official: women do more housework, child care than men— First results from the American Time Use Survey; Bad Mothers in The New Yorker; The sagging safety net: Women’s eNews Series on Women and Welfare; MMO editor Judith Stadtman Tucker gets fiesty about nurturing the class divide; Elsewhere on the web: From Alternet: what happened to women at Wal-Mart, bitches, bastards and modern marriage, motherhood in the war zone, and historian Ruth Rosen on the Summer of ‘64; Catherine Blinder on the changing face of feminism; A program on maternal depression from American Radio Works; In Slate, End of Blackness author Debra Dickerson wonders if rich kids always end up with an obnoxious sense of entitlement; Checking up on U.S. Healthcare by Merrill Goozner for TomPaine.com; and “Aborting my marriage” by Laura Walters and Amie Klempnauer on babymaking for lesbian couples from Salon.

June 2004

New study identifies long-term earnings gap; Update on women’s health care coverage; Global study finds U.S. lags behind many nations in support for working families; Get Well Soon: millions of American workers lack paid days off to care for sick kids; Elsewhere on the web: Caregiving grandparents; The Stepford Wives and Caitlin Flanagan; What Barbara Ehrenreich learned from Abu Ghraib; Ronald Reagan’s bitter legacy for women; Career Taxidermy.

May 2004

Court rules employers can’t assume mothers are less committed to their jobs; New reports track national trends in paid leave, sick leave, child care; Government removes data on working women from DOL Web site; The uncertain future of overtime pay; Wall Street Journal to re-entry moms: Unhappy Mother’s Day!; Center for Advancement of Women’s 2003 report on women’s attitudes about motherhood, work and the women’s movement.