In putting their health and the health of their newborns first, too many mothers are likely loading up on debt just to get by. And those choices can follow them for the rest of their lives.

By Bryce Covert of The Nation –

When it comes to taking time off for a new baby, the best-laid plans often go awry. Sonya Underwood had worked at a hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, for eleven years before getting pregnant with her third son. As a single mother, she prepared to cover the income she would lose during her unpaid leave, hoarding paid time off and taking out disability insurance. And then real life intervened. Doctors told Underwood that she had an incompetent cervix and put her on bed rest three weeks ahead of schedule. Then her son arrived at twenty-six weeks. The twelve weeks of leave she is guaranteed by the Family and Medical Leave Act soon ran out, as did the insurance, even though her son remained in the NICU. “I didn’t have any money left,” Underwood said. So she went back to work and visited him at the hospital every day.

But once her son came home, Underwood’s situation quickly became untenable. Daycare centers wouldn’t take a medically fragile baby. Her human resources department informed her that her only choice was more unpaid leave. “It didn’t help out my situation because I still had rent due, my car note due, utilities, everything else,” she said. After she exhausted that leave, she was let go from her job, lost her car and couldn’t qualify for unemployment insurance because of her role as her son’s caretaker. The only places left to turn were Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and a loan she already knew would be difficult to pay back. “I’m a victim of FMLA because it didn’t help my family,” she concluded.

Many new mothers in this country are like Underwood: working women who give birth without guaranteed time to recuperate and care for their babies. Those who take unpaid leave often resort to drastic measures, such as going deep into debt, to make ends meet. Only three federal laws have ever been passed that offer protections for workers with new children. The best known is the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which requires that employers of a certain size allow new parents up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave. No federal law requires employers to provide paid leave to new parents, and eighteen states offer nothing beyond the FMLA. Unsurprisingly, the Census Bureau has found that over 40 percent of new mothers take unpaid leave.

But many workers aren’t even guaranteed that. Less than half of the country’s private-sector workers are covered by FMLA, which may explain why over a quarter of all workers—in situations similar to Underwood’s—either quit or are let go of their jobs when they need to take leave.

More on The Nation

In Missouri, you can be fired for being Gay but not for owning a Gun

Free at Last, Free to Blast
The Daily Show with John Stewart
Aasif Mandvi talks to Missouri State Representative Wanda Brown about her Second Amendment crusade to release gun owners from the shackles of persecution.

BY AMBER MAC for Fast Company

While chatting with a business colleague yesterday, she made a statement that I hear all too often from my female friends. As an independent contractor, her client asked her to do a significant amount of additional work that was not part of their original deal. Instead of asking for more compensation, she said she would probably just put in the extra hours, because she felt uncomfortable launching into the money conversation. In fact, she even apologized to me about how she hesitated with her client and was worried there would be repercussions.

Just recently, I finished the New York Times best seller, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World by Lisa Bloom, an insightful read about how women are leading the charge in many areas, such as outperforming men for the first time ever in employment in urban areas, but still spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on the “wrong” things. While the book centers on our obsession with pop culture and beauty, what I took away from it was the need for women to start saying “no” more and to stop apologizing for doing so.

“Women need to stop apologizing for routine workplace events,” Bloom shared with me in an email. “Ladies, every time the word ‘sorry’ is about to fly out of your mouth, think: Have I actually done something wrong? Or has this just become a verbal tic?”

Here are three things that women often apologize for and what we can do to stop, today.
1. Our financial expectations. Ever since women entered the workforce en masse, there have been reports revealing that we make less on average than our male counterparts. Although this gap is lessening, there is still much progress to be made. Yes, talking about money can be an uncomfortable endeavor. However, if you’re armed with good ammunition to back up your demand, you’ll feel more confident and ready to engage in that dialogue. In other words, be clear what you want, and don’t leave until you get it (well, within reason). Moreover, when in contract negotiations for any job or project, engage an advisor so that you have a second set of eyes on the details and can work out what’s acceptable and what’s not with someone well-versed in the small print.
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2. Our physical appearance. Earlier this week I did a little tally of how long it took me to prepare for one of my other jobs, working as a national TV host on a business news network. The night before our shoot, I spent two hours with my clothing sponsor picking out my wardrobe for upcoming shoots. The next morning I spent two hours getting my hair done, two hours getting my nails done, and 30 minutes in makeup just before the show. Almost a full day, and I haven’t even started my job, compared with my co-host, who literally grabbed a clean shirt and was ready to go (yes, he’s male).

While I understand that the demands of the broadcast business insofar as appearance are significant, that same pressure does exist in the average workplace and requires added time for women (time most of us don’t have). I have heard women apologize countless times if they’re not looking runway-ready at work, due to everything from pulling all-nighters to get a job done or battling sleep deprivation due to taking care of a sick child. Sure, it’s important to look professional in the workplace, but it’s time to lessen the pressure we put on ourselves to look perfect. Oh, and while I’m on this subject, let’s try to band together a little more to support our female colleagues who might not always be in season with the latest fashion or who are not the perfect size 6 (or is it 4 now?). Instead, let’s focus on what’s important–what we achieve.

3. Our professional accomplishments. “Women are trained to be sensitive to everyone’s feelings, not to be selfish, and not to brag,” Bloom explains to me when I ask about this culture of saying sorry. “These are good traits to have. Be we also need to understand that sometimes it’s not appropriate to apologize–like when we haven’t done anything wrong.”

When I was starting my career as a television journalist in my 20s, I’ll never forget an experience I had with my male boss. I rushed into his office to share with him that I just got asked to be a national technology expert on a popular news program. He looked up at me and said, “Fantastic, it’s just a matter of time before you’ll be on the cover of Playboy!” I kid you not. Instead of standing up for myself, I shrunk into myself and tried to battle his sarcasm with a muted apology about how this was a big deal because I’m from a small town, worked really hard, and such an offer meant a lot to me. Ugh, if only I could turn back time and take Bloom’s advice, “In the workplace we need to take responsibility for our mistakes, sure, but also for our successes,” she says. “Many women can do the former but not the latter.”

Measure of American Study on Womens Well-Being –
Women’s Well-Being: Ranking America’s Top 25 Metro Areas explores where women are doing best, ranking the twenty-five most populous U.S. metropolitan areas by their score on the American Human Development Index.

Related article by Emma Gray in the Huffington Post:

Where you live may determine a whole lot more than the view you wake up to. A new report released by Measure Of America indicates that a woman’s well-being is inextricably linked to where she resides.

The report focuses on the 25 most populated metropolitan areas in the United States and ranks each city based on the American Human Development Index (AHDI). This measure examines information for each region on women’s educational attainment, life expectancy and median earnings, converting this data into a score out of 10. Although women in the majority of these metropolitan areas are faring as well or better than average — the average American woman’s score on the AHDI is a five — six regions ranked below this national standard. (Scroll down to see the full rankings.)

The nation’s capital, which also came out on top for women’s pay in a survey released for Equal Pay Day on April 17th, topped the list. In D.C. women make an average of $16,000 more each year than women in the lowest-ranked urban area, Riverside-San Bernadino. There, according to the report, 1 in 5 women haven’t completed high school, and female workers earn an average of $22,300 — the same as the national average for both men and women in 1970, adjusted for inflation. When it comes to life expectancy, San Francisco wins. Women in the Bay area live to 84 and ½, compared the the national average of 81.3.

Measure of America also looked at how women’s marital status, race and ethnicity factored into overall well-being. One noteworthy finding was that a higher percentage of single women tended to mean higher overall earnings for women in a given metropolitan area. The report also found that African-American women have the shortest life expectancy and faced some specific health challenges, including higher rates of HIV infection. Asian and Latina women tend to outlive Caucasian and African-American women, even though Latina women fall behind when it comes to educational attainment.

Where does your hometown fall on this list?

More on Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/best-cities-for-women-metropolitan-areas-well-being-measure-of-america_n_1465731.html?1335822622&icid=maing-grid10%7Clegacy%7Cdl11%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D156735

In a way, the controversies surrounding Ashley Judd’s puffy face has done immense good. Not only have our media exposed themselves as sexist scavengers that perpetuate fascist beauty standards in evaluating women’s worth in our society, but this so-called news update has allowed for an emergence of a much needed dialogue on a much undermined feminist issue. And who better than Ashley Judd herself to confront the pernicious impacts of yellow journalism that comprise mass media selling points today?

Judd raises several critical questions that inform such innocent curiosities of bystanders on puffy faces. Such insulated have we become within ourselves against attacks on our collective human intelligence that we have ended up evaluating each other based on how we measure up against a strict yardstick of beauty that generates advertising money. Such depraved are we today as never before in terms of recognizing our unique selves that we crave to adulate a physical form that requires validation from outside before it can appeal to our inner selves.

Through her powerful, evocative and emancipatory writing in true feministic traditions, Ashley Judd also reminds us of our vulnerabilities of constantly being judged while we accept the assaults silently. If it requires courage, conviction and a public platform for a celebrity of her stature to register a protest, how ridiculously difficult it must be for young children and teenagers today who are constantly subjected to reminders of their less than ideal body image?

Judd compels us to interrogate our shoddy privileges when we denigrate the less ideal bodies and how it becomes more pathetic as women are asked to “better watch out” in fear of the philandering husband. She forces us to reexamine traditional components of patriarchal setups that conveniently blame the men exclusively and she reminds how grim the situation really is today when most women are falling for the sexist spells. That, she was first criticized by women for her looks is no mere coincidence. In fact, like gullible and willful agents of patriarchy – a system mirrored after dominant male perspectives – women unquestioningly look upto and emulate the male priorities and adapt to them as their own. Especially in the entertainment industry, where the male producers amass the wealth, it is the female performers that feel emancipated through approved looks. Ashley Judd minces no words, makes her personal political, and reflects upon her career of approvals that has received significant jolts along the way whenever she has failed to satisfy the conditions fulfilling beauty criterion.

She writes, “this abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women…..In fact, it’s about boys and men, too, who are equally objectified and ridiculed, according to heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny the full and dynamic range of their personhood.”

Entire article can be found on The Daily Beast.

Travis Waldron of Think Progress comments on Gov. Scott Walker’s latest decision that will jeopardize the interests of wage discrimination victims.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly repealed his state’s equal pay law last week, a decision that will make it harder for victims of wage discrimination to sue for lost earnings and back wages. The law was enacted primarily to address the massive pay gap that exists between male and female workers, which is even bigger in Wisconsin than in other states.

Repealing the law was a no-brainer for state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R), who led the effort because of his belief that pay discrimination is a myth driven by liberal women’s groups. Ignoring multiple studies showing that the pay gap exists, Grothman blamed females for prioritizing childrearing and homemaking instead of money, saying, “Money is more important for men,” The Daily Beast reports:

Whatever gaps exist, he insists, stem from women’s decision to prioritize childrearing over their careers. “Take a hypothetical husband and wife who are both lawyers,” he says. “But the husband is working 50 or 60 hours a week, going all out, making 200 grand a year. The woman takes time off, raises kids, is not go go go. Now they’re 50 years old. The husband is making 200 grand a year, the woman is making 40 grand a year. It wasn’t discrimination. There was a different sense of urgency in each person.” [...]
Grothman doesn’t accept these studies. When I ran the numbers by him, he replied, “The American Association of University Women is a pretty liberal group.” Nor, he argued, does its conclusion take into account other factors, like “goals in life. You could argue that money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.”

Among Grothman’s inaccuracies is the idea that only males “expect to be a breadwinner someday.” In two-thirds of American families, women are either primary or co-breadwinners, and yet they still earn less than their male counterparts in all 50 states.

In 2011, the Wisconsin GOP carried out an extensive war on workers that led to recall efforts for state representatives, senators, and Walker himself. In 2012, Grothman and his colleagues have expanded that war to one on women, meaning a group of workers that was already struggling to keep pace with their male counterparts is only going to fall further behind.

by Katie Matlack

Women are the more active gender on online social networks, and are the healthcare decisionmakers in most families, too. Taken together, these two facts help explain why women–moms in particular–often are responsible for using the web to bring powerful stories from the grassroots level to the world, effecting real change in healthcare.

To learn more about the topic I spoke with Deb Levine, a pioneer when it comes to using the web as a tool for social change related to health information access and technology. She founded the award-winning online sexual health Q&A site Go Ask Alice, and recently won an award from the White House for her team’s design of an app used to help prevent dating violence at colleges and universities. Levine, a mother of two, observed that being a mom “informs all of [her] work and writing” and is “an overarching influence” on her.

“Women who are mothers are writing about sensitive issues,” she continued. “[They] are the people who, in bringing health issues to the forefront, are pushing healthcare reform and access while also bringing attention to important issues like maternal mortality.”

Below, I’ll discuss six moms doing important work to improve healthcare and the tools available in health for the wellness of themselves and their families–and ultimately, of all of us.

Deb Levine – Trustworthy health information access for young adults

Levine built what’s known by many as the first major health Q&A site, Go Ask Alice; it was also named by Stanford University as the most accurate reproductive health info site on the Internet. The site’s success–it receives over 1.5 million hits per month–illustrates what Levine’s work showed us: that “topics considered to be shameful and embarrassing like sex are best discussed behind a screen–computer screen then, mobile phone and PDA today.” Today Levine directs a nonprofit, Internet Sexuality Information Services, and is organizing next month’s conference, Sex::Tech, on new media, youth, and sexual health.

Elita Kalma – Spreading information about benefits of breastfeeding to women of color

With the birth of her first child, Kalma wisely started her helpful, delightful and assertive blog Blactating after discovering that few voices online advocating for breastfeeding were from women of color. She tells her own experience about breastfeeding, thus acting as a critical role model among women of color debating nursing. The Surgeon General reports that breastfeeding rates are about half as great among black at birth as compared to white children, with negative health repercussions since breastfeeding can counter child obesity as well as a range of other health issues, so here Kalma’s advocacy can act to spur online conversation, dispel misinformation, and raise awareness to help benefit readers and readers who are women of color in particular.

Jodi Jacobson – Advocacy for public health and reproductive and sexual health & justice

Visit RH Reality Check (RH stands for reproductive health) to get an idea of Jacobson’s impact. She’s the Editor-in-Chief there and writes regularly about news events that stand to impact reproductive health rights. For example, Jacobson was partially responsible for publicizing and drumming up outcry against the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s policy change in February that, were it not reversed, would have denied preventative health services to thousands of women. In addition to providing information directly to the masses on this site, Jacobsen frequently weighs in as an expert cited in mainstream publications including the Lancet and The Economist. She also founded and led the Center for Health and Gender Equity, an internationally-influential organization that produces cutting-edge research on international policies and programs.

Robin Strongin – Elimination of “gatekeepers” to drive disruptive change in the health sphere

The name of the blog Strongin created sums it up: Disruptive Women in Health Care. The blog’s been around since 2008 and serves as a platform for “provocative ideas, thoughts, and solutions in health.” Strongin realized that the health sphere needed input and direction from some outsiders in order to advance the pace of change. Today bloggers post on her site about underreported issues such as the surprising shortage of primary care physicians or the need for better incentives for mobile health in the U.S. Thus, the blog serves to amplify the voices of its contributors through its coverage in mainstream media outlets such as CBS.

Penelope Trunk – Creation of dialogue around miscarriage and working women’s health issues

Trunk writes a popular blog about “the intersection between work and life” and regularly posts Tweets shared on her site as well. When she inadvertently created an uproar by tweeting about her own miscarriage, however, her influence on society’s acceptance and understanding of health issues was made clear, too. Major outlets such as ABC, CNN and AOL covered the reactions to the tweet, serving to shed light on the misplaced shame that sometimes complicates understanding and support of health issues.

Mary Brune – Connecting moms to information about toxic environmental risks

Brune’s work highlights important information that impacts infant health as well as environmental health conditions that touch us all. Her site, MOMS–which stands for “Making Our Milk Safe”–was founded to bring mothers together to collaborate for a healthier and safer environment for their children. It publicizes risks and protection measures on toxics, and has been featured in a PBS special on toxic toys.

(Katie Matlack writes about health IT topics ranging from medical billing software reviews to social media for doctors and health advocates, to electronic health record adoption, as a blogger for Software Advice, an Austin-based startup.)

A new report from the National Women’s Law Center reveals that health insurance companies are charging women an extra billion dollars annually. Why? Straight up gender discrimination, of course. The report finds a widespread practice of for-profit health insurers charging women more than men for the identical coverage. and states are doing very little to stop the thievery. In the states that don’t ban health insurance gender discrimination, 92% of the best-selling plans charge women more than men. President Obama’s Affordable Care Act would ban this practice nationally – saving women a billion dollars a year. Too bad for women that Republicans are working as hard as they can to repeal the law, commonly called Obamacare. Is the war against women affecting you yet?

92% of best-selling insurance plans gender rate
- By Common Dreams staff
According to a report from the non-profit National Women’s Law Center, the practice of health insurance companies charging women more than men for the same coverage is rampant, and costs women one billion dollars a year.
The report, Turning to Fairness: Insurance discrimination against women today and the Affordable Care Act (pdf), states that although insurance companies are aware of this discrimination, they have not taken steps to eliminate the widespread practice.
Some states have banned the practice, the group reports, but it won’t end nationally until the full enactment of the Affordable Care Act in 2014.
From the report:
Gender rating, the practice of charging women different premiums than men, results in significantly higher rates charged to women throughout the country. In states that have not banned the practice, the vast majority, 92%, of best-selling plans gender rate, for example, charging 40-year-old women more than 40-year-old men for coverage. Only 3% of these plans cover maternity services.? 
Based on an average of currently advertised premiums and the most recent data on the number of women in the individual health insurance market, the practice of gender rating costs women approximately $1 billion a year.? 
Even with maternity coverage excluded, nearly a third of plans examined charge 25- and 40-year-old women at least 30% more than men for the same coverage and in some cases, the difference is far greater. For example, one company charged 25-year-old women 85% more than men for the same coverage, again excluding maternity coverage altogether. These differences result in women paying significantly more for health insurance every year than their male counterparts. For example, one plan in South Dakota charges a 40-year-old woman $1252.80 more a year than a 40-year-old man for the same coverage.? 
The Affordable Care Act applies nationally and eliminates gender rating in the individual market, requires all plans on the individual market to provide maternity coverage, and prohibits sex discrimination in health plans from insurance companies that receive federal funds or are conducted by the federal government.

Little is known about the Abortion Provider Appreciation Day. March 10 is observed to celebrate abortion providers because it is essential to recognize that Crisis Pregnancy Centers are fake “clinics” driven by anti-abortion agenda. They often have no clinical staff, spread lies, guilt-trip women and enormously delay and complicate women’s ability to access abortion.

New York City today witnessed a protest and march against sites of women’s oppression. The march started from the St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue because the Catholic Church’s approach to women, gender, science and sexuality is a Dark Ages disaster! The Pope has condemned condoms (causing millions of HIV/AIDS deaths). The Church condemns homosexuality and insists that “divorce is a sin” (contributing to women staying in abusive marriages). Recently, Catholic Bishops urged “non-compliance with new regulations requiring health insurance to cover birth control!

Registering the protest at St. Patrick's Cathedral

The March to Times Square was aimed at protesting the objectification of women. Women’s near naked and rail-thin bodies are used to sell everything from clothes to cars to “American culture” to the entire world. Protesters also targeted the US Military Recruiting Center because US military’s quasi-official reliance on brothels as a “perk” to make soldiers and the role of military forces in trafficking women and girls and the epidemic of rape, harassment and violence against female soldiers are core issues that needs addressing.

International Women’s Day celebrations in New York also witnessed a march to and protest strip clubs. American men spend an estimated $15 billion a year on strip clubs, as compared to $4 billion on baseball. Strip clubs have always objectified and degraded women. But as women have entered – and fought for increasing respect in – the public sphere, strip clubs have become an enclave for sexism and male entitlement towards women’s bodies. Further, strip clubs prey upon the desperation, abuse and addiction of many women, including trafficked women.

As one of the organizers, Sunsara Taylor from Stop Patriarchy points out, “Our protest is not symbolic. It is a beginning. It is a declaration. From now, until we win the full liberation of women, this war on women will be resisted with conscience, anger, imagination, massive mobilization, and relentless determination to turn the tide.”

Media Coordinator for this report:
Saswat Pattanayak – spattanayak@womensrightsny.com

Kathryn Pereda was fired because her employer said she did not qualify for FMLA leave. She sued and the court found on her behalf.

Appellate judges noted that neither they nor apparently any other circuit court had considered this issue. They had dodged the question in a ruling involving an employee who wanted leave before she was eligible. But believing that FMLA actually requires employees to give their employers as much notice as possible of their impending need for leave, they ruled for Perry on her interference claim and sent the retaliation claim back to the district court for reconsideration.

The intent of the law was to set up protection for pregnant women though employers continue to use it to instead fire them. Or worse, tell them they have to quit further aggravating their situation.

Brief Summary -
Appellant Kathryn Pereda (“Pereda”) appealed the district court’s dismissal of  her complaint alleging violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (“FMLA”), 29 U.S.C. § 2601, et seq., by Appellee Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc. (“Brookdale”).  The district court held that because Pereda was not an “eligible employee” at the time she was terminated, she could not bring her claims under the FMLA.  The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded, holding Pereda stated sufficient facts to establish prima facie claims for both FMLA interference and retaliation.

Extended Summary –
Pereda filed suit against her employer, Brookdale, alleging claims for interference (Count I) and retaliation (Count II) under the FMLA.  Her complaint asserted that Brookdale interfered with her FMLA rights by denying her benefits to which she was entitled, and by terminating her for attempting to exercise those rights.  Brookdale moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.  The district court dismissed Pereda’s complaint, reasoning that Brookdale could not have interfered with Pereda’s FMLA rights, because she was not entitled to FMLA leave at the time that she requested it.  The district court also held that since Pereda was not eligible for FMLA leave, she could not have engaged in protected activity; thus, Brookdale could not have retaliated against her.  Pereda appealed, presenting the Eleventh Circuit with an issue of first impression.

After examining the various elements of the FMLA regulatory scheme, the Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded.  With respect to Pereda’s interference claim, the court held that it must construe Pereda as “eligible” for FMLA protection.  In so holding, the court noted that because the FMLA requires notice in advance of future leave, employees are protected from interference prior to the occurrence of a triggering event, such as the birth of a child; otherwise, “a loophole is created whereby an employer has total freedom to terminate an employee before she can ever become eligible.”  The court further held that Pereda alleged a valid cause of action for retaliation under the FMLA, because a pre-eligible discussion of post-eligible FMLA leave is protected activity.