AddieStan

It was bad enough that President Barack Obama failed to use the opportunity of Bill Richardson's exit from the nominee stage to appoint a woman to his woefully gender-unbalanced cabinet, but then he appointed a guy who appears to have utter disregard for the financial well-being of women: Judd Gregg. Gregg has a 20% approval rating from the ACLU, making him an anti-civil rights candidate. And he has consistently voted against making affirmative action measures apply to the federal government in contracting, including his vote "to disallow any funds in the [1995]Legislative Appropriations bill from being used to award, require, or encourage any Federal contract, if the contract is being awarded on the basis of the race, color, national origin, or gender of the contractor," according to On the Issues . Reference: Bill HR 1854 ; vote number 1995-317 on Jul 20, 1995 All right, Mr. President. No more Ms. Nice Guy here.

In our Viagra culture, it does not surprise your blogstress that women could easily be left out of the economic-stimulus-qua-jobs-building program that President-elect Obama has promised us. With their emphasis on infrastructure and green retrofits for job creation, the ideas being batted about appear to heavily favor jobs whose prerequisite skill sets belong largely to men. In the meantime, our health-care and educational infrastructures are also coming undone; these are sectors where women predominate, and little attention has been given to job creation in these human spheres. Linda Hirshman, with whom your blogstress sparred most vigorously during the primary season, first brought this state of affairs to our attention on the op-ed page of the New York Times not very long ago. Now, a group of women, including feminist economists, have launched an online petition to the president-elect, politely asking that half of the population be dealt into the new New Deal. Here's the t...