Women's Philanthropy--Women's Issues

Victoria Manalo Draves, Olympic Champion Diver, Dies at 85

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/sports/olympics/30draves.html?ref=obituaries

By FRANK LITSKY

 Published: April 29, 2010

Victoria Manalo Draves, an Asian-American diver who overcame ethnic prejudice early in her career to become the first woman to win springboard and platform gold medals in the same Olympics, in 1948, died on April 11 in Palm Springs, Calif. She was 85.

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Associated Press

Victoria Manalo Draves, the first woman to win the springboard and platform at the same Olympics, also won many U.S. titles.

Olympic Photo Association

Draves, center, at the London Games in 1948.

Her death, which had not been widely reported, was caused by complications of pancreatic cancer, her son David said. She lived in Palm Springs and died in a hospital there.

Vicki Manalo was the daughter of a Filipino father and an English mother, in a society in which mixed marriages were generally frowned on. When she was 17, she sought to join the Fairmont Hotel Swimming and Diving Club in San Francisco. As she told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2005, the club’s coach, Phil Patterson, told her that because of her Filipino name she could not join the club.

Instead, she said, he “formed a ‘special’ club just for me — the Patterson School of Swimming and Diving.”

“I think he was a prejudiced man,” she added. “It wasn’t special for me. It was his way of separating me from the others.”

He also told her that she could not compete unless she changed her name to Taylor, her mother’s maiden name, she said. She and her mother reluctantly agreed.

“I don’t know how my dad felt,” Draves said in an oral history in 1991, “because he never said anything.”

In 1948, by then married to her new coach, Lyle Draves, she made history in the Olympic Games in London. In her first competition there, on the 3-meter springboard, Draves trailed Zoe Ann Olsen, a teammate from home, going into her last dive, a back one-and-a-half somersault. As Draves told Dr. Margaret Costa in the oral history interview, “I was so nervous that I would shake before each dive.”

Draves, at 5 feet 1, won that gold medal, then another off the 10-meter platform, her stronger event. She and Sammy Lee, the men’s platform winner and a Korean-American, became the first divers of Asian descent to win Olympic gold medals.

Victoria Taylor Manalo Draves was born Dec. 31, 1924 in San Francisco and grew up there one of three sisters, including her nonidentical twin. (A brother died before she was born.) Her father had immigrated from the Philippines; her mother, from England.

“I wanted to be a ballet dancer,” Draves said in the oral history, published by The Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles. “We were a very poor family, and there was no opportunity to extend on those desires.” She said she did not learn to swim until she was 9 or 10. “I was really kind of afraid of the water,” she said.

When she was 16, she and her sisters took a trolley (fare: 5 cents) to a pool to swim. She was introduced there to a diving coach and learned rapidly.

At 19, she met Draves, the coach at the Athens Athletic Club in Oakland, started working with him and used her name again. She and Draves, an electrical engineer by trade, married in 1946. (She was given away at the wedding by Lee.) Draves went on to coach future Olympic champions like Patricia McCormick and Sue Gossick.

From 1946 through 1948, Draves coached his wife to five United States championships.

After the Olympics, Draves turned professional and appeared in water shows like Larry Crosby’s “Rhapsody in Swimtime” at Soldier Field in Chicago and in the swimmer Buster Crabbe’s “Aqua Parade,” which toured internationally.

Draves and her husband later ran a swimming and diving training program in California, and she worked as a secretary.

She was elected to the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 1969. In 2005, San Francisco built a two-acre park in her old neighborhood and named it in her honor.

Besides her son David and her husband, she is survived by three other sons, Jeffrey, Dale and Kim; six grandchildren, one great-grandchild and her twin sister, Consuelo Sessions.

Draves always believed she was destined for diving success. In many languages, Victoria means victory. In Tagalog, a major language in the Philippines, the word manalo means win.

Malia Wollan contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 30, 2010, on page A17 of the New York edition.

Outrage Erupts Over Failed Iranian Bid for UN Commission on Status of Women

SOURCE:  http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=12374

Feminist News

April 29, 2010

Feminists worldwide are outraged over an attempt by Iran to gain a seat on the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Iran reportedly withdrew a bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights council and announced candidacy for membership in the commission last week, according to Radio Free Europe. The CSW meets annually and aims to "evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide."

Iranian women's rights activists and other feminists worldwide wrote an open letter to the UN opposing Iranian's candidacy for CSW membership. The letter references that Iranian women have been "arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of [the discriminatory] laws" in place in Iran and also states that "the Iranian government will certainly use [CSW membership] to curtail the progress and advancement of women," reported Radio Free Europe.

In February, Gender Equality in Iran issued a petition that demands "an end to state-led violence and repression" in Iran. In part, it said, "Over the past eight months, the grass-roots protest movement that emerged following the disputed presidential elections has been suppressed by mounting violence. Physical and psychological violence - through arrest, torture, rape, extended imprisonment, and even execution - has been exercised against civil and political activists in Iran. As of now, numerous women activists from various movements - women's, workers, students, civil, and political - are detained and/or have received heavy sentences. The list of detainees grows everyday."

In addition to the continued harassment of activists, during the fall of 2009 a documentary attacking Iran's women's rights movement was broadcast on state television. At about the same time, the head of Iran's state television, Ezatollah Zarghami, declared that state-sponsored television programs will henceforth prohibit women who appear on air from using make-up. Zarghami told the newspaper Eternad that "make-up by women during television programs is illegal and against Islamic Sharia law. There should not be a single case of a woman wearing make-up during a program."

More recently, a senior Iranian cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, created a firestorm when he blamed earthquakes on women's attire. He said, "Women who do not dress modestly...lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes," reported the Washington Post.

Media Resources: Radio Free Europe 4/29/10; UN Commission on Status of Women; Feminist Daily Newswire 12/14/09, 2/10/10; Washington Post 4/21/10

Copyright 2009 Feminist Majority Foundation 1600 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 801 Arlington, VA 22209 703-522-2214 (Phone) 703-522-2219 (Fax)

Deanna Fei’s first novel “A Thread of Sky

SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/books/review/Finnerty-t.html?nl=books&emc=booksupdateema3

Sunday Book Review

Emo-Tourism

By AMY FINNERTY

Published: April 26, 2010

In Deanna Fei’s first novel, “A Thread of Sky,” three generations of a family’s women confront identity issues, both timeless and of the moment. Irene, a Chinese scientist living in Queens, has sacrificed her career to stay home, making her American-born daughters the center of her universe. This disappoints her own mother, a failed revolutionary who thinks women must “push and strain forward” or “be part of the backward pull.” In turn, Irene’s outwardly perfect children forsake much of life’s joy in the name of ambition. But with Harvard, Yale and Stanford on their résumés — and all three girls were high-school valedictorians — Irene now wonders if she shouldn’t have raised them to feel “quite so special.”

Peter S. Goodman

Deanna Fei

A THREAD OF SKY

By Deanna Fei

354 pp. The Penguin Press. $24.95

It takes a catastrophe to soften their edges. Wanting “a break” after 30 years of marriage, their father leaves home, then dies in a car crash just hours later. Suddenly unmoored, Irene persuades her aged mother, her sister (a poet who lives in Hong Kong) and her daughters to join her on a tour of China.

Fei has a lot of basket cases to manage on this trip. While the book’s jacket calls the daughters “fiercely independent,” they might be more aptly described as humorless, fragile and insanely competitive. “None of them knew how to admit sadness, or confusion, or hurt,” we are told, because it seems too much like weakness. In mastering their feelings, they forfeit a measure of their humanity.

The youngest, Sophie, a Stanford-bound artist, suffers from bulimia; she wants to be at the top of her class, while masking her effort to get there. The eldest, Nora, a Wall Street trader, has “lived her life as an unending test.” She owns a house with gleaming appliances but won’t set a date with her fiancé. She cringes at the thought of pregnancy (“an alien hatching inside her”) yet is terrified of abandonment. The middle child, Kay, a graduate student in China, is “casual and dismissive” with the men she juggles. A victim of too many sociology courses, she tries to rescue sexually exploited Chinese women who sometimes don’t want to be rescued.

With China’s “must sees” as a backdrop, family secrets emerge, and Irene’s privileged daughters grow less sullen as they measure their woes against the cruelties of revolution and war that shaped their mother and grandmother. A fluent storyteller, Fei entwines this family narrative with harrowing passages about the Rape of Nanjing and the oppression of early Chinese immigrants to America. Present day anti-Asian bias, to which the sisters are ever attuned, emerges as a persistent theme, often paired with sexism.

Nora attended a Harvard “ruled by golden boys.” On her first day in a new job she contended with a male trader’s lewd, racially specific come-on. While growing up in New York she and her sisters endured a “daily barrage” of men “professing lust for their Asianness” — which translates as “sexy, docile and inarticulate.” Kay, meanwhile, lives in “a painful state of heightened awareness,” rarely able to watch television or read a newspaper without feeling “angry, or paranoid, or defeated.” At the same time, though, she sets up non-Asians for failure, lamenting “the self-congratulatory willingness of whites to accept Asians into their midst — as their girlfriends, their co-workers, even their adopted kids — as long as the status quo, their sociopolitical dominance, remained intact.”

Irene worries that she has passed on to her daughters their grandmother’s self-righteousness, “perhaps not realizing they’d be finished with American exceptionalism, historical ignorance and entitlement.” It is to Deanna Fei’s credit that she so squarely and honestly takes on a misunderstood ill — the burden of the so-called model minority. But it’s good that she also gives us Irene as a foil to her children’s heavy-handed gloom, and that, by the end of their trip, they’ve all lightened up.

Amy Finnerty is an editor at World Affairs.

A version of this review appeared in print on May 2, 2010, on page BR11 of the Sunday Book Review.

FROM LINKEDIN -- Looking to Serve on a Nonprofit Board?

LinkedIn Groups

Group: Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW) Subject: Looking to Serve on a Nonprofit Board? If you're looking to serve on a nonprofit board or recruit board members for your organization, join us for Spring Into Service: A Speed Networking Event. May 6th, 2010 5:30-7:30pm Kensington Court Hotel 610 Hilton Blvd. Ann Arbor, Mi 48108 Meet. Connect. Serve. Nonprofit organizations need talented and dedicated individuals to serve on their boards and committees and help them meet their missions. This fun and lively event takes some of the mystery out of board matching. Participants meet face-to-face with organizations in lightning rounds and learn about their missions and how you might be able to help them succeed. While there you'll have an opportunity to mix and mingle with local professionals and learn more about what's happening in the community. Make a Difference. BoardConnect, a program of NEW (Nonprofit Enterprise at Work), assists nonprofit organizations and individuals in the matching process. While at the event, you'll indicate the organizations whose missions interest you and afterwards we'll help connect you with them. While at the event you can: * Meet with Arts & Culture, Human Service, Environmental, Educational and Animal Welfare groups * Connect with other people who are interested in serving their community * Post your professional profile in the Cyber Cafe * Spring into Action and HAVE FUN! INDIVIDUALS who are interested in participating should register online: http://ow.ly/1vdNq ORGANIZATIONS who are interested MUST contact Yodit Mesfin Johnson at ymesfin@new.org or 734-998-0160 x238. Do not register online. There will be a selection process. Please submit your request and pertinent organizational information NO LATER than April 23rd to be considered. Posted By Meico Whitlock

INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE -- Monthly Update

April 2010 Send to a Friend Donate RSS

SAN DIEGO:  First Lady Praises IRC Urban Farm On a visit this month, First Lady Michelle Obama praised an IRC-supported community farm in San Diego as a model for building healthy communities across the nation and around the world. The farm, a 2.3-acre strip of city-owned land, is tended by refugees who are growing nutritious produce for their families in a neighborhood with few healthy food options. "It is just a phenomenal initiative," Mrs. Obama said. Learn More Refugees Plant New Roots at Community Farm MIAMI: A Miraculous Reunion The infant girl was barely alive and thought to be orphaned when she was pulled from the rubble of her home in Haiti and evacuated to Florida for medical care. Earlier this month, she reunited with her parents in Miami. "That Jenny survived and we are here is a miracle," says her father, Junior Alexis. The IRC has taken the family under its wing in Miami -- providing help, hope and a new home. Small Survivor Get an update on Baby Jenny and her parents HAITI: Finding Families In the wake of the earthquake disaster in Haiti, many children are homeless and separated from their families. The IRC is working to keep these children safe and taken care of while doing everything possible to find their relatives and reunite families. Latest Photos from Haiti Meet some of the IRC's "detectives" and the young quake survivors they have helped Please support our work assisting displaced people around the world by visiting www.theIRC.org/donate/donate-now or calling toll-free   1-877-REFUGEE   (1-877-733-8433). Click here for U.S. federal and state compliance notices. Tell your friends to sign up for IRC newsletters. The International Rescue Committee 122 E 42nd St New York, NY 10168 Help the IRC win $200K Cast your vote in the American Express Take Part Challenge and help the IRC win $200,000 to support our lifesaving work around the world. Spread the Word on Twitter-please retweet! RT @theIRC Dedicate gifts, like safe birthing kits for #refugee mothers, to the special moms in your lives http://bit.ly/11o9aT #MothersDay Follow the IRC on Twitter! Find us on Facebook Join our Facebook community to get updates and to comment on our work. IRC in the News Associated Press Michelle Obama tours IRC-sponsored community garden in San Diego WNYC - the Leonard Lopate Show Challenges to delivering aid in Haiti Voice of America Aid groups advocate solution to "warehousing" of refugees

Privacy Policy | RSS © 2010 International Rescue Committee

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Join us for Tomorrow's call for the Women on the Edge of Evolution teleseries at 11:00 a.m. PDT "Flourishing Through the Personal and Planetary Crisis" In Dialogue with Honored Guest, Daphne Rose Kingma Despite how much we might wish it to be otherwise, first hand experience repeatedly shows us that our greatest growth does not necessarily happen in times of stability, but rather, in periods when we are confronted with great difficulty, loss and breakdown in our lives. It is when our entire being is held up against a wall of suffering and limitation, and when we have run out of all strategies for coping or turning away from our pain, that we are faced with the humbling opportunity to learn the true meaning of faith, and surrender ourselves to inner transformation. Unfortunately, this isn't something we were taught in school, nor is it something our culture offers us much guidance for navigating. Pain and grief are some of the most potent ingredients for personal and collective transformation, and as we continue to confront a deepening crisis of global proportions, there is no doubt that we are in desperate need of new skills and tools to assist us through the chaos and support the emergence of a new world.    Join us Saturday, May 1st for an intimate conversation with author and speaker, Daphne Rose Kingma, who will share from her wealth of wisdom in working with crisis as a catalyst for personal and collective transformation. Daphne will explore the many ways that we can move beyond mere strategies of coping, so as to actually begin to flourish and transform under the pressure and evolutionary tension of our times.   Daphne Rose Kingma is the author of The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart. Her bestsellers include Coming Apart, The Men We Never Knew and The Future of Love. A six-time guest on Oprah, she has also appeared on numerous other television shows and media outlets. A charismatic speaker, she has presented keynotes and seminars to audiences throughout the United States and Europe. She lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Arizona Police Launch First Immigration Crackdown After Law's Passage (VIDEO)

SOURCE:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/arizona-police-launch-fir_n_558448.html

First Posted: 04-30-10 10:20 AM   |   Updated: 04-30-10 11:18 AM

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AP/Huffington Post

  

PHOENIX -- Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio launched his latest crime and immigration sweep Thursday, arresting 89 people, with 61 suspected of being undocumented immigrants.

Arpaio, whose tough crackdowns have made him a hero in the anti-illegal immigration community, has conducted 14 of the sweeps since 2008. Critics allege Arpaio's deputies racially profiled Hispanics during the sweeps, but Arpaio says people were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had committed crimes.

"We do not go on the street corner and grab people because they look like they're from another country," the self-styled "toughest sheriff in America" told the local ABC affiliate.

The sheriff claimed Wednesday that this latest crime sweep was scheduled weeks ago and was unrelated to Arizona's new anti-immigration law.

Arpaio has lauded the new law, however, saying it gives him new authority to detain undocumented migrants who aren't accused of committing any other crimes.

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PHOENIX -- Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio launched his latest crime and immigration sweep Thursday, arresting 89 people, with 61 suspected of being undocumented immigrants. Arpaio, whose tough cr...

PHOENIX -- Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio launched his latest crime and immigration sweep Thursday, arresting 89 people, with 61 suspected of being undocumented immigrants. Arpaio, whose tough cr...

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Ricky Martin Slams Arizona's Immigration Law SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Singer Ricky Martin joined in the criticism of Arizona's new law that will allow police to stop anyone they think...

change.org -- Women's Rights

SOURCE:  http://womensrights.change.org/

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Five Reasons Gov. Linda Lingle Should Sign Hawaii's Civil Unions Law

SOURCE:  http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/five_reasons_gov_linda_lingle_should_sign_hawaiis_civil_unions_law

Gay Rights Homepage

by Michael A. Jones April 30, 2010 06:02 AM (PT) Topics: Marriage Equality

Hawaii is one step closer to saying Aloha to civil unions, as their State House voted in favor of legislation that will extend civil unions to same-sex and opposite-sex couples. The vote was 31-20, a pretty overwhelming total, but three votes shy of being able to override a veto from the Governor.

And that's where all eyes are turning now. Gov. Linda Lingle, who is wrapping up the last few months of her final term as Hawaii's chief executive, now has 45 days to decide whether she'll sign the legislation, or veto it. What's she going to do?

Nobody knows. Gov. Lingle hasn't stated her public position on the legislation, although prior to yesterday's vote, she did ask House leaders to spend their time focusing on other matters. But that's not necessarily a sign that Gov. Lingle opposes civil unions. After all, this isn't your standard Republican governor. She's ardently pro-choice, and as chair of Hawaii's Republican Party, instituted a number of reforms to make the party more "moderate" in a state where Democrats rule the waters.

Of course, Lingle is also good friends with Sarah Palin, and praised the former Alaska Governor during the 2008 Republican National Convention. Hrumph.

So what's the Governor going to do? Well, click here and urge her to sign this law, otherwise known as House Bill 444, into law. And then check out the five reasons below why Gov. Lingle should allow Hawaii to become the next state in the union to take a step toward LGBT equality.

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Demand Governor Linda Lingle Sign Hawaii's Civil Unions Legislation

5. It's not about redefining marriage.

It's the argument that nearly everyone who opposed civil unions legislation kept trying to make. But it's a straw man, to steal a buzzword from Obama's 2008 campaign. Meaning that, while opponents say that civil unions would threaten marriage, they're talking nonsense. Why? Because civil unions have nothing to do with marriage. There's a reason people call civil unions separate: because they're a completely different institution. The state of New Jersey has said so. The state of Vermont once said so. The state of New Hampshire once said so. In other words, civil unions are merely an effort to allow gay and lesbian couples (and in this case, opposite-sex couples) to have access to the myriad of benefits that couples receive in a state like Hawaii. But it doesn't undo Hawaii's ban on gay marriage, and it certainly doesn't make a church (or churches) have to recognize a relationship that they'd rather not.

4. Hawaii and its equal rights history.

The trajectory of Hawaii on the issue of LGBT equality is a bit of a tragic story. In the early 1990s, it looked as if Hawaii's Supreme Court was on track to make Hawaii the first state in the country to recognize gay marriage. There's even a parody of Hawaii's "liberal" stance on gay rights issues in The Brady Bunch Movie (you know, the one starring Shelley Long as Carol Brady?). But what a difference a few years make. Instead, Hawaii's voters would go on to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and in many respects, the state is credited for pushing the Clinton administration to sign the Defense of Marriage Act. What a 180-degree turn. But now Hawaii has a chance to regain some of that equality mojo, by taking a step in the direction for equal rights.

3. Because Gov. Lingle is supposed to be a moderate voice in the party.

Gov. Lingle, now is the time to prove your chops. As Hawaii's first female governor, first Jewish governor, and first Republican governor (at least since 1962), Gov. Lingle is used to kicking ass and chewing bubble gum. This legislation now provides her another opportunity to break down a few barriers, and show that within the GOP, there are voices out there who understand that current laws treat LGBT couples unfairly. Gov. Lingle earned her office by telling Hawaii voters that she was a different kind of Republican, and one that wasn't afraid to perhaps take positions counter to leaders in the GOP, if it was in the best interest of Hawaiians. Well, I can't think of a moment more pressing than now for Gov. Lingle to show that she meant what she said on the campaign trail oh-so-many years ago.

2. Because nobody likes a lawsuit.

If Gov. Lingle decides to veto this bill, there's no escaping the fact that there will be a lawsuit. In fact, Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Hawaii have already thrown the gauntlet. Jenny Pizer, Lambda Legal's Marriage Project Director, praised the State House for passing HB 444 yesterday, but also made it clear that if the Governor isn't willing to support this legislation, there will be a lawsuit demonstrating that current state law is discriminatory and in violation of Hawaii's State Constitution. "We were already on O`ahu this week in
final preparations for litigation if the legislature failed to act," said Pizer. "We're delighted that, as long as Governor Lingle does not veto the bill, our lawsuit won't be necessary." Don't make the lawsuit necessary, Gov. Lingle.

1. This one's for the children. And the majority of people who support civil unions.

As numerous activists (including those with Equality Hawaii) have made perfectly clear these past few weeks (if not years), this civil unions legislation only serves to bolster Hawaii's LGBT families. "Equality feels really good," said activist Suzanne King, whose legal same-sex marriage in Massachusetts would be recognized as a civil union in Hawaii, if Gov. Lingle signs the bill. "It allows us to strengthen our family." Why? Because it means that her relationship with her partner/wife will be seen as legitimate by the state, and by society. And that's a sentiment that's particularly important for the children of LGBT parents. Meanwhile, it also bears repeating that nationwide, majorities of people support civil unions legislation, across all party lines. In fact, this past February, ABC noted that support for civil unions was at an all-time high, with nearly 66 percent of the country supporting them. In other words, this isn't a risky political move for Gov. Lingle. It's one that puts her in lockstep with two-thirds of the country.

Now, will she have the courage to sign the bill? Send her office an email now, urging her to take this step toward equal rights. No, it's not full marriage equality. But it is an important move toward giving Hawaii's LGBT couples some much needed rights, and dignity.

Photo credit: Gov. Linda Lingle's office

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.

Demand Governor Linda Lingle Sign Hawaii's Civil Unions Legislation

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We need Jennifer Brunner working for all Americans in Congress

I'm the Political Programs Manager at WCF, and I've been working with Secretary Jennifer Brunner on her campaign for U.S. Senate for 25 days now. I have poured my blood, sweat and tears into this campaign--and I mean that literally.

But I get up every day, board the Courage Express, and work until I drop because I believe so deeply that we need Jennifer Brunner working for all Americans in Congress.

The polls would have you believe that Jennifer is out of this race. But I'm here to tell you that this race is neck and neck.

35% of Ohio voters remain undecided, and 55% might change their mind. Yesterday, a reporter from the Columbus Dispatch rode with us on the Courage Express. He sent Jennifer an email that said,

"As per the poll that you are dead in the water I have one thing to say." And then he attached a picture of President Truman holding up a paper that says, "Dewey Defeats Truman."

I'm telling you this race is still a toss-up. With Brunner driving around the state, meeting residents face-to-face, we still have the chance to earn the support needed in this primary.

And gaining enthusiastic support isn't difficult once someone meets Jennifer. People connect with her vision for Ohio and quickly come to understand why she is the best person to represent them in the Senate. Her commitment, determination, and compassion will make her an effective and bold U.S. Senator, which is what Washington really needs.

If you want to see for yourself - watch this video of Jennifer talking about her true belief in being a public servant--not just a politician.

Jennifer also has amazing supporters who keep her campaign going day after day. They give gifts, contributions and smiles. They make homemade signs and greet her at every bus stop with applause and cheers.

She hasn't backed down from this primary, and she won't back down from her beliefs in Congress.

I spoke with one man who told me, "I think we need more women in office. I'm the feminist of the family, and we need Jennifer Brunner in the Senate." This man is now making phone calls for Brunner, and she needs everyone's help, all across the county, to ensure Jennifer's victory on May 4.

If you believe that we need more than 17 women in the Senate; if you want your voice hear loud and clear in our government; if the idea of a true public servant protecting your needs;  and if you want real change and fresh perspective in Washington, then you should do whatever you can for Jennifer Brunner.

You can email Brian Morgan, bmorgan@jenniferbrunner.com, to get more information on how to help. Write "WCF Volunteer" in the subject line.

Ohio and America are counting on you. Please help spread the word by sharing my blogpost and Jennifer's video with everyone you know. Together, we can pave the path for one more strong woman in the Senate.

For Women Everywhere,

Julie Daniels
WCF Political Programs Manager

 Paid for by Women's Campaign Forum, www.WCFonline.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

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