Hannah Wallace

Women at the Top

 A recent Stanford-University of Chicago study showed that women in Congress sponsor and cosponsor more legislation than their male colleagues do. They bring more federal resources and assistance back to their districts and get more cosponsors for their bill. So why do women hold only 16 percent of the seats in Congress? And why are just a paltry 12 percent of U.S. governors female?  I found out during my recent interview with political strategist Mary Hughes, founder of the 2012 Project, a campaign that encourages women over 45 to run for political office. Here's a quick tease. (To read the  the full interview, click through to page 15.)

In 2008 it seemed for a brief, heady moment that women were asserting their rightful place in national politics: Hillary Clinton ran for president, and Sarah Palin for vice president. But neither were elected, and the 2010 mid-term elections proved a major setback for women in politics. For the first time since 1978, female representation in Congress actually declined. Today, women hold just 16% of seats in Congress. Only 12% of governors are women and 23% of state legislators are women. 

Hoping to reverse these depressing statistics, political strategist Mary Staton Hughes founded the 2012 Project, a nonpartisan national campaign to identify and engage accomplished women over 45 to run for political office. The Project, part of Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, targets accomplished women from fields that are underrepresented in government such as science and technology, finance, health, and energy/environment. The timing of the project is intentional. It comes on the heels of this year’s Congressional reapportionment, the redrawing of state and congressional districts to reflect population shifts. This creates new open seats—and a once-a-decade opportunity for women who are new to politics. (Research shows that new seats are easier for political newcomers—male or female—to win than those held by incumbents.)

“I want to engage women who are pioneers in their fields, who have already broken some glass ceilings. These women have expertise that’s in short supply in many state legislatures,” says Hughes, who was an American studies major at Mount Holyoke College.

How to Stop the Bullies

This summer, I took a break from my regular beats of food politics and integrative medicine to write about something I knew little about: bullying. 

My piece (pg. 26 in the fall Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly) was spurred in part by the case of Phoebe Prince, a fifteen-year-old student who took her own life last January after being bullied mercilessly and repeatedly by classmates. (She attended South Hadley High, down the street from Mount Holyoke; the D.A. on the case is an MHC alumnae.) In the past month or so, additional bullying-related suicides, all of them anti-gay, have made national headlines: 18-year-old Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge after discovering his roommate had broadcast a video of him making out with a male classmate online. Billy Lucas, 15, of Indiana and Seth Walsh, 13, of California, both were victims of anti-gay bullying as was Asher Brown, 13, of Texas. All three committed suicide. To my mind, these qualify as hate crimes—and should be treated accordingly.

Though I didn't cover solutions to anti-gay bullying specifically, the basics of what I learned still apply: students need to be taught empathy and teachers (and parents) need to intervene when they witness bullying. Both of the top anti-bullying prevention programs employed at public schools across the U.S. focus on empathy building and teacher training: the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (named after pioneering bullying researcher Dan Olweus, whose initiatives were adopted by Norway in the early 80's to great success) and the Center for School Climate and Learning, which sends consultants into schools to absorb the school climate before recommending changes.

"I think of my work not as anti-bullying but as pro-social work," Christopher E. Overtree from the Center for School Climate and Learning told me. "We try to stimulate a positive social climate that makes bullying stand out as a negative behavior."

Instead of quick but ineffective fixes (such as teachers giving lectures on bullying), the Center for School Climate and Learning advocates more creative, holistic approaches. For instance, in one Tennessee school, Overtree suggested faculty and staff start a club where students could make hats for pediatric cancer patients. "It had a drastic change on the demeanor of the school," Overtree says. "Every student became engaged. Academically things improved, too." 

 

 

Women Farmers and Food Justice Activists

There is reason to be hopeful about the changing landscape of farming—and food—in America.

Those of us who've been participating in the local food movement over the past few years may not be surprised to hear this, but there are 18,500 more small farms in the U.S. today than there were in 2002. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture, who provides these stats, defines small farms as those with $250,000 or less in sales.)  In other words, while gargantuan factory farms are still out there, polluting our water, eroding the soil, and using antibiotics and pesticides indiscriminately, there's a rising movement of younger, sustainably-minded farmers who are growing food (and livestock) organically and on a smaller scale. (This is not to say that all 18,500 of these small farms are organic or sustainable but in general, small farms tread lighter on the environment than a CAFO does.)  

Interestingly, this increase in small farms corresponds to a rise in the number of women farmers in the U.S. The 2007 Census of Agriculture shows that women have a growing presence in U.S. agriculture: of the 3.3. million farm operators in the U.S., 30 percent were women. (This represents a 19 percent increase from 2002—far outpacing the 7 percent rise in the number of farmers overall.) 

While reporting this article for the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly, I interviewed a range of inspiring women from the twenty-something farm manager at Added Value in Red Hook, Brooklyn to a journalist who documents Chicago's urban ag movement on her blog (she's also at work on a book about urban agriculture). I also spoke to a pioneering sheep's milk cheesemaker, an outreach coordinator for NYC's GreenThumb program (she's also on the steering committee for the Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners conference this fall), and a woman who farms wheat, alfalfa, wine grapes, and olives—and raises sheep—on 2,000 acres on the Western Cape of South Africa.

Pathfinders in Public Health

I wrote this article about Mount Holyoke alumnae who are spearheading important public health projects before the swine flu epidemic hit.  But this outbreak (just like the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe, and the very real dilemma of antibiotic resistance here in the U.S.A.) shows just how vital preventive measures are—and I'm glad to see that President Obama is focusing on prevention. Since his deputy chief of staff is a Mount Holyoke alumnae, I'd like to think she read this article carefully—particularly the answers these five women gave to my question What would you ask President Obama to do for public health? 

the Global Classroom

Last fall, I had the opportunity to take my first online class—with the assignment to write about the experience for the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly. In a word, it was a challenge.  Not only technically—trying to master the art of IMing intellectually rigorous comments in a "classroom" of 20 or so students who were simultaneously IMing—but also intellectually.   (Let's just say it's been a long time since I've had to read long, dry academic articles and discuss them with women who are better read than I am.)  As was always the case at MHC, I was impressed by the level of discourse but also by the real-world value of taking such a class. (It was about the perils and benefits of globalization.) 

And what of the perils and benefits of online learning?  Well, let's start with the benefits: you never have to leave the house and can sip a glass of wine as you fire off your thoughts. (This feels mildly subversive; somehow, I bet I wasn't the only one to do it.) The downside is that (at least in this instance) you can't see your professor or any students in real time—which somehow makes it difficult to focus on one thread of the discussion. 

In any event, here's my report on the class and on MHC's unique partnership with the New York Times' Knowledge Network to produce even more online classes for both MHC alumns and the wider public.