Archives for November 2017

Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity

(Nov 2017) “Tampons and sanitary towels . . . have always been considered a luxury. That isn’t by accident, that’s by design of an unequal society, in which the concerns of women are not treated as equally as the concerns of men.” – Stella Creasy, Member of British Parliament

I was fortunate to hear author Jennifer Weiss-Wolf talk about her book and her advocacy at Bards Alley in Vienna, VA, on Nov. 28th. The next day I was on a panel of women and girls giving a briefing on menstrual equity issues on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, to legislative staff members in the offices of Senator Tim Kaine, Senator Cory Booker and Congressman Gerry Connolly. Rep. Grace Meng made opening remarks and addressed the strides New York City has made in putting these sanitary hygiene products in public schools, homeless shelters and prisons free of charge. The work of Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland of the New York City Council was instrumental in passing a bill in June of 2016 that was the first of its kind in the country.

Two young women on the panel, Ashley (24) and Jennifer (22) talked about their lack of access to needed menstrual supplies when they were incarcerated in jail. (They are both in a Virginia based re-entry program for formerly incarcerated women, Friends of Guest House.) They had to ask guards for pads, and it was up to the guards as to who got how many and when they received them. Requests were handled at the guards’ discretion and at their convenience. Ashley and Jennifer recreated for the hearing room a demonstration of how they made “prison tampons” out of substandard pads because they were more effective than the cheap flimsy pads. Being caught with a “prison tampon” was considered having contraband for which the prisoner could be charged.

Weiss-Wolf talks about her own dawning awareness of how many women in this country and around the world are impacted by the lack of access to the basic hygiene products that menstruation management requires. It affects women’s ability to get an education, to work, and to fully engage in productive daily activities. Factors like poverty, homelessness and incarceration leave many women and girls without access to products that are as necessary as toilet paper and soap – which are mandated by law to be in public restrooms.

The author talks about 2016 as “The Year of the Period.” From her own New Year’s Day thunderbolt to the Women’s March on January 21, 2017, to the trips she made to other parts of the world to research what was being done to address the issue of meeting women’s basic needs so we can fully function in society every day of the year.

Menstrual Equity is on the agenda of cities and states around the country, as well as in countries around the world with populations of women and girls living in poverty. There has been some innovation in place like India around creating small businesses that manufacture pads the poor women can afford. It also creates jobs for them.

In this country, there is a movement to roll back “The Tampon Tax” that places another financial burden on top of the expense of buying these products every month Since only people who menstruate use these products, only those people are paying the tax. The book also addresses the fact that transgender men and gender non-conforming individuals also menstruate. We need to move away from the term “feminine hygiene products” and call them menstrual hygiene products. This is less about a gender binary than acknowledging it as an issue of civil rights and basic human rights.

Weiss-Wolf also addresses the need to have better testing and full labeling on what is in the tampons women are using. Potentially toxic chemicals or artificial fibers need to be tested and consumer informed. She also points out that there is an environmental impact to providing more disposable products to more women around the world. Even bio-degradable products will take longer to breakdown than the lifespan of the people who have used them. Greater innovation needs to take place around how development menstrual management products that don’t have an adverse impact on the planet.

Locally here in Northern Virginia, Holly Seibold has founded BRAWS: Bringing Resources to Aid Women’s Shelters. This organization does product drives and distributes products to shelters and schools around the DC Metro area. They are also engaged in issue advocacy around Menstrual Equity. Delegate Jennifer Boysko is sponsoring two bills in Virginia’s 2018 legislative session, HB24 and HB25, that will address the elimination of “The Tampon Tax.”

I highly recommend this book as one everyone should read – men, women and children. We need to remove the stigma around discussing periods. Men and boys should understand this very natural and normal bodily function and should support menstruating individuals by advocating for greater access to menstrual hygiene products for those who need them. It is past time for our culture and our society to normalize that people have periods – every month – for most of their lives. I urge being informed and being an advocate on this issue.

by Catherine Read

Workforce Development Through SkillSource – Deb Stopak

(Nov 22, 2017) Catherine Read talks with Deb Stopak, Director of Advancement for SkillSource. Established in 2003, SkillSource is the non-profit fiscal agent for the Northern Virginia Workforce Development Board (NVWDB.) There are 15 Workforce Development areas in Virginia, and SkillSource serves Area 11 which covers Fairfax County, Prince William County, Loudoun County and the cities of Falls Church, Fairfax, Manassas and Manassas Park. There are currently six SkillSource One-Stop Employment Centers in Annandale, Alexandria, Reston, Leesburg, Woodbridge and on the Manassas Campus of Northern Virginia Community College.

SkillSource provides services to both employers and job seekers completely free of charge. They have worked with tens of thousands of employers since opening their doors, providing services to more than a million job seekers. In FY 2017, SkillSource served 55,000 job seekers in Northern Virginia.

In 1988, Congress passed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), a Federal job training program sponsored by the Department of Labor. Through a network of One Stop Centers, WIOA offers employers and job seekers, universal access to free employment and training services. Private foundations also provide funds that support the centers. The team approach includes both job developers and case managers. Additionally, SkillSource works closely with the Department of Family Services in Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William Counties to provide other services that are often needed when people are without a job: housing, transportation, childcare and treatment programs.

SkillSource Deb Stopak Within the larger geographic community, SkillSource supports micro-populations of job seekers that often have difficulty finding employment. They include out-of-school youth aged 17 to 24 without post secondary education, low-income adults without advanced education, adults with disabilities, ex-offenders, recent immigrants, refugees, veterans and dislocated workers. Some of those dislocated workers are government contract employees who have been impacted by sequestration. They are highly skilled and educated but have trouble finding appropriate new positions. Among ex-felons, SkillSource has an impressive track record of only a 4% recidivism rate – compared with 28-35% in Virginia as a whole, and 45% or greater nationally.

The model SkillSource is using is the identification of skills that specific employers need and the development of training programs that provide job seekers with those particular skills. The goal is to provide short term training programs that create skilled workers who can earn a living wage of $15 per hour or more. They also provide “soft skill” training to include things like good communication skills and understanding workplace cultures. While they work collaboratively with the Community College system, the short term goal is not a degree, but a demonstrable skill that may or may not include a formal certification.

One of the programs SkillSource offers is an “On The Job Training Program” which provides training and support to a job seeker who is a potential hire for an employer. That program provides subsidized wages to offset the employer’s cost and the result is most often an offer of a permanent placement. It’s a “shared risk” model that creates more opportunities for job seekers to learn skills specific to an employer without the employer bearing the entire financial burden.

For more information about the SkillSource programs and centers visit them at www.MySkillSource.org

by Catherine Read

OneVirginia2021 with Brian Cannon – Inside Scoop

(Nov. 20, 2017) Catherine Read talks with Brian Cannon, Executive Director of OneVirginia2021, a non-profit that came together four years ago to address the issue of political gerrymandering in the Commonwealth of Virginia. While “gerrymandering” is named after Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, the first documented evidence of redrawing lines for political gain was actually done in Virginia. Patrick Henry pushed to redraw lines in the 5th Congressional District that would pit James Madison against James Monroe. This historical fact and many other aspects of political gerrymandering are detailed in the documentary “GerryRIGGED.”

Brian Cannon details the many aspects of gerrymandering and how it has subverted the very idea of representative government. It’s mandated by law that voting districts be redrawn every 10 years based on U.S. Census data. This is to ensure that districts have similar numbers of voters within each one. Those include Congressional Districts, Senate Districts and House Districts. (It also applies at the county and city level as well.) The idea is that each district represents a roughly equal number of voters. The Virginia Constitution also stipulates that these districts must be “compact and contiguous.” The interpretation of “contiguous” might mean a single road, or a connection across water. And “compact” is not specifically defined at all. Over the centuries, and in the last several decades, legislators have taken a creative license – in both parties – to draw lines that protect incumbency.

Both Republicans and Democrats have engaged in incumbency protection. Efforts to promote “non-partisan redistricting” in modern times goes back to a bill introduced by Delegate Ken Plum, the most senior member of the House of Delegates, in 1982 when Democrats controlled the House. Regardless of which party controlled the two chambers of the General Assembly, there has been a resistance to fair redistricting based on the idea of “compactness.”

OneVirginia2021 is challenging this failure to meet the compactness test with a federal lawsuit that involves 11 Virginia Districts: 6 Senate districts and 5 House districts. The short term goal is to seek legal relief for these specific districts – and ultimately those districts that border them – for a possible total of 31 affected districts. The long term goal is to work toward the establishment of a non-partisan commission to redraw these lines every 10 years and NOT legislators. Asking the people directly affected by the outcome of redistricting to set aside their personal considerations in drawing these maps is like asking foxes to guard the hen house.

Other states are already pursuing non-partisan redistricting: California, Ohio & Arizona among them. It’s not a perfect science, but it’s goal worth pursuing. Political gerrymandering is corrupting the concept of a representative democracy. The Wisconsin case of Gill v. Whitford before the United State Supreme Court will be an important Constitutional test of the legitimacy of partisan “cracking” and “packing.”

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case that redrew the third and fourth Congressional Districts to “unpack” the African-American voters in the 3rd CD and put some of them in the 4th CD. That resulted in the election of A. Donald McEachin, an African-American Democrat, to Congress in 2016. Although the voters in Virginia were split nearly evenly in their votes in 2012 for Democrats and Republicans, the resulting Virginia Congressional Delegation was 8 Republicans and only 3 Democrats. THAT is gerrymandering. Representatives are selecting their voters – not voters selecting their representatives.

Brian also points out that Virginia has 224 split precincts. There are two precincts in Newport News that are split 3 ways. This has led to a critical issue in the 2017 election in 28th House District where approximately 88 voters may were given the wrong ballots. The mix-up involves voters on two streets in Fredericksburg and may end up in court or with a special election to determine who will win the seat.. The political control of the House of Delegates may well hang in the balance. This particular crisis serves to highlight why we need to have a better system of redistricting PRIOR to the lines being redrawn in 2021.

OneVirginia2021 is using the power of grassroots organizing as part of their effort to activate Virginia voters. They had more than 600 volunteers at the polls across Virginia for the June 2017 primaries asking voters to sign a petition demanding non-partisan redistricting by 2021. Those volunteers were at the polls again on Nov. 7, 2017, for the record voter turnout in the statewide elections asking voters to make their voices heard.

For more information about the work of OneVirginia2021, visit them at www.OneVirginia2021.org, follow them on Twitter at @1VA2021 or connect on Facebook.

by Catherine Read

Music for Life with Skip Chaples – Your Need to Know

(Nov. 15, 2017) Catherine Read talks with Skip Chaples, President of Music for Life. This community based non-profit provides music education and mentoring programs for low-income youth primarily in middle and high school. Originally founded in 2006 by the parents of a music student who was tragically shot and killed, the name of the organization was changed in 2013 to Music for Life. It is a largely all volunteer organization, with the first full time employee hired in 2016.

Skip Chaples became involved with the original organization as the former Scout Master of the Eagle Scout whose life was cut short. It has grown and expanded in the decade since it was launched and they now provide three types of programs:

After School Guitar Program
Band & Orchestra Program
The STEM Guitar Project

The After School Guitar Program is provided on-site at schools as well as in low income housing communities and in foster care group homes. They also have programs to serve adults with disabilities and they provide programs for people of all ages with intellectual disabilities. Volunteer instructors set the lessons and Music for Life provides the instruments which the students get to keep. High school students also serve as volunteer instructors for younger musicians as a way to fulfill their community service hours doing something they enjoy. This year Music for Life is working in collaboration with the Hylton Performing Arts Center on a guitar program for veterans, service members and their family members

The Band & Orchestra program helps with fees for instruments and provides after school instrument instruction for a wide variety of instruments – trumpet, oboe, flute, clarinet, etc. Some of these volunteers are college music majors as well as volunteers from local bands and orchestras. Currently they have about 30 band students in 3 middle schools and one high school in Fairfax County. Overall, they serve over 800 students a year in all three programs.

The STEM Guitar Project was launched for the first time at Mount Vernon High School in 2016-17. The curriculum was developed by faculty at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, under a grant from the National Science Foundation. The program includes a one week training for teachers who conduct the class. The lessons incorporate the math and physics around the design and operation of an electric guitar. There is a lab where students actually construct their entire guitar – from woodworking to create the body and neck, to creating the frets, installing the electronics and doing their own soldering, painting and stringing. The inaugural class included 28 students of which 3 were women. It was empowering for them to see what they were capable of creating with their own two hands, and they each got to keep their guitar.

Music for Life works local music festivals to find donors and volunteers. Their booth includes a raffle for a guitar, which is an effective way to connect with local musicians. They are a member of the Songwriters Association of Washington (SAW) and the Washington Area Music Association (WAMA) and are supported financially by local, national and international music companies.

For more information about Music for Life, visit them at www.MusicForLife.org or email Skip at [email protected]

by Catherine Read

Reproductive Justice with Reproaction Director Erin Matson

(Nov 1, 2017) Catherine Read talks with Erin Matson, co-founder of Reproaction, a national direct action organization focused on advancing issues of reproductive justice and increasing access to abortion services. Reproaction’s other co-founder, Pamela Merritt, is based in St. Louis, MO, and they have a network of activists across the country. The work in collaboration with many other abortion rights, reproductive justice, and women’s advocacy organizations.

Erin established her credentials in feminist activism as the youngest state president of the National Organization of Women when she assumed leadership of Minnesota NOW at the age of 23. She moved with NOW to DC and one of the early issues she worked on was pharmacist refusal clauses. This is the right of pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription if it is conflict with their personal beliefs. Today, in 2017, the Mid-Atlantic grocery store chain Harris Teeter has taken the emergency contraception Plan B One Step off the shelf and made it available ONLY through the pharmacy or through a store manager. THIS IS A CORPORATE POLICY. Any employee of the store can refuse to sell any customer this FDA approved medication. Harris Teeter has given no explanation as to why this is their policy. Reproaction is leading a direct against a Harris Teeter store on November 20, 2017, to raise the visibility of this issue to women in the DC metro area.

Erin also helps to define what “reproductive justice” is and how it encompasses more than simply protecting women’s access to their legally protected right to abortion services. She explains that the concept and framework of reproductive justice was pioneered by women of color, specifically black women in this country, in the 1990s. It encompasses three things:

The Right to Parent
The Right not to Parent
The Right to raise children in a safe and healthy communities

Social justice includes addressing forceable sterilization, inadequate pre-natal and maternity care, and even issues like the Flint Michigan poisoned water supply. All of these issues disproportionately impact communities of color.

Erin and Pamela Merritt, along with SisterSong, led a direct action against a “fake clinic” in Atlanta as part of the Netroots Nation conference in August of 2017. Crisis Pregnancy Centers lure women into their fake clinics by offering abortion assistance when in fact they exist only to talk women out of having abortions. Many are funded with tax dollars that have been redirected from other programs – like food assistance. They perpetrate fraud and do not have to meet HIPAA requirements regarding privacy of information because they are not real medical clinics. The stigma around abortion has been engineered by anti-abortion forces that are deeply anti-woman. The “1 in 3” campaign highlights the fact that one in three women in the U.S. has chosen to have an abortion and yet many never discuss it – not with friends, family or colleagues. This keeps this choice stigmatized and feeds this culture of shaming women who have made a decision that is right for themselves and their families.

More information can be found at www.Reproaction.org, follow them on Twitter @Reproaction, on Facebook, and subscribe to their YouTube Channel.