Doris O'Brien is a retired college Speech teacher and banker. She has published two books of humor (Up or Down With Women's Liberation and Humor Me a Little) and for many years contributed light verse to the Pepper 'n Salt column of the Wall Street Journal. She is an avid writer of letters to the editors.
Doris celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary in the same year she welcomed her first grandchild. She now lives in Pasadena with a great view of the San Gabriel mountains — and the annual Tournament of Roses Parade.
She can be reached by e-mail: witsendob at (@) gmail.com
A GAO* Report: Workplace Sexual Harassment; Experts Suggest Expanding Data Collection to Improve Understanding of Prevalence and Costs
After filing sexual harassment charges or engaging in other protected activity, employees may experience retaliation, such as firing or demotion, and EEOC data show that retaliation charges constitute a growing portion of its workload. EEOC's planning documents highlight its intention to address retaliation and use charge data to inform its outreach to employers. However, while EEOC can review electronic copies of individual charges for details, such as whether a previously filed sexual harassment charge led to a retaliation charge, its data system cannot aggregate this information across all charges. more »
Jo Freeman Book Review: Stealing Our Democracy; How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation
Life was golden for Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman for the first 56 years of his life. He had served in all of the his state’s top political offices – secretary of state, attorney general, lt. Governor and Governor – even though he was a liberal Democrat in an increasingly Republican state. He had friends and contacts, a good marriage and two fine children. He was planning to run for President as soon as he was re-elected in 2002. Then he was slammed with a political hurricane, which went by the name of Karl Rove. Life’s been a steady slide downhill since then. Trial, imprisonment and appeal is a very complicated story which you will have to read the book to appreciate. Suffice it say that both men served their terms and saw their careers ruined. more »
Jill Norgren Writes: Did Women in the US Campaign for Elective Office Fully Invested in the Prospect of Winning? “I cannot vote, but I can be voted for”
Jill Norgren writes: I have galloped through this history. I want to end by suggesting how women running for elective office relates to the woman suffrage we celebrate this year. Suffrage is an important, but partial, expression of women’s political and legal citizenship. We must see the suffrage movement as part of something larger ... as intertwined with the temperance movement, the decades-long demands for married women’s property rights which included the right to make contracts and act on behalf of others, the Populist and Socialist movements and, of course, the right to run for elective office, an act Congressman John Lewis would have called “making good trouble.” more »
Jill Norgren, They Made Good Trouble: U.S. Women Who Ran for Office 1853-1920
Jill Norgren writes: Suffrage is an important, but partial, expression of women’s political and legal citizenship. We must see the suffrage movement as part of something larger intertwined with the temperance movement and the decades-long demands for married women’s property rights. Those rights included the right to make contracts and act on behalf of others, the Populist and Socialist movements and, of course, the right to run for elective office, an act the late Congressman John Lewis would have called “making good trouble.” more »
