Employment
Jo Freeman: There’s Plenty To Do at the RNC – If You Have the Right Credentials
by Jo Freeman
Every national nominating convention has plenty of auxiliary events, some authorized, some not. Getting space can be a challenge; getting the word out even more so. But they do it nonetheless. Press were given a RNC 2024 Master Event Calendar, which was updated a few days later. Events began on Sunday and ended on Thursday. The actual convention sessions were just one item on the list. The calendar said if an event was Open or Closed to press, and also whom to contact to register. I’m going to describe some of the events, including a couple I went to, and a couple I was turned away from.
Since my focus is on women, I obviously wanted to go to those events – if I could.
The National Federation of Republican Women is the largest grassroots Republican women's organization in the country with hundreds of clubs. Founded in 1938, its members made the phone calls and knocked on the doors that elected Republican candidates for decades. It’s Tuesday luncheon featured Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders. The Master Calendar said it was SOLD OUT and they wouldn’t let me in. I was able to get into their lounge at the Fiserv Forum Wednesday evening, where I was repeatedly asked if I was a member, and if not, would I join. “I’m press,” I said. “I can’t join anything partisan.” I then said: “What brings you here?” On hearing that, finding anyone willing to chat with me was like pulling teeth.
Moms for Liberty met in a concert hall that afternoon. I had pre-registered, and I got in. From high in a balcony seat I listened to several people talk about the evils of transgenderism. It’s webpage says WE BELIEVE Power Belongs to the People. Sound Familiar? With a focus is on parental rights, it wants to “STOP WOKE indoctrination.”
Tuesday I went to “The New Mavericks” reception co-hosted by the Black Republican Mayors Association and the Georgia Republican Party. They honored Sen. Tim Scott, four Congressmen and two Georgia delegates – all male. There was only one mayor on stage, from Aurora, IL. The chair of the Georgia Republican Party was the one white man on the stage. At that event, women served; they didn’t speak. The RNC reported that 55 delegates to the 2024 convention are Black, up from 18 in 2016.
I missed the Independent Women’s Forum toast to “Women Who Make Our Country Great” because I went to Convention Fest: The Official Delegate Experience, which was held in the streets outside the Fiserve Forum and Baird Hall as well as some space inside Baird. To get to that one you not only needed a credential of some sort, but a USSS pass (which I have).
Concerned Women for America parked its pink bus across from the Baird Center the week before the RNC. No one was home. When Convention Fest opened on Tuesday afternoon, they set up a pink tent, from which its leaders preached to whomever passed by. It calls itself “the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization” but its focus is evangelical Christian. The slogan on the side of its pink bus captures this emphasis: “She Prays, She Votes.” A prayer precedes each sermon.
Updated: Who Is Gina Haspel: The CIA's Biography of the First Woman to be Nominated as CIA Director; Recording of Live Testimony Before Senate Intelligence Committee
So she studied up on CIA, typed up a letter on her college manual typewriter, and sent it off. On the outside of the envelope she wrote simply, "CIA, Washington, D.C." "I wanted to be part of something bigger than just me," she says. "I think with my dad's service in the military, I saw that as a natural affinity. I wanted an overseas adventure where I could put my love of foreign languages to use. CIA delivered."
Gina’s first overseas assignment was as a case officer in Africa. "It was right out of a spy novel. It really didn't get any better than that." more »
Congressional Hearings: Abusive Robocalls, Protecting Unaccompanied Alien Children; Mark-Ups: SNAP and WIC (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance)
A bill to require a study of federal agencies to determine which federal agencies have the greatest impact on women’s participation in the workforce; A bill to require that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for children be calculated with reference to the cost of the low-cost food plan, as determined by the Secretary of Agriculture; A hearing included testimony from a panel of experts who are working to prevent robocall scams throughout the United States. Also from last week: "The Improving Oversight of Women Veterans’ Care Act of 2017 requires VA to practice oversight not only on its VA facilities, but also on the community care providers it contracts with in order to provide gender-specific health care to women when its facilities do not have the equipment or specialist necessary to care for these veterans. We need to do a better job tracking the quality of care provided to women veterans and conduct effective oversight to ensure they are well served no matter where they get their care. I am also excited to lend my support for Congressman Coffman’s legislation to require VA to ensure that the veterans peer counseling program includes enough peer counselors for women veterans." more »
Journey to a Profession: The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Women
In high school, after reading novels by C. P. Snow describing academic life at Cambridge University in England, I decided that I wanted to be a professor (little did I know that this vision of academic life was nothing like reality, at least in the US). In sophomore year, my inner-city high school biology teacher taught us about the experiments of Jan Baptist van Helmont (1579–1644) showing that a piece of soiled cloth mixed with wheat yielded mouse pups after a 21-day incubation. This sealed the deal — I wanted to be a biologist. more »
Women at Work: 'Pre-Apprenticeships' Boost Female Construction Workers; More Women Might Soon Be Able To Take Advantage of Similar Programs
She likes to say that she slept through the last 13 years of her life, and indeed, much of it is a blur: Abusive relationship. His-and-her arrests for domestic violence. Meth habit. A period of quasi-homelessness. A 37-day stint in jail for petty theft. She’s newly sober. She’s off cash assistance. She’s got a job temping and a place to call her own. She wants to work in construction. But the construction field is a hard one to crack, particularly if you’re female. Women comprise less than 3 percent of the trade workforce, roughly the same portion as 30 years ago. more »
