Live your passion. Chase your dreams. Follow your heart.

These are things that have often been expressed during the 21^st Century before the recession hit. Now the common expressions range from musings about saving money, making better investments with time and gaining solid work experience. Chasing dreams and passions seemed a lot easier before unemployment and a low economy became household conversations.

Image courtesy of pioter

The steady decline of the economy has lead to droves of people being laid off and out of work causing dramatic increases in the unemployment rate. Google Public Data recently reported unemployment grew from 9.7 % to 10.6 % only in the last few months ― the highest it’s been in the past two decades. Even though skyrocketing unemployment rates have been a devastating blow for the United States, the amount of resilience found in those down-and-out is surprising, especially when it comes to women.

The New York Times stated in a recent article that the recession has been great for women as 78 % of the people who lost their jobs in the recession are men. Women have stepped up to the plate, headed into the work force and are approaching things with a new outlook.

While in the career flux, women are working hard to gain vital work experience and keep their heads above water. They are helping provide for their families, changing the face of industry and still finding time to give back to the community. There also has been an increase in volunteerism over the past two years as people are donating their expertise for philanthropic causes.

Focus in the work force has gone from an obsession with being the biggest in the business to a realization of becoming the best you can be in your respective field. This is an idea that Anslee Connell, a clothing designer and freelance photographer based out of Austin, has taken on in pursuit of her various careers.

As a freelancer and designer, Connell says she’s learning how to run a business. “There’s so much involved which I am still learning about,” says Connell. “I’ve been reading a lot of books, taking some informal classes, and using my friends and random strangers for references.”

But Connell doesn’t stop there. “I’ve also learned how to ride a bike, partially to one day save gas money,” she explains. “I’m giving another shot at learning Spanish through the trusty Rosetta Stone to see if that will help me land a higher-paying job.”

Connell is also trying a multitude of different things including singing in a blues/jazz band and tackling stand-up comedy. Her optimistic and inspiring attitude is reminding others that it can’t hurt to try.

Between clipping coupons and taking on a few more projects than normal, the recession is teaching women to be better stewards of time and money. It’s encouraging that even in this time of cutting back, cutting back dreams and passions doesn’t necessarily have to be part of the picture.

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I notice immediately how bright and full of energy Caitlin Boyle’s voice is as soon as we start talking. It’s hard to believe her success story started with an off day, just a few months ago. “I was at school taking night classes and having a bad day, and I thought, if I’m having a bad day, other women must be having a bad day too.” This led her to scribble a simple note on a Post-it and stick it on the mirror. She snapped a picture of the note, which read “You are beautiful!” and posted it on her blog.

Her readers loved the idea, and began sending in pictures of their own posted notes. Within 48 hours, she had so many e-mails flooding her inbox, she decided to launch a second blog at Operationbeautiful.com. Since the site’s launch in June, Caitlin has received notes from women, and men too, living all over the world. At last count, she’s received over 1000 notes, from countries as far away as Australia, Japan, Nigeria, Canada and even from a soldier in Iraq.

When asked what she thought she had tapped into with her blog, she mentions, “It’s this sneaky phenomenon that when people do things for other people, they feel good themselves.” She also mentions people “get a rush of happiness just form posting a note,” in many ways “they’re writing the note to themselves.”

A feeling of happiness isn’t the only benefit of this growing trend. Caitlin describes one of her favorite e-mails she received from a girl named Zic, who had been getting treatment for an eating disorder. She hadn’t eaten solid food in two years and after doctors forced her to eat a 500-calorie meal, she rushed to the bathroom to vomit. She found a note on the door of the stall that said “You are beautiful, just the way you are” and decided not to throw up. Caitlin remarks, “I’m actually starting to believe in fate after doing this for a few months. It’s like all of these notes are meant for a specific person. People seem to find the notes when they need it most.”

Not only has Caitlin been able to impact women all over the world, she also has been able to transform her own. The blog has been so successful, she signed a book deal and was able to quit her, as she put it “mind-numbing corporate job” to write full time. She remarks, “It’s so crazy, I randomly posted a note and four months later I quit my job and have a book deal.” She explains how much the experience has been a testament to the notion that “you will never see what can happen in your life without giving things a chance.”

Spread the good feelings yourself by posting your own “You are Beautiful!” notes and sending them to Caitlin at seebriderun@gmail.com.

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Lucille Ball, Lily Tomlin, Mary Tyler Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tina Fey, Ellen Degeneres. All of these women are ridiculously funny. Thanks to Harvard-educated comedienne Sarah Haskins, audiences now have another name to add to that humorous list. 

Haskins is revolutionizing the way women watch television through her own unique show.  In “Target Women,” a segment of Current TV’s InfoMania, Haskins takes a closer look at commercials and shows aimed towards women. Her sarcastically simple tone always manages to point out the ridiculous nature of these female-targeted campaigns. Minus an angry vengeance towards popular culture, Haskins scrutinizes the fabric of mainstream media.  

In her most recent online clip, “Back 2 School,” Haskins adopts a tween persona as she plays with her “Miley Cyrus PSP” and wishes someone would “rock stare” her — if only she had enough “blingatude.”  Without making an angst-ridden attack on sparkly shoes and peppy, texting pre-pubescents, Haskins evokes the absurdity of seemingly normal commercials that appear on screen everyday. Watching thirty-year-old Haskins become a giddy schoolgirl is simply a riot. But beyond her obvious humor, by taking the ordinary (commercials we see again and again) and showing how truly extraordinary it all is, Haskins achieves the revolutionary feat of making us think differently. 

Haskins tends to transform the way her audiences perceive the media. Take my all-time favorite Haskins segment, “Your Garden.” The piece examines commercials in the United States and abroad for the Schick Quattro bikini razor. Haskins analyzes the topic of how awkwardly we search for the correct verbiage to describe female genitalia. The commercials use plant metaphors to allude to a “bush problem,” without ever directly addressing the all-too taboo subject of female grooming. A similarly-themed Australian commercial actually uses a beaver to symbolize femininity. 

Haskins is funny. Not only due to her comedic timing, but because her bluntness is laughable. Her dry, even-tempered delivery appears as an attempt to merely explain the footage she critics, not to offer a direct opinion. This understated temperament often proves to be the loudest piece of her commentary because what she is saying seems painfully obvious. Haskins trains her audience to think by showing what is both undeniable and hidden in the clips. While her sardonic wit makes “Target Women” interesting and entertaining, its brilliance lies in the fact that if you’re watching, there is no alternative but to witness the ridiculous clichés at hand.   

Despite her bold perspective, Haskins is far from preachy. She uses humor to get her point across so her show is not obnoxiously feminist. She sees the full picture, and shares it with her viewers. Haskins provides perspective, leaving the audience to formulate its own opinions, thereby developing thinkers — not vengeful bra burners.

audience, Australian commercial, Back 2 School, blingatude, bush problem, clichés, commercial, critics, ellen degeneres, entertaining, female genitalia, female-targeted campaigns, femininity, funny, humor, InfoMania, interesting, lily tomlin, lucille ball, Mary Tyler Moore, media, Miley Cyrus PSP, perceive, rock stare, Sarah Haskins, sarcasm, Schick Quattro bikini razor, shows, taboo, Target Women, television, tina fey, tv, tween persona, United States, Whoopi Goldberg, women, Your Garden Hide

Zaiba Habib Durrani heard the threats at least once a week. But as she told the McClatchy Newspapers, vows to kill her or disfigure her face with acid did little to deter her from running for one of 124 provincial council seats in her country’s latest elections.

Afghanistan’s 2009 campaigns have left an already volatile nation even more distressed in the aftermath. Lost among reports of possible election fraud and senseless violence, however is a critical message of steadfast bravery and tireless hope. Out of 41 presidential candidates, two were women. And 333 out of more than 3,000 contenders for provincial council belonged to the fairer sex. For a state where over 80 percent of women are illiterate and maternal mortality is the second highest in the world, the existence of these female politicians is nothing short of miraculous.

The role of women in Afghan society hasn’t always been one of invisibility and subjugation. By the 1950s, a growing movement began to churn as women entered the workforce becoming teachers, nurses and even politicians. An open culture was developing, marked by the lifting of the veil in 1959 and female enfranchisement in 1964. Until the 1990s, Afghanistan was on its way to modernity. Civil war and the rise of the Taliban soon quashed any social advances taking shape.

With the Taliban government now retreating, Afghan women have emerged from what has arguably been their bleakest moment in history. But if new legislation is any indication of civil support for social change — Afghan men were recently given the right to starve their wives if sexual demands were not met — women’s rights has a slow and torturous uphill battle.

The mere presence of women in politics signals a definite crack in the Afghan status quo. Although female voter turnout fell from the previous election, the fact that any woman even cast her vote, especially being favorite targets of the Taliban for election-day violence, hints at a persistent female voice rumbling beneath the fundamentalist regime. As women continue to step forth to offer their services in government roles, they demonstrate that women will participate in Afghanistan’s political, economic and civil arenas.

A New York Times article addressing the fight against global poverty declared that “the greatest unexploited resource isn’t oil fields or veins of gold; it is the women and girls who aren’t educated and never become a major presence in the formal economy.”

Empowering women isn’t simply the right thing to do; it’s also a crucial step to ensuring the success of the world’s future. These Afghan women don’t have to win office to become agents of change. By showing the next generation they have a chance in the political process, these brave few are leading the vanguard in Afghan women’s rights. If these women are able to survive and come into the light in one of the world’s poorest and most misogynistic nations, then other women around the globe may also have a chance to flourish.

Afghan women, afghanistan, Afghanistan’s 2009 campaigns, Civil war, economy, election-day violence, elections, Empowering women, female enfranchisement, female politicians, fundamentalist regime, global poverty, government, McClatchy Newspapers, new york times, politics, presidential candidates, taliban, women, women’s rights, Zaiba Habib Durrani Hide

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There is a pivotal scene in Blayne Weaver’s new romantic comedy, Weather Girl, in which the younger brother of the title character yells that it’s time for her to grow up and get a “real” job. The character—a thirty-something who just lost her boyfriend, her apartment, and her job– stands in shock for a moment, almost dumbfounded that anyone would suggest such a thing. The actress behind her, Tricia O’Kelley, knows that it is such a struggle that makes the success so much more worthwhile when it finally comes.

“Did I sometimes question if I was doing the right thing? Sure,” she admits. “But I really believe you have to follow your gut. I always said that if one day I woke up, and I thought it was no longer worth it, then I’d move on. Thankfully, I never got to that [place].”

When the Weather Girl script landed on her desk, O’Kelley was already co-starring on CBS’ The New Adventures of Old Christine with her real life BFF Alex Kapp Horner. She loved Weaver’s writing so much, though, she knew she wanted to help him get the project made at any cost—literally. Though there can be quite a bit of debt associated with independent film, O’Kelley never wavered and never had a second thought about pulling double-duty and stepping into a producer role for the first time.

O’Kelley, who graduated with a degree in Film and Television Production from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has always wanted to just tell great stories, and she never let anything stand in her way or tell her she couldn’t. ‘It’s most rewarding when [you get a group of people together] who really want to do the project,” she explains. “That’s true independent filmmaking: it isn’t about “Oh, the money’s good, so yeah, I guess I’ll take [the role].” You have to really believe in the project and all of the people involved.”

It just seemed a natural progression, then, for her to take on the added behind-the-scenes responsibility if she wanted to see this project get its proper due. And O’Kelley managed to pull it together– though admittedly learning as she went along and by bringing her friends (like Kapp Horner) and past co-stars along with her.

“Honestly, that was one of the most refreshing things,” O’Kelley says so warmly she can’t be anything but smiling. “To go out to these people and have them love the script and believe in it as much as I did.” Though the dressing rooms were pretty much closets; there was often no heat; and top-billed actors like Blair Underwood, Enrico Colantoni, and Mark Harmon were working for a mere fraction of what they normally did, one by one they all signed onto O’Kelley’s “little film that could.” It is a true testament to the importance and influence of O’Kelley herself that so many would do whatever they could because they believed in her.

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Last week iatg sponsored its first major event: The Man Panel. Five seriously sexy boys took the stage and leveled with the female audience about what guys are really looking for.

However, we’re not so cruel as to strip them down and string them up without so much as a cocktail first. So, to get the blood pumping our favorite cover band, Unusually Suspect (featuring the dreamy sportscaster-turned-lead-singer Brent Biedel), sang us all our favorite tunes including a rousing rendition of “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” Folks were pouring into our cozy upstairs bar space at Westwood Brew Co, where we had our own private bar and rockin’ bartender who spent the night serving up the oh-so-affordable $3 pints. Things were off to a good start as highly fashionable young ladies were getting their grooves on to the delight of a surprisingly large number of men who were smart enough to come out and support our Ladies’ Night.

After everyone was sufficiently loosened up, we brought out the Man Panel: Pro-surfer Bron Heussentstamm, Dirty, Sexy Money star Seth Gable, Survivor: Exile Island winner Aras Baskauskas, Amazing Race All Stars champ Eric Sanchez, and the simply adorable Yogi Roth, aka USC quarterback coach, aka DREAM BOAT. Alexis and Emily, armed with pages of questions compiled by our online readers and the stacks of multi-colored post-it notes written by our live audience, made no bones about what we girls have been dying to know.

I’ll be frank and say that many of their answers didn’t exactly surprise me: don’t be clingy, say what you mean, a bit of “don’t play the game, but here’s how you play the game” stuff. The good parts came when they touted how girls with a purpose and confidence are the sexiest kinds (that’s what makes us iatg-ers such total knockouts), and how we girls forget that guys have feelings, too. (When girls get into the “men are dogs” vein and claim “you just can’t trust ‘em,” how is that supposed to make them feel?) Hearing that men can sincerely value trust and see it as a sacred bond was heartwarming, indeed.

What was really AMAZING about the Man Panel, though, was not necessarily hearing what five guys had to say (let’s face it, they’re limited to their own experiences), but what happened afterwards. As the boys and girls of the audience went back for another round of cocktails, they started talking, really talking, about what mattered to them in relationships. Can you imagine mingling at a bar and instead of flirtatious BS nonsequiturs, having real conversations about what you really want??

And even though at the end, I still managed to get propositioned for sex from a married man (some guys just never get it), I did see a few other phones exchanging numbers that looked very promising. So while many men still remain utterly mysterious to me, our Man Panel did decode the sex at least enough to let me see that the good ones are not only out there, but they’re looking for girls just like us.

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The other night I met a blind date for a drink. To my disappointment, he was two inches shorter than I am (even in flats). I know some women don’t care about those things, but it’s just not for me. Despite his height, he was very charismatic and the conversation flowed beautifully. I must admit, I was enjoying myself. When the server came around to ask if we wanted a cocktail, I ordered a glass of white wine and he opted for bourbon on the rocks. I was tipsy after my first glass — just enough that another glass sounded like a lot of fun. I also was secretly hoping two glasses of wine would make him look taller.

After two glasses, I was two sheets to the wind and he made the joke he needed five more shots to catch up to me. I always knew I was a one-hit wonder — after one drink, I’m usually wondering who is going to drive me home — but this was ridiculous. I couldn’t understand why a guy who was smaller than me, drinking hard liquor, barely felt a thing while, after two glasses of wine, I was ready to put my head on the pillow and call it a night.

It may seem unfair, but the truth is ladies are biologically disadvantaged when it comes to alcohol tolerance. There is an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase or ADH, produced in the stomach and liver that helps break down alcohol. Women produce a much smaller amount than men, causing alcohol to hit our bloodstream faster. Therefore, we get drunk a whole lot quicker.

When it comes to body composition, women are typically smaller than men. However, even if the woman weighs the same as the man, the woman will still get drunk faster. Women have a smaller percentage of water in their bodies and usually a higher percentage of body fat. Water dilutes alcohol in the body and alcohol cannot dissolve in fat. Because there is less water and higher fat in women’s bodies, alcohol shoots straight to the bloodstream increasing blood-alcohol concentration.

As if that weren’t enough, during menstruation hormone changes can make you get drunk even faster. Since alcohol gets metabolized in the stomach first, it is best to have food in you before or while you drink.

If you are wondering if you can build up your tolerance to alcohol, the answer is “yes.” Drinking frequently can cause your body to produce a higher amount of enzymes, but obviously upping your intake is not a positive option. Alcohol has a lot of long-term side effects and too much consumption can be detrimental to the body. Excess consumption of alcohol also can put you in some compromising social situations.

So ladies, this is definitely one instance where men and women are not created equal. Just take it one sip at a time.

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“It was four o’clock in the morning, and we were having lots of coffee,” actress Elizabeth Rodriguez laughs while explaining how the non-profit organization, IBG (Inspired By Gillian), she co-founded came to be. “It all started in a diner!” Rodriguez shakes her head, perhaps in awe of how simple it all sounds in retrospect. After all, putting together such an organization is no simple feat, especially for women who do it in their “spare” time.

Fellow actress Caileigh Scott picks up Rodriguez’ train of thought immediately: “We had just come from the movie [the premiere of The X-Files: I Want To Believe], very riled up wondering what we could do to help promote it…and help a charity…I wrote down the idea on a napkin!” And the rest, as they say, is history.

Created to honor Gillian Anderson’s own philanthropy, IBG also consists of publicist Karen Mendez and producer Patricia Steffy. The organization’s mission statement is “philanthropy through the arts…coming together to create awareness for under-funded charities.” Their first event as a team was a screening of the two X-Files films back-to-back. Originally set up to be a fairly intimate affair among diehard fans, the event soon drew the attention of 20th Century Fox and, moved by the efforts, Writer/Producer Frank Spotnitz signed on to do a pre-screening Q&A with attendees. TV Guide’s Erin Fox even paid her own way out to L.A. to serve as moderator.

“It was never a question that one hundred percent of the proceeds would go to the charity,” Mendez emphasizes. IBG relies heavily on sponsorship, donations, and the like mindedness of their peers in order to make their events so successful.

To date, IBG has raised just over five thousand dollars for NF Inc. (a charity chosen in part due to Ms. Anderson’s own involvement in it) and more money is still trickling in from the online auctions. In the end they expect to have around seven thousand for the cause. “It’s not just about the money,” Steffy is quick to point out, though. “It’s about that raising of awareness.”

IBG is a true testament to what driven and ambitious women can accomplish when they put their heads together with a common goal. The four talented entertainment professionals who formed IBG were virtual strangers until that fateful day last July but, as Mendez points out, IBG is a way to do a lot of good and to “put two loves together.”

“You’re never going to know if you have enough time until you just do it,” Rodriguez admits. “So just do it!”

IBG is currently planning a handful of upcoming events to benefit worthy charities such as Off The Street Kids and the East L.A. Women’s Shelter. To find out how you can help or for information on the events that were not available at the time of this interview, please visit their website: http://allthings.inspiredbygillian.com/

photo by danielle turchiano

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In honor of Women’s History Month, IATG takes a look back….

You might not know the name, but Florence Rush must be celebrated for her incredible work to change cultural perceptions of rape and incest in our country. Born in 1918, she grew up in the Bronx and later moved to New Rochelle, New York in the 1950s. She married Bernard Rush and had three children, but became much more than a suburban housewife. It was in New Rochelle where she spent years working as a psychiatric social worker at the New York Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Children as well as in a facility for delinquent girls.

Rush’s discovery of widespread sexual abuse among many of the young girls she worked with led to her investigation of Sigmund Freud’s abandoned Seduction Theory. Originally in Freud’s work, he found that symptoms of hysteria in his female patients were linked with their reports of being sexually abused as children. But Freud pushed all this away and instead fabricated another theory, which became the well-known Oedipal complex. Freud decided his patients were making up the abuse, as a means of fantasizing about sleeping with their fathers. Unfortunately, Freud’s falsified work has still contributed to many negative female stereotypes: that women are liars and not to be taken seriously.

Freud lied, but Rush did not. She presented her findings in a famous speech to the New York Radical Feminists Conference on Rape in 1971 and was rewarded with a standing ovation. She later published The Best Kept Secret: The Sexual Abuse of Children, which traces the tolerance of the sexual abuse of children through history. She continued to speak, giving lectures at universities and meeting with scholars. Her work made it more acceptable for women to talk about rape and incest. Many books and writings followed hers and the first rape crisis center opened in the 70s: it was no longer a taboo topic.

Rush continued to be a champion for the rights of women throughout her life. She worked for the New York Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), lectured for Women against Pornography and co-founded the Older Women’s Liberation (OWL). In 2005, she was awarded the Susan B. Anthony award for grassroots feminists by the New York City NOW chapter. Rush recently passed away in December of last year.
There is still a lot of work left to do for the women of our generation. Rape is the most underreported crime in the country, and the laws to protect victims are often extremely conservative. In most states, in order for a person to be prosecuted for a rape, there needs to be force involved in the crime. This means that date rape, (though still nonconsensual sex) may be just a misdemeanor, or not a crime at all depending on where you live. The law also often focuses on rape as a violent crime, but ignores the reality of rape: that most are committed by an acquaintance or partner, that most take place in one’s own home or a friend’s home, that many aren’t violent actions. It is time for someone to follow Rush and step up and fight.

photo by haxa

crime, florence rush, national organization for women, new york radical feminists conference, new york society of prevention of cruelty to children, oedipal complex, older women's liberation, rape, rape crisis, seduction theory, sexual abuse, sigmund freud, susan b. anthony, the best kept secret, women, women against pornogrpahy, women's history month Hide