Voting Is a Feminist Issue!

Elections are frequently won by tiny margins and the mobilization of students-especially young women-has the potential to change the political landscape drastically. Young people, especially young women, have important rights at stake in this 2010 midterm election. The stakes are high which means it is even more imperative that we exercise our right to vote! Voting is a feminist issue because we are disproportionately under-represented in all levels of government. Even though women are 51% of the population, they hold 17% of the seats in the U.S. Congress. Only 5% of U.S. House seats are held by women of color, and there are no women of color in the U.S. Senate. The picture in our state legislatures is better, but still dismal: women today hold only 24% of state legislative seats nationwide. At the current rate of gain for women in elective office, it will take over 200 years to achieve parity with men in Congress.

Not only is it necessary for us to go out and vote this coming November, but increasing voter participation among young women has the power to transform politics. Everything from abortion rights, the environment, educational loans, immigration reform and LGBTQ civil rights are going to be determined by who we elect into office. Women, between the ages of 18-24, have consistently voted less than any other age group: it’s time to change these numbers!

Your Vote Counts! Young women need to register, vote, and run for government in record numbers. Underrepresentation begins in student governments, so run for office on your campus and Get Out HER Vote this fall!

This was post was featured in the September 2010 campus eZine. To join our mailing list, sign up here.

Irina Bokova will become first woman to lead UNESCO

Just last week, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) voted in Irina Bokova as the new head of the organization, The Guardian reports. Though the organization is 64 years old (according to the UNESCO website), Irina will be both the first woman and first Eastern European to lead the organization,

The opposition candidate, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny, had been the favorite until critics pointed out Egypt's history of censorship and a comment Hosny had made about burning Israeli books that insulted Islam, the The Huffington Post reported.

Some Egyptians considered the opposition to Hosny as anti-Muslim and anti-Egyptian; others, however, blame Hosny for stifling the Egyptian cultural scene and consider him far too dictatorial (as reported by the Huffington Post)

Bokova is currently the Bulgarian foreign minister to France, and helped Bugaria enter the European Union. (Guardian reports.) Her resume is extremely impressive; she is fluent in four languages (English, Russian, Spanish, and French), and helped draft the Bulgarian constitution, among many other achievements (resume available at her personal website) She intends to get UNESCO more involved in the international talks about "hot topics" such as global warming and solving the international financial crisis (reported the Huffington Post)

photocredit: amirjina on Flickr