One day Genevieve Piturro was riding the subway to her boring day job.

She knew that there was something more for her than being a marketing executive at a large corporation, something she alone was born to do. Genevieve had been spending her spare time with a Manhattan program that organizes volunteers to read bedtime stories to foster children. She was on the right track, but it wasn’t her exact calling. Then the idea came to her while she was lost in thought on the subway: pajamas.

Genevieve had learned that most of the children she read to every night slept in their regular clothes and some didn’t even know what pajamas were. She decided while on the train that she would bring pajamas to her group of foster kids at the shelter. That was five years ago. Now, her non-profit group, Pajama Program, has distributed more than one million pajamas to kids worldwide. And, if you’re in the NYC area, they also have a reading center on 39th Street in the city.

While I’m on the subject of kids and reading, there’s another wonderful non-profit group, near to my heart, designed to put books in children’s hands. It’s Room to Read. Realizing that 115 million children worldwide are not receiving any type of organized education, Room to Read also got involved in building schools and libraries in rural villages. Some of these children have never held a book, never flipped through the pages and magically been transported to another world. Give a kid a book. You can change his life.

So if you’re still lookng for a great way to give back, you can donate new pajamas or books by going to their websites. As for me, I’m going to use my subway time to dream a little bigger in 2008.

Jacquelin Cangro

Dear older fascists — er, I mean feminists,

You will not make me your bitch. No one tells me who to vote for. I don’t care if she would be the first women president — no one wags their finger at me (we got you your rights, etc.) then tells me to fall in line with them or risk being called a misogynist, straw-feminist, etc. I’m voting for Obama. You don’t like it, I don’t care.

I’d like to thank Eve Ensler and Kimberle Williams Crenshaw for their Alternet piece:

Drawing their feminist boundaries in the sand, they interrogate, chastise, second-guess and even denounce those who escape their encampment and find themselves on Obama terrain. In their hands feminism, like patriotism, is the all-encompassing prism that eliminates discussion, doubt and difference about whom to vote for and why. Armed with indignant exasperation, this "either/or" camp converts the undeniable misogyny of the media into an imperative to vote for Clinton.

We believe we stand in unity with many feminists who will say, "Not in Our Name" will this feminism be deployed.
Young feminists have been vocal and strong in critiquing the claim that a vote for Obama represents some form of youthful naiveté, a desire to win the approval of men, or a belief that sexism no longer factors into their lives. While paying respect to those women who carried the banner for so many years, these young women have reminded us that feminism is not static but evolutionary, changing in content, scope and tenor as new generations elevate their concerns and aspirations.

For many of us, feminism is not separate from the struggle against violence, war, racism and economic injustice.
Experience and judgment go hand in hand, we are told, but one has to wonder how is it that so many ordinary citizens who were outside the beltway instinctively sensed what would come with the war, but the female candidate running for President did not?

Amen, girlfriends.

Seeing a woman president is not the goal of my life. I don’t believe that having a woman president will make life as a woman (or as anyone, and as a voter, a woman, a young feminist. And I don’t only consider women — I consider women, men, children, elderly, everyone that I share a planet with) better. India has had a woman president — but that doesn’t stop them from aborting female babies, from husbands and families setting the young wife on fire when her family does not constantly produce more and more of a dowry.

I’m not looking for a woman president — I’m voting for whom I believe would make the best president. A president who will restore the U.S. reputation, who will end the war in Iraq, who will not threaten to obliterate Iran by nuclear means (just to prove that, even though you’re a woman you have the balls to propose such a macho idea), who will help the economy and those who are losing their homes left and right, by installing sane, democratic-minded judges.

I’m still young, but I’ve never been inspired by a politician like I have been by Obama. I wasn’t born for Kennedy; I was only 11 years old when Clinton was campaigning; and Hillary strikes me as a typical bullshit artist who cannot admit that she was just plain wrong to vote for the war, who will call out Obama for something as trivial (yet fiery among wingnuts) as whether or not he wears a fucking flag pin, who, despite having other commendable achievements during her time in the senate, will use dirty tactics instead of her record to stand on, who will come out and say, during the fury, that she’s glad Obama gave his speech on race (a speech that will go down in history, a speech that made me cry twice, and I’m just a little white girl) even though she hadn’t even seen the damn thing, then two weeks later, instead of dealing with her own troubles, will revive the controversy about Wright to deflect from her own. Among many, many other things (her fear-mongering 3 a.m. ad, the gas tax fiasco).
It may be a few years old, but I still remember Lisa Jervis’s (yes, of Bitch Magazine) piece, "If Women Ruled the World, Nothing Would Be Different: The Biggest Problem with American Feminism Today Is Its Obsession with Women," in which she writes:

…Much of the contemporary American feminist movement is preoccupied with the mistaken belief-call it femmenism-that female leadership is inherently different from male; that having more women in positions of power, authority, or visibility will automatically lead to, or can be equated with, feminist social change; that women are uniquely equipped as a force for action on a given issue; and that isolating feminist work as solely pertaining to women is necessary or even useful.

…If women’s maternal instincts and natural compassion will bring about a kinder, more peaceful world, what’s up with Condoleezza Rice? (It’s also worth noting that Madeleine Albright didn’t exactly transform the Clinton administration’s foreign policy into a bastion of benevolence, either.) If women were truly sympathetic to and cooperative with each other, Ann Coulter’s journalistic achievements would have made the media less misogynist, not more. A woman was in charge of Abu Ghraib when Iraqi prisoners were tortured by American soldiers; three of the seven charged with perpetrating the abuse are female. Inherently nurturing? Sisterly? Yeah. Sure.

…having a woman in the White House won’t necessarily do a damn thing for progressive feminism.

And yesterday Jezebel pointed out Cynthia Ruccia and Kimberly Myers:

They got on "O’Reilly" last night to say that they’re so mad at the Democratic Party over sexism directed at Hillary that they’re going to vote Republican in the fall "if it comes to that." …Ruccia and the other members of Clinton Supporters Count Too have decided that not only will they vote against the Democratic nominee if it isn’t Hillary, they will actively campaign against Obama because, as far as they are concerned, the race is by no means over yet. In a press release yesterday, they stated: "We have a plan to campaign against the Democratic nominee. We have the (wo)manpower and the money to make our threat real. And there are millions of supporters who will back us up in the swing states. If you don’t listen to our voice now, you will hear from us later."

They believe that millions of other women will not only support them in their efforts to overturn the votes of millions of other Democratic voters (and women) who voted for Obama come the convention in August, but will also support their work to elect another (male) Republican President to spite the Democratic Party. A Republican, by the way who has no apparent problem with the misogyny directed at Hillary by his supporters.

OH. MY. GOD. How can I possibly respond to this with reason and sanity, when reason and sanity are completely absent from every syllable of their argument? Because some of us choose not to vote for a woman, these two are going to get together the "sisterhood" to destroy Obama’s chances, which will directly lead to a Bush puppet regime, which will see the continuation of the global gag-rule, pharmacists legally calling us whores, battered women’s shelters and Planned Parenthoods closing, continued funding for abstinence only, continuation of the Iraq war and even war with Iran, the death of Title 9 and civil rights, etc. (Yes, I’ve noticed that my capitalizing of letters, i.e. electronic yelling, has increased lately, but come ON).

Grow up, okay? Does this sound logical and mature, to stamp your feet and throw a tantrum because you didn’t get your way? You, sweetie, have no place in politics.

Yes, Obama called a female reporter "sweetie." Not a good idea. But, once again, I’ve got to quote Jezebel: " A guy that calls you ‘sweetie‘ is preferable to one who calls you a ‘cunt.’ " And if Obama can make life better for American women, and all Americans, he can call me whatever he wants. And so can you.

Jennifer Leblanc