We’ve Got the Beat: Mombian Cited as Cool Beatblog

Mombian was cited today as a “really cool beatblog” by Beatblogging.org, in an article that looks at how “instead of just writing about the joys and trials of motherhood,” mommy bloggers are “branching out into other areas.”

“What’s a beatblog?” you ask. Here’s Beatblogging.org’s definition:

A beat blog in the expansive sense is any blog that sticks to a well-defined beat or coverage area, whether it is the work of a single person or a team, whether it is authored by a pro or an amateur journalist.

The site is an initiative of NewAssignment.Net, a research project based at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. It “looks at how journalists can use social networks and other Web tools to improve beat reporting, with an emphasis on ‘pushing the practice’ and spotlighting innovation.” One of NewAssignment.Net’s other initiatives was the Off the Bus election coverage, done in conjunction with HuffPo.

Other blogs mentioned in the article were: Momocrats, Net Family News, Delicious Baby, and Sparkplugging. Great blogs, all. I’m honored to be in their company.

Weekly Political Roundup

• Bay Windows has more on GLAD’s DOMA challenge, the likely response from the Obama administration, and reactions from the LGBT community around the country.
• In two separate rulings, the federal appeals court in California said that employees of their court were entitled to health benefits for their same-sex partners under the benefits program for federal workers. The federal Office of Personnel Management has instructed insurers not to provide the benefits, however, citing DOMA. The new head of OPM, though, is John Berry, who is gay. It is unclear how the Obama administration will respond.
• President Obama announced the formation of the White House Council On Women And Girls. Good news in and of itself. Even better when you consider that one representative invited to the kickoff ceremony was Mara Keisling of the National Center For Transgender Equality (NCTE).
• President Obama appointed lesbian Campbell Spencer as a regional director in the White House Office of Political Affairs.
• The military fired 11 soldiers in January under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. Read the rest of this post »

Lesbian Mom Could Be Only Out CEO of Major Firm

Susan Arnold, who just stepped down as vice chair and president of global business units at Proctor & Gamble, could become the only out CEO of a FORTUNE 500 firm, and the 16th woman in such a role.

She would also be the first lesbian mom. She and her partner have two teenage children.

Not surprisingly, Arnold is on my list of Most Powerful Lesbian Moms in America. More impressively, she has been on Forbes Magazine’s list of the world’s most powerful women for five years, Bloomberg notes, and last year ranked 49th, above Queen Elizabeth II. (That might say more about the decline of monarchy than about Arnold, but still.)

The Wall Street Journal says, however, that Arnold may take time off for her family rather than jump into a new power job:

Ms. Arnold is among the most prominent gay executives in corporate America—colleagues say she neither hides nor makes a point of her sexual orientation—and she and her partner have a teenage son and daughter. “I think she’ll take some time off,” because “she really had wanted more time for family,” one Arnold acquaintance suggested. “She doesn’t need the money.”

Whatever her decision, I think it’s a huge sign of progress that the WSJ is reporting so matter-of-factly both about the significance of her rise to the top and about her family.

LGBT Parenting Roundup

The news came fast and furious this week:

The good:

• A Kentucky bill to ban unmarried couples from becoming foster or adoptive parents is effectively dead after not being called for a floor vote this session. Good news.
• New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that the antigay Arizona-based Adoption Profiles, LLC and Adoption Media, LLC stopped doing business in New York after they were found to be violating New York laws prohibiting discrimination against same-sex couples. Lambda Legal had filed a complaint on behalf of a New York gay couple.
• Vermont’s leading mental health and human service organizations say legalizing marriage for same-sex couples won’t hurt kids. Well, duh. But since they’ll be testify in support of marriage equality next week at the Statehouse, I guess they need to state the obvious. Read the rest of this post »

Dr. Susan Love Recruiting an Army of Women

It’s LGBT Health Awareness Week. I therefore thought I’d post a piece I wrote with slight variation for Bay Windows as advance coverage for Dr. Susan Love’s appearance at Fenway Health here in Boston this coming weekend.

Dr. Love is an eminent breast cancer surgeon. Some of you may remember her from her guest appearance on Season 3 of The L Word. A photo of her and her partner showing their hot-off-the-presses California marriage license also graced the pages of Bilerico on June 17, 2008.

Fenway Health began back in 1971, and has a long history of firsts related to LGBT health care.

Despite the local focus, I hope the piece has a wider appeal. Dr. Love is now recruiting for an “Army of Women” to help fight breast cancer, and wants LGBT women to be a part of it. That isn’t some shameless plug for money or wearing pink armbands. Read on to see how she wants to revolutionize breast cancer research.

“I’m excited to come back to Boston and see all my friends there and my friends at the Fenway,” said Dr. Susan M. Love, a pioneering breast cancer surgeon and women’s health advocate.

Love heads the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation in Los Angeles, but knows Boston well from her time at Beth Israel Medical Center between 1974 and 1992. She will be returning to the Bay State for the Fenway Health Center’s Women’s Dinner Party on March 14, where she will present the annual Dr. Susan M. Love Award to actor Lily Tomlin. Read the rest of this post »

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 62

Helen and I do what everyone seems to be doing this week, and debrief on The L Word. We offer a parenting twist, however, and show how our own career paths as mothers have paralleled those of Bette and Tina (though without the high salaries and glamour). What does this say about lesbian parents in general?

We also offer insight into tax season and explain why even being married in Massachusetts is no guarantee your taxes will be any simpler–and may even make them more complicated. Why can’t tax software keep up, we wonder, and is there a secret cabal of accountants driving the fight against federal LGBT rights?

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

Book Recommendations: Shape; The Coloring Book

Here’s my third book-recommendation post in honor of the Share a Story – Shape a Future Blog Tour for Literacy. (Here are the first and second.)

Today’s books take an artistic turn. Both are from Abrams Books for Young Readers, and published in conjunction with Britain’s Tate Museum.

David Goodman and Zoe Miller’s Shape has colorful and creative mixed-media drawings and photographs that remind me of the short segments on Sesame Street when various letters, numbers, or shapes float around in time to music. There’s a little touch of the I Spy School Days books, too.

The book might at first glance look like a preschooler “introduction to shapes” book, however, but it is really aimed at a slightly older audience. Rather than just telling us “This is a square, this is a circle,” it explains the main characteristics of each shape (“A triangle has three straight sides and three corners”) as well as additional concepts like, “A quarter circle is called a quadrant.” It even gets into 3D shapes like spheres, cubes, and circles. Readers are asked to find the shapes hidden in different pictures, or given ideas for further activities, like tracing a tangram and cutting it out. It’s a nice bridge between the “shape” board books you bought your toddler and the geometry lessons your kids will get in school, all wrapped in an artistic package.

Speaking of art, Hervé Tullet’s The Coloring Book should knock your socks off it you have an artistic bone in your body. I may keep this one for myself, to color after our son’s gone to bed.

The book contains images that are concrete, abstract, impressionistic, and occasionally surrealistic, a mix that makes it stand out from the great mass of “color the truck, color the pony” books. There are paint splatters and scribbles to color in, along with superheroes, flowers, and birthday cakes, and a few people that look like they were taken from Picasso’s childhood sketch pad.

A coloring book may seem an odd choice for the “Share a Story” event, but if a picture is is worth a thousand words, there are more than a few good stories tucked away in this 200-page volume.

Tullet includes fun suggestions on many of the pages. A page of dancing stick figures asks, “What are the right colors for happy people?” Facing pages, each with a dangling pair of cherries, say, “Sometimes cherries are red . . . . Sometimes not.” It’s a coloring book that encourages thinking, if not coloring, outside the lines.

One minor LGBT caution: One page has a wedding-like picture of a prince and a princess, with the caption, “Every coloring book needs a prince and a princess.” With luck, your kids will already be thinking outside the lines, however, and know that this isn’t the only way the world can be. Don’t let it stop you from getting this book. It’s a real standout.

Thanks to Green Dads for alerting me to the Share a Story event.

Are You a Subaru Lezzie or a Truck-Driving Dyke?

LGBT car-shopper site Gaywheels.com is conducting a major survey of LGBT auto owners. Publisher Joe LaMuraglia told me they’re looking for more women to participate, however: “We want to make sure that the Lesbian voice is counted. We’ll be presenting this data to all the major car companies and they are really interested. We need the ladies to make sure they are heard!”

The survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete online. Topline results will be shared with major automotive companies.

Yes, one of the goals is to be able to target advertising at us. But car manufacturers are going to target us anyway, just because we’re consumers. Wouldn’t it be better if the advertising sometimes showed families like ours? (Always good to remind companies, too, that we’re more likely to buy if they’re a company with LGBT-friendly policies.)

More details below, from the press release: Read the rest of this post »