Recently in Interviews Category
The NY Times Magazine has a fantastic interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, available online here . The interview is conducted by Emily Bazelon, a graduate and member of the faculty of Senior Research Scholar in Law and Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School and the senior editor of Slate.
It's a fantastic (but long) interview which touches upon the role of women on the Court, Judge Sotomayor's hearing, and some recent gender civil rights cases.
Some interesting highlights:
In response to Sotomayor's wise Latina comment: "Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All of our differences make the conference better. That I’m a woman, that’s part of it, that I’m Jewish, that’s part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me." (Emphasis mine.)
About Sotomayor's purported fieriness: "Yes, the notion that Sonia is an aggressive questioner — what else is new? Has anybody watched Scalia or Breyer up on the bench?"
About women's roles on the court in gender discrimination cases: "I think the presence of women on the bench made it possible for the courts to appreciate earlier than they might otherwise that sexual harassment belongs under Title VII."
On what she would want to fix as a lawyer: "Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. [...] So we have a policy that affects only poor women."
General comment on changes in abortion policies: "So I think the side that wants to take the choice away from women and give it to the state, they’re fighting a losing battle. Time is on the side of change. " (Emphasis mine.)
Very little media fanfare greeted the May appointment of Helena Williams as interim CEO of New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority, which moves millions of people a day on dozens of interlocking transit systems. At WVFC, though, we knew there had to be something special about a 53-year-old woman who just adds such a gig to her then-current job running the Long Island Rail Road. We dispatched our correspondent Diane Vacca, who asked Williams about public transportation, women with power, work-family balance and how it feels to be the Top Urban Multi-Tasker.
The executive picked up the phone. “How are you? Getting ready for the holiday?” It was shortly before July Fourth and we’d never met, so her ebullience was a happy surprise. Did the CEO of a company that transports 8 million people a day, with an operating budget of close to $11 billion, sense that her interviewer might be be feeling just a little bit daunted at the prospect of questioning her? At 53, Helena E. Williams has been called upon to head New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority until the governor makes a permanent appointment. In the meantime, she will continue as president of the Long Island Rail Road, the first woman to hold that post in the 175 years of the LIRR’s history.
Just found a 3-part interview with Martha McCaughey, author of The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates Over Sex, Violence, and Science. McCaughey is a Professor of Sociology and the Director of Women's Studies at Appalachian State University.
In the author's own words -- "The group I imagined as my audience when I wrote it--and the group I really hope my book speaks to--is regular guys. I wanted regular guys to question where they got their sense of who they are and, further, to question the authority they gave science in helping determine who they are."
Links:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Interesting interview with Ayelet Waldman on Fresh Air. Waldman is known for a controversial essay she wrote, wherein she admitted she loved her husband more than her children. She is promoting her new book, Bad Mother , discussing the fallout from that essay and other various "motherhood" issues. The interview she does with Terry Gross deals a lot with a division between her (second wave feminist) mother and herself about abortion. She discusses her own two abortions in intimate detail. It's a really fascinating interview.
Beyond gender
In celebration of cervical cancer awareness month, I recently interviewed musician Christine Baze. Besides being a kick-ass rocker who has shared the stage with the likes of Sheryl Crow and Michelle Shocked, Baze is a cervical cancer survivor who combined both elements of herself to create The Yellow Umbrella Organization, which sets out to educate women (and the men who love them) about HPV and how to prevent cervical cancer.
For more information about Yellow Umbrella, visit theyellowumbrella.org
Her new album, Ever Changing Colors, will be available soon on her website, christinebaze.com.
First and foremost, the obvious: who are you, what do you do, and what's your claim to fame?
My name is Christine Baze (www.christinebaze.com). I am a musician and cervical cancer survivor. My claim to fame is that i combined the two (musician and survivor) to create The Yellow Umbrella Organization (www.theYellowUmbrella.org) - a wicked cool org that is all about educating and empowering women (and the men who love them) about HPV and how to prevent cervical cancer.
Tell us about the Yellow Umbrella Tour. How did you get the idea for it?
When I started to get my life back after going through cervical cancer and all the treatments (hysterectomy, chemo, radiation, internal radiation), I decided I wanted to do whatever I could to help women avoid this cancer, because it is completely preventable IF women use the right tools. So, I thought it would be cool to get people together at a music gig, and pass out info and talk about what just happened to me, in hopes that it wouldn't happen to them. So I held a concert, called it PopSmear, and people came out, had fun, AND heard the message of cervical cancer prevention. It totally worked, so I took it on the road and called it The Yellow Umbrella Tour (named after one of my songs), and eventually established www.theYellowUmbrella.org as a non profit.
