With International Women's Day on March 8th, it is worth noting that women are hard at work in today's modern economy, employed in the job market and owning their own businesses in unprecedented numbers. Yet when money talks, it still talks in a male voice—and the larger the pile of money, the more exclusively male its territory.
A new national educational nonprofit, An Economy of Our Own (AEOO), is launching on March 25, 2020, at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier VT, 5:30 pm-7:00 pm. The event will celebrate and honor women's economic leadership and activism in Vermont and the nation. Tiffany Bluemle of Change the Story VT, Cary Brown of the Vermont Commission on Women and Rhoni Basden of Vermont Works for Women will present the latest news about women's economic status in Vermont. Former editor of Vermont Woman, author, and Ms. Magazine columnist, Rickey Gard Diamond, will introduce several members of AEOO's national advisory board, and offer remarks on why women's perspectives on economics are badly needed.
Board members who will join the event digitally include progressive economic luminaries like Riane Eisler (founder of the Center for Partnership Studies, author of The Chalice and The Blade and The Real Wealth of Nations); David Korten (Club of Rome member, co-founder of Yes! Magazine and author of When Corporations Rule the World); Carmen Rios (Ms. Magazine consulting editor, host of Bitch Media's Popaganda podcast); Marybeth Gardam, Women's International League for Peace & Justice-US, and its Women, Money and Democracy committee; Georgia Kelly, editor of Uncivil Liberties: Deconstructing Libertarianism, founder of Praxis Peace Institute and sponsor of a 2020 conference, Economics, Justice, and the Climate Crisis.
The work of board members Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt and The Public Banking Solution, founder of the Public Banking Institute; economist Crystal Arnold of Money-Morphosis and the Money-Wise Women podcast, and Jamila Medley, Ex. Director of Philadelphia Area Co-operative Alliance will inspire us. Local AEOO board member Gwendolyn Hallsmith, of Vermonters for a New Economy, will update us on Vermont's Green New Deal, State of the State and Pan-demonium. We invite other organizations to share their economic news also.
The organization's website (www.AnEconomyofOurOwn.org) says AEOO's purpose is to promote a women's economic agenda for 2020, and to "educate women (and the men who love us) about the many female economic thinkers and activists who have transformational ideas and aspirations." These often address macroeconomic assumptions that omit women and nature and leave the majority coming up short.
"Women are stretched thinner than ever these days," says Diamond. "So we intend to make women's economic ideas more visible, and easier to talk about together. Right now our male-dominated economy is waged as war—the trade war with China a small piece of that. But we believe women can lead the way toward an economy waged as life. Reframing the economy's language, not just its numbers, is key."
An economy waged as war divides people by race, gender, and class into haves and have-nots. These divisions create intersections dangerous for far too many. In 2020, AEOO intends to examine what women are generally told we cannot afford, such as universal childcare, livable wages, livable hours, and family leave time, but also more abstract issues now commonly perceived as free from gender, such as GDP (Gross Domestic Product), public banking, local development and investing, QE (Quantitative Easing) and currency. These are also women's issues.
An Economy of Our Own invites the public to celebrate with us. While the program ends at 7:00 pm, there will be a potluck until 7:45 pm. We ask cooks to pledge to bring sneeze-free dishes. Hand sanitizers will be featured as first course on the buffet table.
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