Jess Phoenix on Why We Need More Scientists in Congress

Jess Phoenix Congress

Jess Phoenix is a geologist who studies volcanoes. She also happens to be running in the 2018 election to represent the people of the 25th Congressional District in California. On December 28, she shared a post on her Facebook page that explained why she thinks more scientists belong in Congress. We at Women of Green couldn’t agree more. Read her post below:

“One question I hear a lot is “why should we send a scientist to Congress since you don’t know anything about making laws?” Our soundbite century shows its flaws here for 2 reasons. 
1) Scientists would kick ass at making laws, 
2) I’m much more than “just a scientist.”

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Geisha Williams: First Latina CEO of a Fortune 500 Company

Geisha Williams: First Latina CEO of a Fortune 500 Company

After I graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in engineering, I went to work for a local energy company. There, I had the good fortune of working for this person who ended up being a lifelong mentor of mine. He asked me one day, “Geisha, what are your long-term career aspirations?” And I said, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’d like to be a manager or a supervisor someday.” He said, “No. I mean long-term.” Well, I was thinking long-term. At that time, women like me didn’t run corporations. Latinas didn’t run corporations. Immigrants didn’t run corporations. But he looked at me and said, “Geisha, somebody has to run this company some day. Why not you?”

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Dance Theater Celebrates Role of Women in Social Movements

Dance Theater Celebrates Role of Women in Social Movements

Social movements — whether they concern race, economic equity or environmental justice — often have one thing in common: They are led and sustained by women. That’s a theme at the core of Ananya Dance Theatre’s latest piece, “Shyamali: Sprouting Words,” which looks at the role of women in fostering dissent, and how protest in turn leads to progress. Dancer Felicia Perry said that throughout the dance, there is an analogy between women who protest and the grass beneath our feet. “Grass can be pretty annoying … in the ways that women are annoying when we speak up and we speak out, but we keep coming back.” “Shyamali” features Ananya Dance Theatre’s signature mix of classical Indian dance, yoga and martial arts. The moves are at times dreamy and sensual, at other times fiercely physical. The dancers are beaten down, and they come back.

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“Firsts”: TIME’s New Video Series on 45 Groundbreaking Women

"Firsts": TIME's New Video Series on 45 Groundbreaking Women

On Sept. 7, TIME will unveil Firsts, a multimedia project featuring candid interviews with 45 groundbreaking women. Some of these women — Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Aretha Franklin — you know well, and will get to know better through their stories of setbacks and success. Others, you may be meeting for the first time. All of them are extraordinary.

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Why Women Need to Be Leading on Climate Change Around the World

Paris_Mayor_Hidalgo_Welcomes_Secretary_Kerry_to_Paris_City_Hall

Women who aim for high political office often face plenty of challenges along the way. As a result, “they have an ability to resist and lead which is undoubtedly stronger than that of most men with a typical career path,” says Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. That hardiness is coming in handy as many of the world’s cities – a growing number of them led by women – move to take the lead in adopting clean energy, adapting to climate threats and otherwise battling climate change. Women, “have the courage to bring about those changes,” said Hidalgo, Paris’ first woman mayor and the first female leader of a global network of more than 80 cities leading on climate action. In two years, the number of women in charge of large cities that are taking the lead on climate change has risen from four to 16, according to C40 Cities, which is organizing a conference for women leaders in New York.

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Radical, Bad-Ass Women Could Be On U.S. $20 Bill

WomenOn20s.org

Since the dawn of our great nation, there’s one thing United States citizens can count on: seeing white guys everywhere. In spite of women outnumbering men in the US and our ever-growing racial diversity, white guys dominate our media, our history books, our government, and (especially) our money. You probably have some white guys in your wallet right now. The organization Women on 20s has been working to bring more diversity to your wallet by getting a woman on the $20 bill in place of Andrew Jackson. And a lot of people including the folks in Washington agree it’s time to give a woman the honor. Once the voting is closed, Women On 20s will submit a formal petition to the White House. From there they hope the president will give the order to the US Treasury to make the change. Those against the idea argue that the men on our money should stay because they’re some of our “founding fathers.” That’s not true. Abraham Lincoln was not a founding father, and Andrew Jackson was only 9 years old when the country was founded. Plus, as supporters of the switch point out, Jackson has (to put it mildly) a rather […]

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Women Fast-forwarding the Green Economy with Kathleen Rogers – show 39

“It is essential that our most talented and driven women come together to fast forward the green economy,” says Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network, the organization that is widely viewed as the birth of the modern environmental movement with over 22,000 partners in 192 countries. “We think that women will look at it differently, build it differently, and at the very least, should have a major seat at the table in a major way around the world.” But the fact is we don’t. Women hold less than 20% of the top tier position across the board in corporations and in the political arena. “We are conspicuously absent from the power broker positions,” says Rogers.

The Earth Day Network, under Rogers leadership, has launched a campaign to change all of that. Their WAGE (Women and the Green Economy) campaign’s purpose is to accelerate and provide the new thinking and creative power for a global post-carbon economy by engaging women business, government and NGO leaders. Its goal is to create a policy agenda for Rio+20 and relevant generate national initiatives that will promote the green economy, secure educational and job training opportunities for women and channel green investment to benefit women.

“The idea behind WAGE is as we create a global green economy,” says Rogers, “women need to be at the table.” Kathleen Rogers certainly is. Are you? Listen to this podcast now. It’s a rally call to all women everywhere to turn up the volume of our leadership right in the very communities we live. The time is now. Let’s seize it.

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