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Marie Wilson by The White House Project
Marie Wilson, President and founder of The White House Project, has been laboring for the global advancement of women and girls for over three decades. Her organization is celebrating her 70th birthday, which appropriately falls on Labor Day, with a surprise, interactive, online celebration.
Wilson envisions "a society where women lead side-by-side with men in order to transform our democracy and its institutions," with the result being "a future awash with new ideas and transformed by the energy of all people in every sector - one where there are greater options, a diversity of voices and (where) the work of running our country is easier and better for all citizens."
Women change Everything by The White House Project
Wilson's vision begs for fulfillment: the "Women in National Parliaments: World Classification" which assesses women's participation in politics, ranks the US at a shocking 73rd among 186 nations. We lag behind China, Afghanistan, Mexico, Viet Nam, and even Iraq. http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm
Terry O'Neill, "president of the National Organization for Women, described the percentage of women in Congress as "abysmal' and said the United States should be ashamed that it's one of only seven U.N. members - in company with Iran and Sudan - that hasn't ratified a 30-year-old women's rights treaty, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women." (David Crary, Aug. 25, 2010, Washington Post.)
In 1998, while Wilson was President of the Ms. Foundation for Women, she founded The White House Project in recognition of the need to build a truly representative democracy: one where women lead alongside men in all spheres. She left the Ms. Foundation in 2004 to devote her full energy to The White House Project, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. Since then, over 10,000 women nationwide have been trained through its award-winning, Vote, Run, Lead program.
Go Vote, Go Run, Go Lead, Go Girl! by www.thewhitehouseproject.org
On Sept. 2, 2010 The White House Project announced an upcoming women's leadership training project coordinated with Participant Media as a prologue to the upcoming film, Fair Game. Starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, the movie is a true, "riveting action-thriller" being released in select cities on November 5th.
Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, in Fair Game by The White House Project
Fair Game chronicles the destruction of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson's careers and the devastation to their family and marriage when her identity as a covert CIA operative was leaked to the press by the Bush administration. This national security breach was allegedly perpetrated as punishment following the publication of Wilson's 2003 New York Times editorial challenging White House statements about Iraq's so-called weapons of mass destruction.
Fair Game poster by Fair Game movie
Directed by Doug Liman, the movie is based on Plame's book, "Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House."
The coordinating training project, the "Women's Political Leadership and Nuclear Security Training," will take place in Washington, D.C., October 18-19, 2010, and includes a screening of the movie for participants. http://twhp.convio.net/site/Survey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=3201
Wilson will speak at the event on Oct. 18.
Over the last
thirty years, Wilson's accomplishments range from being the first woman elected
to the Des Moines City Council as a member-at-large in 1983, to co-authoring
the critically acclaimed Mother Daughter Revolution (1993, Bantam Books), and
serving as an official government delegate to the United Nations Fourth World
Conference on Women held in Beijing, China in 1995.
