August 8 is my birthday. Please help celebrate!

Tomorrow August 8th is my birthday! Instead of asking for gifts, I’ve created a Birthday Wish where you can share stories, photos, and donate to the cause Pennsylvania NOW, something I really care about. Check it out!

Why I Care About NOW and Women's Equality

I joined NOW in 1979 because I couldn't get my boss to pay me a fair wage (I was paid 59% of what a man that graduated with me was paid). In 1989, NOW helped save my life by intervening in a health insurance dispute that was preventing me from having a bone marrow transplant. I continue to have a passion for equality for all, including for women and children. Current issues like shackling pregnant women in prison or cutting funds for critical women's and children's programs that occured here in Pennsylvania for a second year in a row makes my blood boil. We need funds to help get the word out when these kinds of things are happening. Will you help?

Please help make this a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY for me by making a tax-deductible donation to the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund. Thank you!

OR

If you are not on Facebook or prefer to make the donation by check rather than credit card, you can send your check or credit card donation to us at Pennsylvania NOW, P.O. Box 68, Bellefonte, PA 16823. A pledge form for this purpose is attached at th end of this blog.

If you want to make a tax deductible donation, make the check out to the “Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund.” If you don't need the tax deduction, then you can make the check out to “Pennsylvania NOW, Inc.” Either way helps.

Put "Joanne's Birthday Wish" in the check memo line so that we know that you are helping make my wish come true.

Thanks so much! I'm so lucky to have such awesome friends and fellow activists for equality.

-Joanne Tosti-Vasey, President, Pennsylvania NOW, Inc. and Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund

PA NOW Pledge Form

Women's Equality Day, CEDAW, and Facebook

Women's Equality Day is August 26 in the United States.  It was instituted in 1971 by Bella Abzug.  It commemorates the passage of the 19th amendment to the US Constitution that grants the right to vote to women.  We also use this day to commemorate other achievements and efforts to achieve equality for women.  Like the passage of Title IX that helps insure equitable access to education for girls or the inclusion of gender in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which was reconfirmed with the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.  It is a day to honor women's rights.

We believe that women’s rights are human rights.  What better way to honor that history than to urge the United States Senate to ratify CEDAW -- the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women.  CEDAW is the most comprehensive international agreement on the basic human rights of women and girls.

Ratifying CEDAW would lend weight to the treaty and the principle that human rights of women are universal across all cultures, nations and religions and worthy of being guaranteed through international human rights standards.  Until the U.S. ratifies CEDAW, it can neither credibly demand that others live up to their obligations under the treaty, nor that it is a leader in the global human rights community.

CEDAW has been ratified by 185 countries, including all industrialized nations, with the exception of the United States. While progress has been made in advancing women’s rights in recent decades, women continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty, sexual and domestic violence and lack of access to basic health care and equal education. In countries where CEDAW has been ratified, it has made significant improvement to the status of women. U.S. ratification of CEDAW would lend weight to the treaty and solidify our status as a leader in the global human rights committee.

So in honor of Women's Equality Day, the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund has created an online Facebook petition urging the US Senate to ratify CEDAW without restrictions or reservations.

If you have a Facebook account, you can sign the petition (and add your “Cause” supporting this action). This petition drive ends on August 26, 2010—Women’s Equality Day. The signatures will be sent to the National NOW Action Center to be added to the signatures they are delivering to the US Senate and to President Obama.

So take a moment, sign the petition, and spread the word in honor of Women's Equality Day!