Women Who Want It All... Don't Forget To Have Kids

Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski wrote a HuffPo article yesterday about career women and kids. It really struck me, as a career driven women who wants to have it all. By "all," I mean the successful, long, happy marriage; healthy, well adjusted kids, and the exciting, never boring, meaningful and good paying career. Am I being naive in thinking I can have all this? I find many women of my age group wonder this as well. Many of my brilliant and driven female colleagues insist it can be done. Brzeziniski talks of women, such as my self, who are willing to work long hours, pay their dues and give it their all to have a career. These days, "most young women expect to have a career and plan to go the extra mile." Then she hits us with the truth, "Ladies, one more thing: and perhaps the most important thing I will say here today. If you plan to have a family, please .. PUH-leeease, do NOT forget to get married and have kids. And start now. Even in your 20's!"

"What? What kind of feminist is she?" some might admonish. But maybe she has a point. I spoke to a diplomat friend of mine who echoed this sentiment. She is a member of the Women in International Security organization, a successful diplomat and has traveled the world. But she hit 36 and realized she forgot to have kids. Her words of wisdom to me, "You have to be as intentional about your personal life as you are about your career." After all, what are you working those long hours and raking in those big paychecks for, if you have no one to share it with? Is it wrong to want a loving family to come home to? Is it a sin against your feminist beliefs? A crime against yourself as a confident, successful women? Brzeziniski says, "You should go for your dream career but never forget that you're a woman who deserves a balanced life that includes a loving family."

Read the article, I would love to get some feedback on this one.

Phone call with the Ambassador

Very interesting day today.. Had the amazing opportunity to sit in on a phone interview with Ambassador-at-Large Melanne Verveer who heads The Office of Global Women's Issues. I admire her work with Vital Voices so if you care about women's issues and are unfamiliar with their work, check it out here. The interview was for an exciting new project I am working on with Foreign Policy Roundtable (FPR). I don't want to preempt the article that will be posted on Huffington Post, so I won't go into what was discussed just now but I will plug FPR's premier on HuffPost with a Hot Spots article on Afghanistan: Echoes of Vietnam by James Dobbins. So to all my friends, please read the article, comment, and follow FPR's postings so you can read the Verveer interview as well as a lot of other exciting foreign policy content. The interview is part of a theme of "Women in Foreign Policy." Another one of our my projects for FPR is aggregating the top 5 foreign policy articles you must read from around the world. We will translate and highlight the must reads from around the world. Also, for my public diplomat who practice listening, we will highlight "what the world is saying about us" by bringing foreign publications to your attention. So keep an eye out.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/foreign-policy-roundtable/afghanistan-echoes-of-vie_b_313110.html

Photography As Public Diplomacy

My friend and colleague, Paul Rockower opened a beautiful photo exhibit that "pays homage to 'The Family of Man' exhibition that opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1955. The exhibition’s world tour proved a tremendous public diplomacy success for America." The stunning compilation of photos from his world wide travels, chronicles the human condition. I was clearly not the only one who appreciated the beautiful works of Rockower; check out this review of the exhibition in this Andrew Wulf article Pictures at an Exhibition.

The exhibit will be available to the public in the University of Southern California, Annenberg Gallery until May 17th, 2010. For anyone who is unable to attend the exhibit in person I encourage you to visit the 21st Century Family of Man website by clicking here.

Are you racist and don't know it?

I heard about this Harvard study that created an online test you can take to determine your biases. Are you racist? I think most people would say "of course not." But are you really? Do you have a bias against handicapped people? or old people? or fat people? or men? Try these tests to find out. I would love to hear feedback from people about their results. If you don't want to admit your bias just tell me if you feel like these tests are accurate or if you agreed with your results or anything about bias against these minority groups.

Arab-Muslim ('Arab Muslim - Other People' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to distinguish names that are likely to belong to Arab-Muslims versus people of other nationalities or religions.
Skin-tone ('Light Skin - Dark Skin' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to recognize light and dark-skinned faces. It often reveals an automatic preference for light-skin relative to dark-skin.
Age ('Young - Old' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to distinguish old from young faces. This test often indicates that Americans have automatic preference for young over old.
Disability ('Disabled - Abled' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to recognize symbols representing abled and disabled individuals.
Native American ('Native - White American' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to recognize White and Native American faces in either classic or modern dress, and the names of places that are either American or Foreign in origin.
Sexuality ('Gay - Straight' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to distinguish words and symbols representing gay and straight people. It often reveals an automatic preference for straight relative to gay people.
Weapons ('Weapons - Harmless Objects' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to recognize White and Black faces, and images of weapons or harmless objects.
Gender - Science. This IAT often reveals a relative link between liberal arts and females and between science and males.
Race ('Black - White' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to distinguish faces of European and African origin. It indicates that most Americans have an automatic preference for white over black.
Weight ('Fat - Thin' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to distinguish faces of people who are obese and people who are thin. It often reveals an automatic preference for thin people relative to fat people.
Asian American ('Asian - European American' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to recognize White and Asian-American faces, and images of places that are either American or Foreign in origin.
Presidents ('Presidential Popularity' IAT). This IAT requires the ability to recognize photos of Barack Obama and one or more previous presidents.
Gender - Career. This IAT often reveals a relative link between family and females and between career and males.
Religion ('Religions' IAT). This IAT requires some familiarity with religious terms from various world religions.

Top Secret Security

A couple articles brought to my attention by Paul about the Security Clearance for State Department Interns..

State Department struggles to clear interns

State Department Interns Wait (And Wait, And Wait)

I found the process to be long, difficult and frustrating. I have done a lot of traveling and I will tell you that when you study abroad and go back-packing across Europe, you don't think to write down every date you stepped in and out of a country, the places you stayed and such. Nor do you think you will have to provide a full profile, DOB, SS #, history, birth place, job history for every non-American you add as a friend on Facebook. But you must! Lesson learned, if you are even thinking of joining foreign service or even interning there keep impeccable notes. I went to the West Bank last year and it create a lot more hassle then just going to France on a family vacation. I will say it was worth getting to sit in on some high profile meetings and I was granted security clearance. So I managed somehow.

Locked Up Abroad

So I don't have a TV in my apartment so I watch very little TV besides the news at work and episodes of the Daily Show online but I found a show I can't stop watching. National Geographic's Locked Up Abroad shows the true stories of people who either get jailed in countries outside the US or kidnapped by rebels overseas. The first episode, shown below, showcases two really dense girls from Southern California (thanks for reinforcing our stereotype) who think it would be a great idea to take up the offer of some strange Peruvian guys they just met to smuggle cocaine from Peru for a "free, all expenses paid trip to the sunny beaches of Peru." Now, besides the fact that this in itself would red flag any sensible person, but these girls didn't even think to research where they were going because if they had they might have figured out that they were going to the country during the winter, and there are no beaches in the city of Lima. Needless to say they get locked up and do a nice little 3 year stint in Peruvian prison which is similar to a refuge camp. From an international relations standpoint, this show is really interesting because it shows the role US diplomats play and the laws around these kind of issues. Another episode is about a guy who gets kidnapped by the FARC in Colombia and talks about the role the Red Cross plays in these situations.
I highly suggest this show if you are interested in these types of issues, or if you are thinking on travelling abroad and doing something stupid. Obviously, all the people in the shows get out of the situation eventually so I learned a lot about what to do when you get kidnapped by a rebel group: act really crazy..pee on yourself, stop eating, inflict injury on yourself.. very useful. Enjoy!

The Cab Driver, the Diplomat & the President's Birth Certificate

So on our way to a meeting at the main State Department building two other FPC-ers and myself jumped into a cab to head over to in Foggy Bottom. The group included a my diplomat mentor. The friendly, boisterous cab driver immediately sparked up a conversation, asking us what kind of "shin dig" we were heading over to at the State Department. (I tried to not take offense to his immediate assumption that two women and an African American couldn't possibly be actually just going to work at the State Department.) We explained we worked there to his surprised response, "Oh, it's like that," almost disappointed. He then asked us what we thought about this "whole Obama not being an American thing", to which of course we replied that he was in fact a citizen. The cabbie abruptly insisted "No he isn't.. you guys should know that, you work for the State Department." (uhhh.. ) He insisted that the Obama's grandmother even said he was born in Kenya. (She did? When did she say that?) Now what might not be well known- even if Obama was born in Kenya, (which he wasn't, hence the Hawaii birth certificate) he would still be an American because his mother was American. This is why McCain is a US citizen even though he was born in Panama (his father was stationed there at the time) because his mother is American. Another not so well known fact, most diplomats do their first tour in a visa office issuing passports, visas and confirming US citizenship, hundreds a day for 2-3 year. So they are trained very well in the laws for US citizenship. My diplomat mentor spent her first tour doing just that so she is well aware of the laws in this regard. ANYWAY, the cab driver wouldn't stop arguing with the diplomat that she didn't know the laws about this, that he wasn't American and then asked her how long she had been on the job, cuz she should know this stuff by now. (She did go into foreign service under the Bush administration, in case he was accusing her of being one of Obama's 'croonies'.) Rather than going back and forth with a very stubborn cab driver we all sat in awkward silence. All I could think to myself was, where do these people get these crazy misinformation. The cab driver turned up the radio to fill the silence.. and I heard the voice of Rush Limbaugh...

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