Example:
Pat Schroeder's and Eleanor Clift's and Associated Press's Uninformed and Counterproductive "News Story" on Women and the White House

The following was excerpted from the Associated Press News Wire for Tue Mar 5, 4:26 AM ET. The wirestory has been available from most major Internet sites News Areas. Use the search word Schroeder and you can find it.

It is a glaring example of how some tokenized or male-pattern "powerful" women are hurting and embarrassing themselves, and lessening their inherent nearly limitless power and own self-esteem as women, by making thoughtless remarks in their own nations, ignoring women around the world, and giving fodder to dominator-male media biases that tokenize them, oppresses women and most men alike and have been avoiding and/or censoring news about the 50-50 gender balance that now exists in France and much of Europe. Good women don't do so Good when forcing themselves to fit the dominant male-pattern:

Begin Excerpts:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -... at a forum of about 400 people at the University of Missouri- City.
Patricia Schroeder, former congresswoman who considered a race for the (US) presidency in 1988, ...(and who) has spent more time in Congress than any other woman says there has been little progress toward...when a woman could win the White House.
Schroeder..believes polls showing more than 90 percent of Americans are ready to vote for a woman president are misleading. "Basically, women are still terribly, terribly uncomfortable with other women in power," said Schroeder, who described the White House as the ultimate tree house with a sign...reading, "No girls allowed."
(Schroeder) said women are hampered by their fund-raising style, a lacking sense of entitlement and a shortage of strong role models. Schroeder, noted men tend to "trade checks" with other male fund-raisers,.. but "If women paid as much for politics as they did their last outfit, we'd have more women in the White House," said Schroeder.
Writer Eleanor Clift, co-author of a book that tracks the rise of women in politics, said only a handful of women have the contacts that could generate the ...325 million needed for a credible campaign. "There's so many hurdles," said Clift,
Women...do not feel entitled to hold the office and are conditioned from youth to focus on other concerns, such as planning ...wedding instead...inauguration, said Schroeder. A lack of strong role models on television hurts, as does ... lack of women leaders in politics and business, she added.
As a congresswoman, Schroeder dedicated herself to the passage of the Women's Health Equity Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act, chaired the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families from 1991 to 1994 and co-chaired the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues.

End of Excerpts

Gentle-Power Confrontation/Analysis/Open Letter to Invite Better from Schroeder, Clift and AP

Pat Schroeder's entire experience in Congress occurred when not only Congress, but much of Europe's, Australia's, Canada's and other nation's legislatures were over 90% male. Today, most of Europe's and scores of other legislatures are at about 30-70 to 50-50% gender balance, unlike the US, which is still close to 90% male. Once any nation has focused on the problem, it takes as little as a few months to gender-balance an officialdom so it can be an actual and representative government, better trusted by its people, in a way that the US government has not been trusted for the years when and since Pat served in it. The US Congress/(and Media) is currently clinging to the last hurrah for male domination - it is 87% (often dominator)-male, with a token representation of 13% women - at least among that now, in fact, minority of Americans who actually consider it a government. Thus, Schroeder's words are tainted by the fact that, whether she wants to admit it or not, she has been, essentially a token woman in a primitive dominator-male run club that has now been substantially disowned by the electorate.

Schroeder shockingly doesn't say so, but try as it might be for some to hide it, legislative gender balance progress will come to the US -- and likely, right quickly. That will certainly overturn the difficulty of women coming to the White House, too. But, by leaving this out of her remarks, Schroeder (and AP) mislead women barking up the wrong, isolationist male-only White House, as she calls it boys-only "tree house!"

This is not to demean Schroeder. She had been a pioneer. Many women (unlike men) of her generation did feel they had to choose between weddings and inaugurations. But today, many men and women plan for both, and her notion that women do not is an insult to at least two generations of women since Pat's. Indeed, many older women are now beginning to rediscover political talent within themselves that they didn't know they had when they were younger, especially as they learn that the French, Swedish, Spanish, German, Belgian and many other governments - local, state and national, are now, at least 30% and often 50-50 male and female; Pat should be encouraging women of her generation and all generations to think about that, not spreading disempowerment.

Today, Schroeder can be justly proud to be the head of the American Publishers Association, which certainly could be reempowered to be a powerful voice to assist women and men to gain gender awareness, balance and power for good. But her publisher'$ orientation is currently apparently limiting her to believe that communication must be commercially rewarded, and hierarchically controlled from within as it is in book publishing, newspapers, etc. Her mindset is pre-fax, pre-long distance, pre-conference calling available to any citizen in information-age nations, pre-internet. With women and men equally using computers and telecommunication together now, the path to success has already changed. It relies on the common good use of telecommuications which are far-reaching but inherently inexpensive. more user controlled, globally enriched, and interactive.

But the internet unsavvy, like Pat, may not know that. Indeed, those in power and privilege may be the last to know this because they have relied on others to use the Internet, or dial the telephone for them, rather than getting hands-on human interactive connection experience, assisted by powerful technology, themselves.

Therefore, Pat Schroeder, and too many too long-overpartyized women like her, wrongly believes the Presidency will be gotten the way MEN, operating in a unigender and non-gender-relational, pre-internet savvy context, have traditionally always gotten the US Presidency - by raising a lot of money and basically buying it. That isn't and was never ethically good, for men or women, in the eyes of most of Pat's sister and brother citizens. So, why is she resigning herself to it, just as technology and women's involvement is making it obsolete? If she uses her fame and position to say such backward things, maybe she should decide whether to prepare to be laughed at and mistrusted, keep quiet, resign, or reempower herself in good ways. The choice is hers and we gently wish her well. But even old girl dogs must learn new tricks if they want to speak to the public.

Pat's mistakes remind us of the query of Bella Abzug, "Will politics change women, or will women change politics?". Clearly, when women function in token levels of numbers like Pat Schroeder did and the current US 13% do, politics changes the woman, and for the worst: it limits their thinking, and they pick up the worst habits of politics of the dominator-males who surround them. Such women then demean other women who are not interested in becoming masculinized money-corruptors of government. But, when women insist on representational levels above the critical mass of 36%, then, they change politics. They clean it up, and eventually bring better, wiser men than dominators, into leadership, as well. That is already happening in many nations. That's what token-experienced Pat didn't tell you here in this negative example for women.

Clift, too, wants to help women, deep down, and men, and so does her husband, Tom Barazaitis, her partner in co-authorship of Madame President. Yet, she embarrasses herself if she makes such statements as this, (unless she was misquoted by the gender-imbalanced AP.) Clift, too, here needlessly emphasizes money and hurdles, without inspiring us with the stories of women who rose to power in other nations - not by primarily by raising money, but by using their own family name, or sometimes just sheer force of will, to bring women into power as partners of men, and advocate for gender balance in their and neighbor governments; Women like Vigdis Finnboggitr, Benizar Bhotto, Tansu Cillar, Golda Meir, Corazon Acquino, and Sonia Gandhi faced far more daunting hurdles in their nations than American women face in theirs. Often, they rose or are rising to the occasion by bravely and personally leading marches, sit-ins, and information campaigns.

They considered these human methods at least as important as money, and today, many are improving on using easier but also powerful yet inexpensive technology - the fax, the phone and the internet, every day. The women in many of their nations are now ahead of US women in overcoming token levels of representation like that being tolerated by US women. Women, and men, around the world are legitimately expecting women in the US to overcome token levels of women in government, if the US wishes to remain a respected world leader in the eyes of hundreds of millions. Indeed, the US has made itself THE hurdle for women around the world as well as its own women. Talk of hurdles is beginning to sound like US women's whining excuse, and US journalist women like Eleanor Clift are beginning to run out of excuses. Eleanor needs greater self empowerment, and should avoid focussing on the negative and making isolationist excuses. If US Olympic athletes have jumped easily over hurdles, why can't US women and their men? And if the race is for public good, the hurdles shouldn't be about money in the first place, should they?

Why run a hurdle-gauntlet of the few when you can bring balance and democracy to the many that, then, makes the Executive a position of most talent for public good, not talent for money? Importantly, Clift here left out that such global women and their country's women and pro-women men writers have advocated and passed gender balance laws to make it just as easy and less "hurdlesome" for women in their and all nations to hold office as the partners of good men. Only if Clift (and AP's either biased or mindless reporter) leaves out the new of global gender balance in the parties and governments of scores of nations, like France, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, South Africa, Norway, Spain, South Africa and many others, can she delude herself and delude gullible others into believing that Executive Leadership is hard and "hurdlesome" for men and women to share.

Shouldn't book-selling authors like Clift should make it clear they want to make it easy and ethical, not hard and hurdlesome, for American women to find out why women in other nations are achieving success faster than they are? An important author will want to import such success to the US. One hurdle Eleanor and Tom can eliminate is the isolationist aspects of their book in an age of global telecommunication. We suggest that she and her husband change the name of the book, book jacket, and/or it's website advertisements to read and include: The US and World's Madame Presidents of Democracy (and the Men of Gender Representational Equalite Who Are Their Partners). That is the only legitimate book in an age of globalization for a world power nation and especially, for women who have always known that sisterhood and democracy must be inherently human and global. That is a book topic for men and women who want not just power, but power to do good. "Madame President" for any nation must be a title not of hubris and arrogance, but humanity and humility. Many people in the US feel that Mr. President itself has become a title of carelessness and arrogance. If President means mostly money, it matters little what gender it has been bought by. If Clift's sites do not link to gender balance and global women's presidents sites, her work and mission will not be deemed sincere or in the interest of the public.

Finally, Eleanor Clift should be reminded that title, "Madame", used by her book, is a French word. As a journalist, she must know full well that the Associated Press's French contributors' stories about the gender balance elections in France are not getting out well enough to too much of the US, and have seemed routinely buried, deemphasized or even mysteriously untranslated or delayed. Even more importantly the news is still getting out: by the Agence France Press, international cable, and by many women and gender activists, by email and fax. That makes the dominant male- dominated US commercial and public radio, newspapers (part of Schroeder's Publisher's Association?) and TV, that have been keeping the parite and relates global stories- humanly as important an event as the fall of the Berlin wall - out of the news and away from the American people, both during France's gender-balancing 2001 elections, and now again regarding their 4/21 2002 election, look very very bad. Not only are both top Presidential candidate men, Parite father Prime Minister Jospin and current President Chirac, both running campaigns that take pride in gender parite (Chirac may not be sure if he means it or is just pandering, but he is campaigning on it), but the third highest likely vote getter, Laguiller, is a woman, another candidate is a black woman, Christiane Labiqua, and many people in the US are learning about it faster than the old media moguls can keep it away from them

So, if Eleanor Clift and her friends in US media cannot make sure her quoted words include more about the gentle and worthy French madames now achieving Parite in their government, and if AP and the US media keep France's gender balance out of our news, they should not be surprised if we stop speaking of them and their associations with ANY respect whatsoever for their Verite. If that occurs, then sales of and demand for French gender law author/Founding Mother and Prime Minister's wife, Sylviane Agacinski's Parite (now in US bookstores as well) will increase, while sales of "Madame President" do not.

Because, Madame Clift, there is another connotation for the word Madame, that exploitation-seeking American "Johns" have used when they entered a House of Ill Repute. And a US journalist and "news" media that do not insist on getting the good news out about gentle women standing up and upstanding men for gender balance, but are instead obsessed with tokens telling tales of gathering money and the necessity of women selling their souls for it, well, such journalists and media, whatever their gender, do not sustain Good Repute among the decent and gentle, female or male.

In the US, dominator-male run journalism itself now has indeed become a House, a Fourth Estate, of Ill Repute. Americans are turning off their televisions, laughing at the radio censored news, and cancelling their newspaper subscriptions in larger numbers than ever. So Eleanor, we hope and suggest you and other once trusted women in US journalism again regain a good reputation, and make it your business to tell every American, women and man, about the gender parite elections in France, and the gender balance laws sweeping Europe and the world. If not, we will know American media is behind a Gender Iron Curtain, and needs a Voice of Europe and the Rest of the World to free us all. Now, we have not read your book, and to give you credit, perhaps it does talk about parite and gender in government in other countries. Perhaps you "snuck" it in. But it does not say so on your website, which is what many will assume you think conveys its most important content, and which reaches most people. If the information is not on your website, you have not spoken and written good enough words yet.

Of course, even in the American context, Schroeder had to work here, to discount the fact that 90% of men and women in the US are ready for a woman in the White House. The grass roots is 90% for women in office, but the Congress is about 90% male. It may be a signal that there are too few decent men and women in Pat's corporatized, politicized circle, circle, or memories in her psyche, that celebrate Pat's earlier achievements, and tell her she can still keep growing. Or, it may mean she is out of touch with women around the world who have already achieved what she thinks is hard, under even more adverse conditions, but still wish to empower her as a sister and a friend.

Pat Schroeder and Eleanor Clift must do better, and we must all care about them enough, love them as gently powerful women if they want to be, as spiritual sisters on our same earth who want to keep money out of politics and bring women into democracy, to help them to do so. We want to empower, not insult them. So, Pat - and Eleanor Don't just grow old - and don't grow self-compromised. Just grow up to Gender Balance, in your nations and all nations. It's happening in your world, if you haven't been too busy "publishing" in the isolationist US to catch a French, Swedish, South African, Australian, or European headline, or online links, such as those on this website, which include links on the French Parite manifesto and law, about long successful Nordic gender balance, on gender empowerment in many other countries, and on a global declaration of independence from gender tyranny and of gender balanced interdependence for good government which has already been seen by millions online, and many others. Gender Balance is The Good News for democracy, and our world. 9-11 were the numbers of our world's first wake up call about the dangers of too long calling gender imbalance and its money-obse$$ed mode$ of operation government. Isn't it all our job to rempower Pat and Eleanor to publish that NOW, especially starting 4/22/2002, the date designed by nature and time to remind us that in mutual recognition, the genders literally multiply and square their talents and gifts for a shared and linked life of the full and overlapping circles of partnership. The Earth will thrive with this full and equal partnership in government, but will not long survive without it. Let Pat and Eleanor, their husbands and children, and all the male partners who will join them, say this together, and publish it.