Housemaid To Harvard

Contraception -- It's 2012 and Men Still Decide?

2012-02-24T00:00:00.001-05:00

Cynthia Kounaris

Executive Director, Women Ecommerce Execs

The House panel on women's health issues that had not one woman on it got a lot of well-deserved attention in conversations and in media the past few days. The main reason why this so universally resonated was because it defied logic. Even if, for some reason, it seems okay to you that only men should discuss women's health and reproductive issues, did no one have enough sense to say "Well, personally, I think this is perfectly logical, but maybe it won't look so great." Obviously not.

But this whole topic and the ensuing conversations sparked a lot of "where's the logic?" questions for me.

In this day and age, why would it be okay to have ANY panel on ANY topic that included only men? Note that I am not saying that a panel on women's issues should have only women on it. There are probably men who could provide knowledge and insight on that topic, as on any topic. But why would there be a panel of only men -- on women's issues or religious issues or any issue? Where is the logic in that?

Women outnumber men in the U.S. Women college graduates outnumber male college graduates. More women than men voted in 2008. Where we don't outnumber men is in the Congress, in C-level jobs and on Fortune 500 boards.

And as for contraception, while I support a woman's right to choose, I don't view (nor should we view) contraception as JUST a woman's issue. Yes, women are the ones who have to bear the physical burden of pregnancy -- and, all too often, the financial and emotional burden of pregnancy and raising the child, if the father does not step up and share those responsibilities. But wouldn't fathers want their teenage sons to use contraception? Wouldn't fathers want their daughters to use contraception?

And contraception is a family issue. Don't husbands support the use of contraceptives to plan their families? Do men want every sexual encounter to end in a pregnancy -- their own or those of their daughters, their sons, their wives... or their mistresses? That seems very illogical to me. So, I have to draw the conclusion that there are many, many men who are for contraception. It is not just women who need to take care to avoid unwanted pregnancies.

It's fascinating to me how contraception or abstinence still seems to be seen as a female responsibility. Apparently, we have to "hold an aspirin between our knees" (don't get me started on that!) to avoid all the penises that are wildly flying around in our direction, looking for entry. Men have no responsibility to practice safe sex? To abstain? They are incapable of controlling themselves? That seems like antiquated and false logic.

So is the opposing argument that the only way to avoid unwanted pregnancies is abstinence? Does that mean that men would be happy to not have sex with their wives in order to not have more children than they want, can handle or can afford? That seems unlikely. And not to bring up the mistresses again, but given politicians' sex lives, are we saying they would be happy to have their mistresses get pregnant? THAT defies logic.

A Congresswoman whose name I didn't catch mentioned vasectomies. Excellent point! Are not vasectomies a form of contraception? And don't insurance companies cover that? Where is all the uproar from churches on that topic? So male contraception procedures are good and can be paid for but female contraceptive methods are bad and cannot be paid for? That's okay? Fair? Where's the logic??

Another logic problem. If they want to legislate against contraception and against a woman's right to choose and they don't want government dollars allocated to help support unwanted children or to help single mothers, what is happening to those children who are the result of unwanted pregnancies?

Or is it that they unrealistically expect everyone to practice abstinence? To underscore how unrealistic that is, we only have to look at the philanderers in Congress or, on the other end of the spectrum, Bristol Palin. I have nothing against Bristol Palin. She seems like a nice young woman and a good mother. But if Bristol, an educated girl living in a loving and religious two-parent home and in a family that is in the public eye -- if she cannot be abstinent, how would the far right expect more from any other girl (or guy!)?

Where's the logic?

The Sky Is The Limit with Guest Kayoko Mitsumatsu

2012-02-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

“Full Effort is Full Success.” This Gandhi’s wisdom gives Kayoko Mitsumatsu a lot of positive energy especially when facing obstacles. This mantra is foundation for what she does daily. For 25 years, Kayoko has worked as a documentary film maker for NHK, Japan’s National Public Broadcaster. Kayoko also co-founded a Non Profit organization, Yoga Gives Back, to help the imphttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifoverished women of India. Life is an opportunity to fully express herself and contributes to make this world a better place in her own way.

http://www.yogagivesback.org/

Listen to my Speech at Cambridge College

2012-02-22T00:00:00.005-05:00

What Readers Are Saying About Major Dream: From Immigrant Housemaid to Harvard Ph.D.

2012-02-20T00:00:00.002-05:00

…..Jin’s story will inspire and motivate millions of people in the world regardless of their personal background, including race, gender, age, profession, education, and economic status. I strongly encourage you to discover why Jin Robertson's book will have you turning pages until the very end and will leave you determined to appreciate all that is right with your life.

[Jack Canfield, Co-creator of the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul book series]

What a moving and inspiring story that is! It’s not that you need Oprah; it is Oprah that needs you!

[Jacki Rose, Author and Speaker, Massachusetts]

Anyone who has had the pleasure and privilege of being around Jin is impressed by her warmth, strength, graciousness, determination, and ability to inspire others through her example of leadership…..she is that rare individual who makes everyone around her want to be a better person.

[Sam Horn, author of POP! and Tongue Fu!]

I just finished reading your memoir….. Your life is a story of true triumph….. If I had come across a story like yours, it would've given me hope in times when I needed it most….. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your story with the world.

[Jean Kim a woman in early thirties]

I am a seventy-year-old man. Your inspirational story changed my outlook about life. I am trying to live in the best way every day, so that I can say at my deathbed, “I indeed lived a wonderful life, at least from seventy!”

[A seventy-year-old man, Incheon, Korea]

I used to be a plain housewife. But your story changed me completely. Now, I am a freelance TV producer, who reports about people in the world, including Afghanistan and Iraq, and about Korean fishermen abducted by pirates.

[A famous freelance TV producer, Seoul Korea]

I never thought about studying abroad. With the amazing encouragement from your life story, I ended up graduating from Harvard Business School. Now, I work for the Boston Consulting Group Seoul

[A Korean woman at her mid-thirties]

Jin is my spiritual hero! She is the reason why I joined the U.S. Army. I read all of her books, and I even copied a DVD of her speech. Every time when I have a hard time, I watch it!

[A Korean-American female officer in the U.S. Army]

Our bureau booked every past president of the U.S. since President Ronald Reagan, famous sports stars, entertainers, and newsmakers in history. Jin is without question the BEST SPEAKER I HAVE EVER WITNESSED. Her original songs are simply enchanting and magical.

[Bruce Merrin, President, www.celebrityspeakersentertainment.com]

South Korea security law is used to silence dissent, critics say

2012-02-17T00:00:00.001-05:00

Amnesty International branded as 'ludicrous' South Korea's indicting of blogger Park Jung-geun for tweets satirizing the North Korean government.

Kim Myung-soo, a scholar and online bookseller in the South Korean city of Suwon, has battled charges that he “aided the enemy” by selling works from North Korea. (Matt Douma, For The Times / January 6, 2012)

By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times

By his own admission, Park Jung-geun has long been an Internet wiseguy, a young photographer and blogger with a cyber chip on his shoulder whose favorite target for satire is the North Korean government.

For months, his Twitter profile picture showed him with a near-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand, standing in front of a red-starred North Korean flag. Using the handle @seouldecadence, the 23-year-old re-tweeted posts fromPyongyang's Twitter account he deemed particularly ridiculous.

But the South Korean government wasn't laughing. Investigators recently searched Park's photo studio, copying computer hard disks and confiscating books and photographs. After five interrogation sessions, Park, a member of the local Socialist Party branch, was arrested last month on suspicion of "praising and supporting an enemy of the state" in violation of South Korea's strict National Security Law.

He was indicted last week, an action that Amnesty International branded "ludicrous."

Read More

New Pentagon rules could put women closer to combat

2012-02-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

Pentagon opens more doors to women who serve

By David Alexander

WASHINGTON |

(Reuters) - The Pentagon unveiled a new policy on Thursday that will expand job opportunities for women in the military but shift them closer to the fighting, rekindling the issue of women in combat.

The move is part of a Pentagon effort to begin eliminating some of the gender-based discrimination that has prevented greater diversity in the overall force. It came in response to recommendations a year ago from a Military Leadership Diversity Commission mandated by Congress.

Under the new rules, the Defense Department would continue to prohibit women from serving in infantry, armor and special operations units whose main function is to engage in front-line combat, defense officials said.

Asked why women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan conducting security details and house-to-house searches were still formally being barred from combat positions, the officials said the services wanted to see how they performed in the new positions before opening up further.

"Secretary (Leon) Panetta believes that this is the beginning, not the end of a process," Pentagon Press Secretary George Little told a briefing. "The services will continue to review positions and requirements to determine what additional positions may be opened to women."

The rule changes would allow women access to 14,000 jobs they had previously been barred from pursuing, from tank mechanics to rocket-launcher crew members. They would still be barred from 238,000 jobs, nearly a fifth of the total force, mainly infantry and special forces posts.

"But the good news is that 14,000 are being opened," said Virginia Penrod, deputy assistant secretary of defense for military personnel policy, who herself broke gender barriers in the 1970s when she was stationed in North Dakota - in a job that had been considered too cold for women.

Defense officials noted that 10 years of combat had made it clear that some of the military's gender-based restrictions were obsolete because the battlefields faced by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan had no clear front lines and no obvious ways to limit exposure to the fighting.

Officials said 144 women had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, about 2 percent of U.S. deaths in those wars. Some 280,000 women have been deployed to the war zones over the past decade, about 12 percent of the U.S. total.

The Pentagon's plan to change its rules now goes to Congress, which has a period of time to review the policy shift before it goes into effect, probably sometime this summer. During that period, Congress could take action to oppose the policy changes.

'OBSOLETE AND UNFAIR'

Women's groups welcomed the move as a step in the right direction but noted the Defense Department was still barring women from combat.

"Based on initial reports, our response to this report is mixed," said Anu Bhagwati, a former Marine Corps captain who is executive director of the Service Women's Action Network. She called the continued ban on women in combat roles "obsolete and unfair."

The rule changes announced by the Pentagon on Thursday would lift restrictions that prevent women from being assigned to units smaller than a brigade - about 3,500 people - and eliminate a ban that prevents them from serving in units located directly with front-line combat troops.

"This policy has become irrelevant given the modern battlespace with its nonlinear boundaries," the Defense Department said in a report to Congress.

The rule changes mainly affects the Army and Marines, officials said. It opens up six new occupational tracks to women in the Army, from tank and artillery mechanics to rocket and artillery system crew members.

It also enables women with other specialties, from intelligence officers to medics, to be assigned to battalions of just a few hundred troops, a size seen as exposing them to greater risk of combat, defense officials said.

The Pentagon took no immediate action on three other issues the diversity commission raised last year: sleeping and privacy arrangements that prevent full access by women; limits on women being assigned to certain physically demanding jobs; and restrictions preventing them from joining special forces.

While the military has been slow to admit women into combat roles, a Quinnipiac University poll a year ago found that 67 percent of American voters supported allowing women to serve in ground units engaged in close combat. Only 29 percent were opposed. There was little difference between men and women on the issue.

Under current policy adopted in 1994, women are allowed to serve in combat units as medics, intelligence officers and other jobs at the brigade level. But women cannot be assigned to perform the same job in a battalion, which can be as small as a few hundred troops.

The military has sometimes gotten around the rules by temporarily attaching women to battalions, which allowed them to work in the smaller units but kept them from officially receiving credit for being in combat.

Since combat experience is a factor in promotions and job advancement in the military, women have had greater difficulty than men in moving up to the top ranks, officials said.

The Air Force is the service most open to women, with no gender restrictions on 99 percent of the jobs. The Marine Corps and U.S. Army are more difficult, barring women from more than 30 percent of jobs for enlisted personnel, mainly combat and armor positions, the Defense Department said.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

High Praise From Jack Canfield

2012-02-13T00:00:00.003-05:00

Jin Robertson Receives High Praise from Jack Canfield

via: http://niteraiders.com/news/?p=504#more-504

“When going through tough times, it is helpful to read an inspiring story of someone who has overcome what appear to be insurmountable obstacles. I am delighted and proud to recommend one of my friends, Jin Kyu (Suh) Robertson, who has indeed lived a life full of amazing hardships and great overcomings. In fact,I can see several bestselling books and blockbuster movies in the story of her journey, which she has captured in her manuscript From Immigrant Housemaid to Harvard Ph.D.

I strongly believe that her story will inspire and motivate millions of people in the world regardless of their personal background, race, gender, age, profession, education, and economic status. I strongly encourage you to discover why Jin Robertson’s book will have you turning pages until the very end and will leave you determined to appreciate all that is right with your life”.

~Jack Canfield - Co-creator of the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, Co-author of The Success Principles and Featured teacher in “The Secret”.

CONGRATULATIONS, JIN! We can’t wait for the new book!

For more information about Jack Canfield, please visit:

Jack Canfield

Jasmine and I discuss my life story on The Sky Is The Limit

2012-02-10T17:05:00.001-05:00

Remembering Haiti

2012-02-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated the country of Haiti.

Today, the second anniversary of the earthquake, is a good reminder to remember the girls and women who have been affected.

Currently, there are about 800 camps and half a million people still displaced, many of them girls and women.

Haiti is one of the most unsafe places to be a girl or woman, especially for those who live in camps and are vulnerable to violence, so supporting girls and women in Haiti should be a focus of the international community in the effort to rebuild.

While Girl Up does not raise money for programs in Haiti, we are proud to be part of the UN Foundation which supports the work of UN agencies and partners in Haiti to help ensure girls and women remain a priority.

On this anniversary of the earthquake, we encourage Girl Up supporters to learn more about what the UN Foundation and our UN partners are doing to help the Haitian people.

In order for Haiti to get back on its feet, people need to move from tent cities to permanent homes, girls should have the chance to go to school and women should be given opportunities to work.

An estimated 43 percent of households are headed by women, so women are vital to the effort to rebuild communities.

By backing the work of the United Nations, UN Foundation supporters are making sure girls and women stay safe and healthy. The Foundation has raised close to $4 million to help the UN help Haiti.

These funds have supported several important projects, including 125 solar-powered street lights that will keep girls and women who live in the camps safe at night.

Much like the lights that Girl Up has helped provide to keep refugee girls in Ethiopia safe, this lighting is preventing violence in the Haitian camps. The money has also helped UNFPA rebuild ten clinics that provide healthcare to more than 230,000 women in Haiti.

One of Girl Up’s UN agency partners — UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund — is taking a lead role in getting Haitian kids back in school.

UNICEF already distributed school supplies to 750,000 children and 15,000 teachers. This assistance is giving girls the opportunity to go to school, which also gives them the chance to live a healthier life and have a better future.

From the beginning, the UN has been working to help Haiti stabilize and rebuild after the earthquake by providing 1.5 million people with shelter, clean water, and access to latrines, and has supported the removal of more than 50 percent of rubble, another key to rebuilding the country.

The generosity of the thousands of people who have joined the UN Foundation is helping Haitians, including the thousands of girls and women, rebuild.

There are still many challenges and your continued support is needed.

Visit www.unfoundation.org/haiti to learn more, donate, and view new photos and video highlighting the UN’s progress.

Book Me For Your Next Event Through Speakermatch

2012-02-06T00:00:00.001-05:00

The Hope Research Center

Transform yourself, your family, and your workforce for super productive lives with joy and abunduance.

I am living my American Dreams that can inspire, motivate, and empower anybody and everybody to live better and happier lives. I can also transform unhappy mediocre workforces to happy and super productive ones. With my bestselling autobiographies which sold over a half million copies in Korea and over 1,000 keynote speeches in English, Korean and Japanese, the results have been explosively successful.

Fee Range: Open
Travels from Fayetteville, NC

Program Title:

Parenting: Staying Up in the Ups and Downs

Raising Super Star Kid

Dr. Jin Kyu (Suh) Robertson was born and raised in Korea. She worked as a factory girl, waitress, and a housemaid. At age 22, she immigrated to America alone to become a housemaid (a position she found through a Korean newspaper ad) with practically no English and had only one-way ticket and $100 to her name.

At the age of 28, Jin, a mother of eight months old baby-girl, joined the U.S. Army as a private to escape from the domestic violence. Twenty years later, after visiting many countries in the world for assignments and training, she retired as a U.S. Army major, received MA (at the age of 43) and Ph.D. (at the age of 57) both from Harvard.

This single mother raised her daughter, an Army Brat, to be selected as a Presidential Scholar (an honor given to only 141 of 2.5 million high school graduating seniors), graduate from Harvard (BA), become a U.S. Army officer, and receive a masters degree from Princeton.

Prepare yourself for a moving presentation that proves all individuals can create the life the yve always wanted if they are willing to do their best, place themselves in positions of opportunity, and take responsibility for producing quality results that cause others to want to work with them and for them. Discover for yourself why all of Jin's audiences rise to their feet in a rousing standing ovation they reconnect with the part of themselves that knows they have the power to do more with their lives if they choose to act on their own behalf.

You'll understand why Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (best-selling authors of the Chicken Soup series), Pulitzer-Prize winner Ron Powers (Mark Twain), and Grand Master Jhoon Rhee (Father of American Tae Kwon Do) have all recommended Jins work.

Here is what Bruce Merrin, President of www.celebrityspeakersentertainment.com says about Jin's keynote: Our bureau is celebrating its thirty-five-year anniversary. We have booked every past president of the U.S. since President Ronald Reagan. We have booked the most famous sports stars, entertainers, and newsmakers in history. Jin-Kyu (Suh) Robertson is without question the BEST SPEAKER I HAVE EVER WITNESSED. She motivates, inspires, and brings every audience to tears with her impactful success story. Her original songs are simply enchanting and magical.

Project Girl Performance Collective create a safe space for girls to write and perform original work.

2012-02-03T00:00:00.001-05:00

Project Girl Performance Collective- Be a superhero from Jon Ecklund on Vimeo.

Project Girl Performance Collective (http://www.projectgirlperformancecollective.org) is a New York City based incorporated non profit theatre company that gives girls indispensable free training in writing, acting and directing allowing them to step confidently into the world and challenge the status quo.

We need YOU to take part in the movement to empower women and girls around the world

No-one is turned away because of lack of funds from our unique human rights curriculum, which works to engage girls in thinking critically about personal, social and global struggles. For such a curriculum to exist, our staff works countless hours however, without your support and proper funding our work cannot continue.

Each and every contribution goes towards creating a fearless space for girls to write and perform their work.

(Project Girl Performance Collective, Girl Up Director Gina Reiss-Wilchins,
with actress, author, producer, and activist, Jane Fonda)

This incredible group of teens rocked the stage at the Paley Center in New York as part of a global event, with speakers in two cities and more than 100 organized viewing conferences around the world. Not to mentions the thousands of viewers who were live streaming video.

The performance was part of a segment of TEDxWomen hosted by writer, actress and activist, Jane Fonda. And let me tell you, these girls impressed every last person there!