As the Administration suggests a supplemental Stimulus Package focused on job creation, an analysis of how it would affect communities of color is crucial.

"Any effective job creation bill will have to address the hemorrhaging happening in communities of color and the intersections of unemployment and poverty. A special task force should be established to examine the higher than average unemployment rates in Black and Latino communities and to develop long-term strategies to support long-term recovery."

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Adequate funding for TANF's Access and Visitation program will help mothers and fathers who live separately create parenting plans and get on the right track to a more stable parenting relationship.

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As Jim Wallis of Sojourners witnesses the divided sides of the healthcare debate, he urges people to keep their eyes on the prize.

Wallis says, "I have some hope that our political leaders on both sides will come back to the table, regardless of where the Senate bill or conference committee report lands on this issue. Indeed, I am asking them to do that. Health care is too important to too many, and we have all been working for too long for any of us to walk away from this issue.

So whatever the outcome, by an agreed compromise or by open and fair floor or committee votes, I hope and pray that neither side in the country -- pro-life or pro-choice -- walks away from critically needed health-care reform. Either make an agreement or live with the outcome of the vote. But don't walk away! Health-care reform is fundamentally an issue of social and economic justice -- one of the most critical moral issues of our time, and itself an issue of "life." It's time to do what we have sung in social movements for decades now: "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize." And hold on. Hold on."

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The N.A.A.C.P and other group, including AFL-CIO and National Council of La Raza have joined forces to urge President Obama to create more jobs as unemployment among blacks reach over 15 percent.

They want to increase private-sector job growth through tax credits and loans to small and medium businesses.

In a joint statement, the group say, "Americans are confronting the worst jobs situation in more than half a century. This is not a situation we must continue to tough out. A robust plan to create jobs in transparent, effective, and equitable ways can put America back to work."

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The Department of Labor reports, "There is evidence that women's growing representation in the labor force stems not only from men losing their jobs but from women who previously didn't work seeking employment. Since the recession began, the number of women age 16 and over in the labor force -- which includes both the employed and those who are looking for work -- has expanded by 300,000 to 71.7 million. Meanwhile, the number of men working or seeking work has dropped by 123,000 to 82.28 million"

What does this mean?

Center for Economic and Policy Research reports that women now make up about 45 percent of union members, up from just 35 percent in 1983. That number is expected to move past 50 percent by 2020. White men now make up 38 percent of the union work force, down from 51.7 percent in 1983.

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In a new research, Jenny Hoobler, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and her co-authors, Sandy Wayne and Grace Lemmon say,"The women's movement of the 60s and 70s in the United States brought revolutionary change in terms of women's upward progress in organizations, but the biases supporting the glass ceiling today are much more subtle, multifaceted and deeply embedded than they were then.Today women encounter biases so rooted in systems that they may not even be noticed until they are eradicated. In this study, we believe we have identified one such bias"

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WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan called it a "preventable tragedy" that nearly 15 percent of deaths in adult women occur in maternity, according to the statistics from 2004.

AIDS virus is the leading cause of death and disease among women between the ages of 15 and 44.

How can this be prevented or resolved?

Empowering women is one of the most effective and positive forces for improving conditions around the globe because resolving issues such as security, governance, and environmental challenges of our time cannot be solved without the participation of women at all levels of society.

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Irasema Garza of Legal Momentum say, ""It is especially poor and low-income women, women of color, and immigrant women who are driven into the most hazardous and low-status jobs, who are given the least amount of flexibility in their schedules and who are least likely to receive employer-provided benefits such as health care, sick leave, or family leave." 

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According to the WHO report, health systems tend to be "unresponsive to the needs of women despite the fact that women themselves are major contributors to health, through their roles as primary care givers in the family and also health care providers."

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"It is clear that women value their right to spend their own money to purchase the private insurance they want, and object to penalizing those who choose not to participate in whatever a distant bureaucrat deems acceptable. They do not buy into the rush, and they want changes to be cost effective and judicious."

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People assume that gender no longer matters in 2009 because the issue has long been solved

"Gender fatigue actually refers to the phenomenon that people lack the energy to construct the workplace again and again as gender neutral despite the fact that discrimination continues to exist."

It will make it more challenging to tackle the discrimination that still happens in the workplace but in more subtle ways.

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Females make up half of the globe's population, and prosperity and competitiveness are contingent upon achieving gender equality. Here, the World Economic Forum's latest Global Gender Gap Index offers timely and telling insights into growth trajectories near and far.

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According to The Shriver Report: A Women's Nation Changes Everything, we women have finally made it. Although the report focuses mainly on women with families, it tells us that women are now 50 percent of the paid workforce.

So now that we women are becoming the primary breadwinners, and our wages are supposedly rising faster than men's (Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2009), will the tables turn?

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Parents Television Council Reports:
"Incidents of violence against women on mainstream U.S. television has increased by 120 percent in the past five years, with the depiction of teen girls as victims rising by some 400 percent."

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