I’m looking for 3 more bloggers for this site for the following blogs:

1) Family and Parenting Blog

2) Money and Investing

3) Career and Growth

In each case I’m looking for someone to write short, simple posts with one idea each to share with women. Here is a good example of what I’m looking for: sample.

- each post, one ‘idea’ to share, relatively short, straight to the point. I figure we are all busy, so I want posts with a good piece of information that can be read quickly. If you can add a personal experience like in the example above that would be great but I realize that won’t be possible for every post.

- each post should be between 100 and 200 words long.

- 5 posts a week. M – F.

- eventually when I can pay more, maybe I’ll have you write one post a week that is a bit longer.

- each post must be unique. To define that better – it can’t be anything copied from someone else – I don’t want to run into any copyright issues from other web sites. But also, I don’t want duplicate content. Having said that it is perfectly ok if you have your own blog about the same or a similar topic and can rewrite some ideas you may have posted before, as long as it is written in a unique way.

- I reserve the right to edit posts – mostly for grammar or spelling, but I may add in a link to another related page of mine too. Or I may edit out something I think isn’t appropriate – but I will try to contact you first or right afterward if this happens.

- I reserve the right to re-use ideas you post on other parts of my site.

- Your name will always appear with your posts and I will make a profile page for you that each post you write will link to. Your profile page can include links to other blogs or sites of yours – but I will check and make sure they are appropriate.

- Although it is my site, I want to make the site less and less about me over time and more about the community that I want to form around it. So, please, feel free to add a personal touch to your posts and promote yourself and the blog you write.

- I would like for your to either include a picture of yourself that will appear on each post, or use a Yahoo or similar cartoon version of yourself. (See mine as an example)

- if you include other images with your posts – they must be images that you are legally allowed to use.

- Please avoid writing anything about religion. I think we will have enough posts about topics that may be controversial, I really don’t want to bring religion into the site. A brief mention of God is ok. Ask me if you aren’t sure.

- While I want the blog you are writing for (except for the fitness posts for the one blog) to be about you – I may still write an additional post for the blog from time to time.

- I would prefer people with some blogging experience.

- After choosing some people, I will go over some basic SEO topics and style guidelines.

- I will most likely write up a short contract

- Please do not include affiliate links in your posts or profile page

- you don’t have to use your real name, but please use something reasonable and consistent. We can discuss this if you don’t want to use your real name.

- You will have access to log into WordPress to write your posts.

- if I can’t find one person that can write everything for one blog, I may choose more than one person for each blog, each writing about different subtopics.

- below is more information about the type of posts I’m looking for for each blog.

To apply:

- email me at trisha at this domain using a subject that includes the blog you are interested in writing for.

- include links to any blogs or web sites you have, social media profiles or anything else you think might be relevant.

- if you don’t have a blog, please include a sample of your writing. But please understand that I will probably choose someone with blogging experience over someone without.

- include a brief explanation of why you want to write for IdeasForWomen.com

- include what hours you are available to contact. I understand some people will have day jobs or young children at home and may not be available all the time.

Detailed blog information:

1) Family and Parenting –
For this blog I’m looking for 4 sort of sub-topics each week – a) family or home safety; b) family activities or parenting issues c) something related to parenting and learning/teaching kids. The other days of the week is up to you. In fact, if you can think of some other subtopic you would like to write about, please let me know. Homeschooling topics would be great.

2) Money and Investing –
Again, I’m thinking of a few sort of sub-topics with one post about each, each week. a) investing – stocks, bonds, mutual funds; b) saving for retirement and college; c) insurance; d) saving, budgeting, getting out of debt, etc. The other day of the week is up to you. In fact, if you can think of some other subtopic you would like to write about, please let me know.

3) Career and Growth –
Career ideas: individual ideas for helping women improve or develop their careers and/or interviews with women in different careers to help other women decide if a particular career path is right for them.
Growth: – personal, profession growth, positive uplifting types of posts.
Again share your ideas for this blog if you have some.

Pay:

Currently I will pay $25 a week. Which amounts to $5 per post – remember these are relatively short posts. As I make more from the site I will pay more.

Other:

- Politically, and otherwise, I’m pretty liberal and that will be reflected in one of the other blogs I will write for the site. If that offends you, blogging for this site probably isn’t for you.

- I don’t do pink or princesses, in fact I’m pretty anti pink and princess. I will be writing some posts along those lines, and if that offends you, well, blogging for this site probably isn’t for you.

- I’m also not a big fan of makeup, fashion, etc., if that offends you, well, you know.

- My background is in science, so anti-science posts are not welcome.

And lastly, I will eventually delete this post, or modify it – so if you don’t plan to contact me right away, you may want to save a copy of it.

Thanks!

I will need a few bloggers in the coming weeks:

One each for the Home and Family, Money and Finance, Leisure and Travel and Career and Growth blogs. I will be writing the Health and Fitness blog, but would like to find someone to write just one short post a week about exercise or fitness.

More information about what I am looking and what type of bloggers will be available soon!

I will be looking for people to write in the categories of ‘Home and Family’, ‘Money and Finance’ and ‘Career and Growth’ and ‘Travel and Leisure’. I will be writing the health and fitness one for a long time myself. Unless I can find someone with a science background who is interested. I might also add a blog with guest posters from various charities, particularly those that help women and girls. Or people could write about ways that women can get involved with creating change in the world that help people in general, but especially women.

How will I pick people? Haven’t decided yet. Will probably look at any existing blogs, want information about why you think you can write about the particular subject, etc.

I might also get guest posters for the career and travel sections – people with advice and information about a particular career path they have experience with and people who have traveled or lived in certain areas. I don’t know yet about paying guest posters. That usually isn’t done as for as I know.

This blog will be a sort of meta blog for the site.

Interested in blogging here? I’m in the process of adding more blogs. Might be able to pay a little, or at least give a good link and profile page to blogger’s own blog. Reasonably good English.

Ad spot on top of every page – right now $50 a month, one month at a time. Will pro-rate. No obligation for more. Must be relevant to site. Not some cheesy money-making thing. Etc. I’ll decide if site is good enough. No text links at this time. But no no-follow either, unless you actually want that. Contact me at contact page. Comments turned off temporarily.

Earthday Environmental E’s!
Effect – the area around you in a positive way
Extend – the use of the items you use and buy
Energize – your life in an environmentally positive way
Eat – in a more environmentally sustainable, responsible and healthy manner
One Last Earth Day E – Educate!

The puppy is forcing me to be healthier though. I have to make sure I get to bed by a certain time – because she will wake me up every morning at the same time regardless of when I went to bed or how much sleep I got.

And since I’ve been taking her for long walks – which I need to do to help wear her out so I can get some work done – I’ve been easily getting 10,000 steps a day.

And as I’ve been learning about dog nutrition to make sure I feed her healthy food, I’ve been eating a little better too.

Now, if I just had a few more hours each day I could get some more work done too! Maybe even work on this blog and site!

It was about the idea that schools should stop teaching and having kids read books like “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men”, etc. since those books use the “N word” and “portray African-Americans as inarticulate and unintelligent”.

I really don’t know what I think about this. I’m white and I don’t know if my opinion should really matter when it comes to issues of race like this or not.

But as a woman I got to thinking about how girls, and both young and adult women, are portrayed in much of the classical literature – even in those books that are aimed at girls.

Unfortunately I can’t think of too many specific examples. I do remember that in “Little Women” (because I re-read it recently since I didn’t finish it when I was younger; I quit after Beth died – it made me too sad) the only options women had were to be good little girls and wives and mothers.

I came to the conclusion that I don’t think I would want my daughter to even read the book. I don’t even want her to get it in her head that women – even at some time in the past – had that limited of opportunities. Maybe when she gets older, but not as a young girl still trying to find her place in the world.

Very few if any of the books I read as a kid had a female character that was strong and educated. And I do believe that even if girls today are not inundated with messages that they are fragile and not as smart, etc. (and that’s debatable – I think they still are on T.V., movies, etc.) – even getting that idea in their heads now and then, in subtle ways, can have an impact on their self esteem and on what they think their future as adult women might be like.

Those subtle messages can be the most insidious of all too. Just a little comment in a book about how proper girls and women should behave gets the message in their heads. A kid could grow up – whether they are black, female or any non-white male – with great self esteem and feeling really good about themselves. And then a story is read in class that could put the idea in their heads, as well as in their classmates heads, that maybe, just maybe they aren’t as good as the others.

I certainly wouldn’t want schools teaching from books that would send this message to my daughter. If people who are black think certain books are not a good idea to be taught in classrooms maybe we should respect that.

You can’t erase history and certainly mistakes of the past need to be learned about so they aren’t repeated. But it could wait until kids are a little older. Juniors and seniors in high school, or even better yet, college. By that time young people should have a strong, and hopefully, positive self-image.

Most of the planet’s population is already non-white males. Over time, even in this country, white males will be a minority. In the future almost every kid in a classroom will be part of one of the groups that were discriminated against in the past. Maybe sexism, racism, the holocaust and other atrocities can be taught and linked together as examples of how we must not ever treat any group of people as less than human.

Barbie turns 50 this month and today, March 9th is her official birthday.

If you have a daughter or might have one some day – did you or would you let her have Barbie dolls?

I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I had Barbie dolls and they didn’t completely screw me up. On the other hand, it did give me warped ideas about what adult women are supposed to look like – but I got over it.

I don’t know yet if I would let a daughter have them. I haven’t kept up, but I’m guessing they still make them with unrealistic proportions. If they changed them and made them more realistic I think they would be ok. I did just read that Barbie’s waist is now bigger, but as far as I know her breasts are still really big. The really old ones that look like they are wearing lots of makeup just look creepy to me.

If they offered different ones with not just different skin and hair colors, but height, waist and breast sizes and with no makeup I’d feel much better about a daughter having one too.

The idea of having a doll that is an adult is to help young girls explore what they would like to be when they are an adult. And for them to imagine being something other than a mother, which is about the only option with the more traditional baby dolls. That’s a great idea, its a shame its been messed up to some degree due to the way Barbie’s body is designed.

And March 8th is International Women’s Day:

Additional information about International Women’s Day can be found here:

Women for Women International

Women’s Voices for Change

… the problem here is with strangers passing judgment on other people’s situations

– Anna Quindlen (Newsweek, Feb. 16, ‘On Their Own Terms‘)

(Yes, I’ve been catching up with my Newsweeks that I didn’t have time to read yet.)

Anna Quindlen had a great article recently about RU-486 and since I cannot write like she can I want to quote a few parts for today’s post.

A few points I want to make here:

1) As human beings our bodies belong to us – not to husbands, boyfriends, etc., not the government, not politicians, not the clergy and definitely not total strangers.

“… between the clinic demonstrations, the political discussions and the imprecations from the pulpit, too many American women have come to feel that their pelvis is public property (Anna Quindlen).”

2) I’m concerned about young women today who are certainly not old enough to remember what life was like for women before Roe v. Wade and also have not been told or heard about what women went through in the past concerning childbirth, etc. when they did not have equal rights.

“But change in party or philosophy cannot change this undeniable fact: women who do not want to be pregnant will try to end their pregnancies. They will do it because they don’t have enough money, or enough support, or they think they are too young or too overwhelmed by circumstance. They always have, and they always will. Rat poison, Lysol, ergot, bleach—oh, the historical list of desperate measures is long. (Anna Quindlen)“

With all of our rights – those specific to women or not – we must be ever vigilant or we risk losing them. Don’t think it can’t happen.

3) Keep in mind that those who would control our reproductive organs are not likely to pay you or your child’s medical costs or college, or be there when you have to work two jobs to avoid being homeless, etc. Even if you are responsible and still find yourself with an unwanted pregnancy that you cannot terminate and then are not able to provide for the child properly, you could be accused and even arrested for neglect.

Be strong! Stand up for your rights. Don’t ever let anyone control any part of your body or mind!