President-Elect Obama: A Lesson from Your Mother-Put Women in Charge of the Economy!

I love Obama's mother. I love her idealism, her open-mindedness, even her naivete, which lead her to believe the world and her country could indeed be the best it could be. And the election of her son is proving it to be so. I am so sorry she did not live to see it.

S. Ann Dunham Soetoro was a teen mom, and then a single mom doing a PhD, then a pioneering woman working with microcredit. As someone who worked with single moms for many years in the US and finished her PhD just as she became a single mom herself, now working to help make microcredit more well-known...I understand, also as an ex-pat, what Ann Soetero was trying to do. And we have heard what a strong effect she had on her children.

She also knew a thing or two about how women, when in charge of the economy, be it of a household, a bank, or a country, can make a real difference. In fact, they would not have messed it up the way these swapping flipping cheap credit guys have done over the past decade or so. Women invest in their families, and know that the way to build a strong sustainable society, with a healthy economy, is by taking care of everyone, not leaving people out. Usually the women and children are the ones left out.

Obama had not only his inspiring mother, working with microcredit, which mostly helps poor women with small loans to build their own businesses, and TRUSTS them to pay back (which they do much better than those swapping flipping high flying guys did...of and they took your money with them!)...she had a mother who rose in the ranks to become an executive of a bank! So Obama has two generations of women in his family who worked in finance! I hope he learns lesson from that, as well as from the local, grass-roots elements in these banking ideas, passed on by his mother and grandmother, as he puts together the group which is going to help us out of this mess.

Look at Iceland, which after it went bankrupt, put women in charge of it all to clean it up. Most of Scandinavia has already done so and they are faring much better than the rest of the world. There must be something about testosterone and gambling, making air out of air, that makes sense to guys. To women, it frightens us, because there is no there there.

And you cannot feed children with it, or pay the rent, or the clothes for school, or feed your children, on hot air! It's the mothers and the grandmothers who scrimped and saved and put the money away in the past.

Look at organizations such as Muhammad Yunus's Grameen Bank, and the women who own and run it, and are the borrowers paying back at a rate of 99%. Look at all of the microcredit organizations around the world, which focus on loaning to women, because they know, they have learned that women put the profits back into their families, send their children to school, and build a more sustainable future!
In one way, women's roles have not changed all that much... when someone else makes a mess, we often are the ones cleaning it up. If Obama is really smart, he will take a lesson from the women in his family, and set us on a true course towards a deeply sustainable future this time! Get rid of the good ole boys, bring in the moms! I want to see a majority of women running this economic turn-around...or America might be in trouble for a lot longer!

Follow Vivian Norris de Montaigu on Twitter: www.twitter.com/vivigive

Comments

[ndem]

Both men and women can benefit from microcredit...it is just that almost every other system of banks in the developing world focuses on male borrowers....for once a system focuses on women...and they pay back!

[jeff.mowatt]

While it's generally the case that microcredit has been most successful when made available to women, the case for making it available to women exclusively isn't so strong. For example in pioneering work in Russia, though women outnumbered men by a factor of 4:1, the repayment and business survival rate was still 99%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_enterprise#Social_enterprise_in_Russia

It's important the re-emphasise the role of trust in this type of banking. Not all described as microcredit is of the moral collateral form developed by Grameen.

Believe it or not, there are actually men in this world who re-invest profit back into communities and families.

[outmost1]

I would point out that one woman, currently in the news, single-handedly unravels your argument. Given the choice between a level headed, even tempered and humble man to one current alaskan governor I would have to choose that educated and even tempered one.

Gender isn't an indicator of performance, and to suggest that is an affront to anyone (woman or man) that believes in equality.

[propitiousmoment]

On the other hand, the egregious exception notwithstanding, the record speaks for itself. It's not sexist to point that out.

[freelyb]

I am so glad you wrote this story. The son of S. Ann Dunham Soetoro stands before us as a genuine beacon of hope, and it's time to pay homage to the largeness of her soul and her role in Obama's life. Much is guesswork, but that intangible energy of inclusiveness and benevolence on such a grand scale is probably her legacy to Obama's life and to our world. Talk about a progressive!

And, yes, women in charge of national checkbooks might be a very, very good thing. I really don't want to be sexist, and usually I'm not. However, I really do think there's something strongly instinctive in women about prioritizing and allocating resources for the whole. As a long term single mom of four, I love everything about this story...thanks again.

[ImWithThatOne]

Yes. Obama's mother was a woman ahead of her time, no question. You can see her legacy in her son (and her daughter, too, don't forget). Thanks for reminding us.