The difficult choices of fighting corporate evil...

Activists often have to decide whether it is better to fight the beast from the outside or from within. For instance, I just turned down the opportunity to be a part of a local community event because of its corporate sponsorship by Philip Morris. Conversely, I just got this note from Women In Media & News, a feminist media activism group:

Veronica Arreola, an amazing Latina feminist activist and board member of Women In Media & News (WIMN), has been selected from thousands of nominees as one of ten finalists for the "Swiffer Amazing Woman of the Year"contest. This is not just a silly PR effort for a cleaning product company -- if Roni is chosen as one of the company's five Amazing Women, Swiffer will donate $5,000 to WIMN!

As a small, grassroots organization, WIMN can really put that money to good use. Roni, a passionate feminist and media activist (and I think the only woman of color on the Swiffer list) needs the support of the blogger community to make that happen. In addition to her work with WIMN, Roni is involved with
local women's rights and women's health projects in Chicago, is active one a national level as a leader with the National Organization for Women, and works with young women in science and engineering at the University of Illinois.

Please encourage everyone who cares about women -- and who cares about the media -- to vote for Veronica Arreola (she's Amazing Woman #7 in the list)...By the way, we recognize the inherent problem of a contest that presents household chores as primarily a woman's responsibility. But while the marketing message is unavoidable on the contest website, if Roni's chosen as a winner, not only will WIMN get some funding, but Roni will be announcing that it's actually her husband, Tony, that does all the cleaning in her household... thereby subverting the contest's emphasis on women doing all the domestic chores...

Ironic justice or supporting the system while trying to tear it down? You be the judge.