I will be writing a special post for it, each month, to go live at the beginning of the month, at the same time as the print edition appears. Here is the address: www.tcwmag.com/Blogs/Sive-Siftings.aspx.

My Today's Chicago Woman focus will be on politics, public affairs and other issues affecting women's lives. I'd like to hear from you, especially if you have topics you think I should cover.

My regular SiveSiftings' blogposts now appear at:   www.sivesiftingsrebeccasivetalksback.com.  I hope you will subscribe at:   www.rebeccasive.com/blogSubscribe.htm.

In August, I covered a lot of ground at SiveSiftings--from Chicago, to New York, to D.C., to Boston, to Mississippi, and back again. Do take a look.

Last, I will be sharing some of my SiveSiftings in periodic newsletters like this one.
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Here's a portion of what I wrote for September's Today's Chicago Woman, the part  particularly fitting in this birthday month of one of Chicago's greatest women, Jane Addams.

--At an August meeting of women leaders, convened by Mayor Daley's senior staff, and Rosanna Marquez, President of the Eleanor Foundation, Rosanna shared the findings from the Eleanor's national study, Valuing Working Mothers:  The Future of Our Communities: see: www.eleanorfoundation.org/resources/pubs.php. 

The study presents some very important data regarding the willingness of women to shape their future, in meaningful partnerships with civic and communal institutions. I encourage you to look at it.

Following Rosanna's presentation, I then shared with the group my view of the on-the-ground realities that must inform any and every effort intended to improve the lives and futures of today's-Chicago-women, or women in any other big city, for that matter. 

· Women are the urban decision makers, including in Chicago.  In most Chicago families, women are the daily decision makers on all matters of import. Whether this is true because single, women-headed households predominate in many communities, or because young women with children are most frequently unmarried, or because 50% of all marriages end in divorce, women make the fundamental decisions about healthcare, childcare, a place to live, the school to attend, the job to take.

Consequently, and to be successful, policymakers need to recognize, respect, and address women as the key, community decision makers we are.

· Tragically, millions of women, all across urban America, including hundreds of thousands in Chicago, live in "war zones."  Too many of today's Chicago women live in neighborhoods where, notwithstanding everyone's best efforts, too, too many are, as one of my friends recently put it, "prisoners in their own homes," for fear of random street- violence.

The results:  children don't go to school; moms don't go to work; families don't avail themselves of myriad community resources and services; and, worst of all, promising lives are lost.

· Economic self-sufficiency must be the requisite for any job. Women must have jobs that lead to economic self-sufficiency because, in a majority of families--in many urban neighborhoods--women are the only adult wage earners, likely to remain so throughout their working lives and the childhoods of their children.

· Women need to be trained for the jobs-of-the-future.  At all times, but especially in times of economic scarcity, women need to have the skills and training to win the good, available jobs, not be consigned to the low-paying, fast-disappearing jobs of yesteryear.

· Too often, women lack the social networks that help families survive and thrive. Largely due to the cost of housing, many working women and their children move frequently. The result is a dearth of both long-term social networks, and nearby family-supports, the very support systems that enable women heads-of-households to manage their professional lives, and their families, successfully.--