About a week ago, a company called TR Rose Associates sent me something I'd never gotten in the mail before: a comic book. It's called The Adventures of Carrie Giver and it's a fun, informative, magnificently illustrated piece of political advocacy. Carrie Giver = "caregiver", and the comic book campaign is a remarkably clever tool for drawing attention to the vital issue of uncompensated care-giving in this country. Here's the blurb:
TR Rose Associates, Inc. is unveiling America's first true female super-hero since Wonder Woman. Conceived for the Caregiver Credit Campaign, the new heroine will set the nation abuzz, challenging ideas about mothers and other caregivers in our political, social, and economic life. Our feminist career heroine will have politicians and hairdressers, women and girls, hardhats and female executives, right along with caregivers re-thinking personal and social policy, including Social Security. Carrie Giver will be kicking butt in the name of hundreds of millions of people, especially mothers, who give care to the young and old alike each and every day.
The goal of the Caregiver Credit Campaign is simple -- to get the already extant Child Tax Credit converted to a" Caregiver Tax Credit to cover care of adults and children: anyone who gives care to everyone who needs it in families of blood or choice." It's an admirable goal, and in a world where women are the primary uncompensated caregivers, it's a vital -- if oft-overlooked -- feminist issue. More on the strategy here.
You can buy the comic book for only $3.95 here. I learned more about care-giving and public policy in fifteen minutes reading the Adventures of Carrie Giver than I thought possible. The artwork is compelling, the "adventures" entertaining, the policy information provocative, challenging, and easily digestible. And lord knows, this issue matters more than the virtually any other, and it receives far too little attention.
Please consider buying the comic, visiting the Caregiver Credit Campaign website, and getting involved!
While the goal may be admirable, the line about being the "first true female superhero since Wonder Woman" is a bit off-putting, since it appears to acknowledge that there have been other female superheroes created but to assert that they're not "true" women.
Posted by: Another Jeff | May 25, 2006 at 04:42 AM
I'm put off by the fact that, once again, using a comic to present a hero frames it in the fecking superhero mode. I understand needing iconic, but there are many roads to that, and a superhero is but one. You wouldn't know it, though. It's the Stan Lee effect: no matter WHAT you give the man to work with, his idea is always the same, SUPAH HEERO!
And it looks annoyingly dated, as if the team that put it together hasn't seen a comic since the early 70's.
Posted by: Lea | May 25, 2006 at 07:13 AM
I must appreciate the effort and specially admire the idea which is chosen to help others and to spread the awareness it is may be a most effective way to convey your ideas to general public and change their thoughts
Posted by: Wholesale | November 10, 2010 at 04:00 AM