Anne is reading …

1. After a disastrous Independence Day photo op gone wrong, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will give her first national TV interview since announcing her presidential candidacy in April.

CNN will air the interview conducted by Brianna Keilar today Tuesday July 7th. Relations between Hillary Clinton and the national press have always been strained, but they reached new levels of strain on Saturday, when Clinton aides literally herded reporters through the streets of Gorham, NH’s Fourth of July parade.

2. America’s women’s soccer team returned home from Vancouver victorious as world champions but seriously underpaid. In a record-shattering World Cup final, the U.S. Women’s soccer team decisivelty beat Japan 5-2. For their win, the U.S. team will earn $2 million.

The money reads as impressive until we consider the fact that Germany received $35 million in 2014, after winning the Men’s World Cup Finale in Brazil. Last year $576 million was earmarked for Men’s World Cup rewards, writes PBS. By contrast. this year, a total of $15 million in prizes was set aside for the Women’s World Cup.

This differential exists in spite of the stark reality that Sunday’s women’s final broke soccer viewing records worldwide, according to NPR.

3. The Aspen Institute shares great ideas from women who lead, in an exciting presentation of 3-4 minute personal challenges from their recent Aspen Ideas Festival.

4. In Malawi, senior Chief Inkosi Kachindamoto, a woman, annulled over 300 child marriages, saying that for both boys and girls, children should be in school. In April, Malawi president Peter Mutharika signed into law a ban on child marriage, endorsing a new minimum age of 18 for both genders. Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, with 50% of all girls marrying before the age of 18 in order to improve their families’ financial situations. GirlsnotBride.org reports that every year 15 million girls are married as children.

5. Writing for Forbes, Carrie Rich of YEC Women, writes that Creating Change For Female Leaders Starts With Individual Support.

“There are now venture capitalist groups that exclusively fund female entrepreneurs. Several new accelerators for female founders launched recently too, including MergeLane, Equita, and Refinery, joining others. And several prominent venture capitalist groups recently announced new female partners, like BBG Ventures (Susan Lyne) and Rothenberg Ventures (Fran Hauser).”

“I’m also encouraged by a new wave of female investors starting their own funds: Theresia Gouw Ranzetta and Jennifer Fonstad with Aspect Ventures, Aileen Lee with Cowboy Ventures, Cindy Padnos with Illuminate Ventures, Kristen Green with Forerunner Ventures and Adele Oliva with 1315 Capital. Groups like Pipeline Fellowship, 37 Angels, Portfolia, BELLE Capital, and Golden Seeds work tirelessly to increase the number of women investors. There is a wealth of professional networks that are specifically targeted at women, including the OWN IT Summit, EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women program, the S.H.E. Summit in NYC, The Leadership Foundry and many more.

Meryl Streep Petitions Congress for ERA

Meryl Streep receiving Medal of Freedom award from President Barack Obama in 2014.Hollywood mega actor Meryl Streep sent letters to all 535 members of Congress in late June, petitioning them to revive the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

“I am writing to ask you to stand up for equality – for your mother, your daughter, your sister, your wife or yourself – by actively supporting the Equal Rights Amendment,” Streep wrote in the letter.

Each letter was accompanied by a copy of ‘Equal Means Equal’, a book by president of the ERA Coalition Jessica Neuwirth.

The essence of the ERA is simple, written in 1920, is simple: “Equality rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

It took over 50 years for Congress to finally ratify the ERA in 1972. As the amendment moved towards final passage — passing in 35 of the required 38 states, the infamous Phyllis Schlafly hit the road to stop its final passage.