Women and Politics

Cross-posted from the Women’s Media Center Blog

To commemorate the launch of the Name It. Change It. campaign, WMC Cofounder and Board Member Gloria Steinem issued the following statement on equality:

The most workable definition of equality for journalists is reversibility. Don’t mention her young children unless you would also mention his, or describe her clothes unless you would describe his, or say she’s shrill or attractive unless the same adjectives would be applied to a man. Don’t say she’s had facial surgery unless you say he dyes his hair or has hair plugs….and so on. Don’t say she’s just out of graduate school, but he’s a young Turk or that she’s someone’s protégée but he’s a rising star…

By extension, don’t say someone is a Muslim unless you also identify Christians and Jews, or identify only some people by race, ethnicity or sexuality and not others. However, this does NOT mean being even-handedly positive or negative when only one person or side has done something positive or negative. Equality allows accuracy.

This post was submitted by Sophie Shulman, WCF Communications Fellow

Here at WCF, we believe that everyone needs more women in government. Not only do women benefit from the examples set by powerful female leaders, but fathers, children, environmentalists, Republicans and Democrats have all seen the effects of the collaborative work environment and the new perspectives brought by women in politics.

In yesterday’s Washington Post, David Broder wrote about the introduction of women into political reporting, and the inevitable effect that Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s appointment will have on the Supreme Court:

“I don’t know how having three strong-minded female justices serving simultaneously for the first time will change the world of the Supreme Court. But I will not be surprised if this small society does not change for all its members.”

Indeed, society, D.C., and politics have changed in the few decades in which women have made their movement into the political world. And for the vast majority of Americans, they have changed for the better. Here at WCF, we have a lot of ideas about who needs more women in government, and we’ve put them on buttons to share at Netroots Nation and with the rest of the world.

Who do you think needs more women in government? We’d love to hear your ideas—please share your thoughts with us on Twitter or Facebook. And check out our pictures on Flickr to see the Netroots community sporting our buttons!

This post was submitted by Sophie Shulman, WCF Communications Fellow

Earlier this week, Politics Daily released its “The Next 10 Women to Watch in Politics” list, highlighting women—other than Sarah Palin—who are likely to gain national attention in the upcoming elections. WCF-Endorsed Candidate, Terri Sewell, made the list as she campaigns for the opportunity to be the first elected Congresswoman from Alabama.

But Sewell’s impressive leadership isn’t news to us. She’s been on WCF’S list since the early days of her campaign, and we’re thrilled that she’s looking so strong heading into today’s Democratic runoff. Running in the heavily Democratic 7th district, today’s victor will likely win the general election in November. And, according to Chris Cillizza at the Fix, Sewell is the favorite to win. Indeed, Sewell was the vote leader in June’s primary, winning 36.8% of the vote. She’s also raised over seven times the amount of her opponent, Sheila Smoot.

Since her victory in June, Sewell has been collecting endorsements across the country. The Birmingham News Editorial Board recently came out in support of Sewell, arguing that:

“Sewell has the potential to be a fine, history-making congresswoman.”

She has also received campaign contributions from illustrious donors such as U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, showing Sewell’s national appeal and her proven record on progressive issues. Very early in her candidacy, Sewell also earned a ringing endorsement from women’s rights icon Lilly Ledbetter, who gained national fame for promoting pay equity in the workplace:

“Just as I was honored to support President Barack Obama for his historic election, I am happy to support Terri Sewell in her historic race to be the first woman in Alabama elected to Congress. She is best candidate to fight for the rights of all. My regret is that I can not vote for her but I can encourage others.”

These amazing women have reached out on Sewell’s behalf because they know that she’s the kind of woman we need in Congress—one who’s willing to fight for women’s issues, as she’s done throughout her legal career and in her personal life. But Sewell has also received help from Alabama’s elected officials and the people of Alabama—because she was born and raised in Selma and has shown her deep connection to her future constituents.

Here at WCF, we’re also extremely proud of Terri Sewell, and excited for her to shatter the next glass ceiling and become Alabama’s first elected Congresswoman. For months we’ve been working to help Sewell reach this point—and now’s the time for us to reach out, support Sewell, and support women everywhere.

This post was submitted by Sophie Shulman, WCF Communications Fellow

As a young woman working in the political world, I am often confronted by the assertion that my generation does not feel as strongly about reproductive choices as our predecessors. After all, Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, and we’ve grown up in an era in which women appear to be fully liberated.

But the truth is that my cohort is uniquely—and dramatically—affected by Roe and its aftermath. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to hear a panel of reproductive rights advocates discuss these issues at the Campus Progress National Conference. Shelby Knox, a women’s rights advocate who works to mobilize young people around the idea of “reproductive justice,” described young people as:

“The generation that has been scared away from contraception.”

She was referring to the years of systematic weakening of the rights that were identified by Roe, which have limited women’s access and knowledge about contraception and abortion. In addition to numerous laws requiring parental consent and lack of public funding, reproductive choices have been severely affected by poor sex education in schools. Knox’s personal story of growing up in a small town in Texas with abstinence-only sex education classes was made into a documentary that attempted to explain how vital comprehensive sex-ed is to reducing pregnancy (and abortion) rates, as well as sexually transmitted infections.

Another panelist, Khadine Bennett, a Staff Attorney for ACLU of Illinois, pointed out that:

“If you are in a middle-to-upper class school, you are more likely to get comprehensive sex education than if you are low-income.”

Essentially, access to information about contraceptives and reproductive health options is based now, more than ever, based on one’s socio-economic status. While this is hardly new, it upends one of the main problems that Roe attempted to address—poor women in the United States have a much greater need for affordable and safe reproductive options.

Since Roe, conservative, anti-choice organizations have been attacking the foundations of the decision, and while they have not succeeded in overturning it, yet, they have made things much more difficult for women across the country. Part of the problem is that the women who fought for Roe in the 1960s and 1970s thought that they had won—and stopped pushing for further protection of their rights. As Bennett described her work in Illinois:

“We’re countering years and years of anti-choice work. We were tired of fighting… of being in this defensive position.”

That’s why the ACLU in Illinois, and more and more women’s groups across the country are working to stop anti-choice bills—and to create proactive legislation in anticipation of the next attack. According to Elizabeth Nash, from the Guttmacher Institute, of all the reproductive health proposals adopted in the past decade, 27 have been anti-choice and only 4 protected women’s reproductive choices.

And in the past year, anti-choice conservatives have found a new battleground in which to limit women’s rights; the health care bill reminded American women that their health choices are still not totally theirs to decide. Indeed, since the passage of the bill, as Nash says:

“Anti-choice legislators at the state level have seen an opportunity to restrict abortion in insurance.”

Just as comprehensive sexual education now seems to be a luxury, anti-choice advocates are attempting to make it harder for low-income women to have access to a necessary health service. Men and women deserve to have equal coverage of their medical needs, and to have an equal opportunity to make their own health decisions.

These changes will have the most serious impact on young women—who will have to live their entire lives with these restrictions. But women of all ages have a responsibility to fight these measures in any way they can. While the debates in Congress and the Supreme Court garner the most attention, the battles for reproductive choices are often fought in state legislatures. Jordan Goldberg, from the Center for Reproductive Rights, made the argument that:

“On a day-to-day basis, when a woman tries to get an abortion, [she] is affected by the laws of her state.”

And, individuals can also have a more decisive impact at the local level. That’s why, here at WCF, we endorse women candidates at every level—because we know that it is not only a stepping stone to higher office, but also an essential arena for women’s issues.

Perhaps women my age are less aware of how their lives are affected by their access to reproductive choices—but if the anti-choice conservatives get their way, I think they will quickly realize how important these rights are. I challenge women everywhere—and of every generation—to spread this message, call their local, state, or federal representatives, or even run for office, because we can’t afford to lose these battles.

…what would be different? Probably a lot.

Just some food for thought—if women had an equal voice in our country’s leadership, would we:

• Be in our current financial crisis?
• Have started all these wars?
• Still be fighting about health care reform?
• See all the backlash against women’s reproductive health choices?
• Continue to ignore the impending ramifications of our environmental impact?

Last night, my karate sensei said some of these very words to me. That’s right—my male karate instructor who is a human lethal weapon and spends 90 minutes yelling at us to be stronger and faster—pointed out that we might not be in all the trouble we’re in if women had an equal leadership role in this country.

If he and my 93 year-old grandfather can see the clear, common-sense, and urgent need for more women in public office, why can’t the rest of the country?

Why has our progress of electing more women stagnated in the past few years? Why don’t more women support women candidates? These are questions we all must answer and work to fix if we truly want to see our country choose a path of strength and prosperity for our future.

The confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor raises questions not just about the composition of the Supreme Court, but the balance of power in our entire country. The fact is, we need women to have an equal voice in our nation’s leadership. This is a very simple, yet somehow deeply complex idea.

Simple, because if you think about the range of diversity in our country, common sense would tell us that our public leadership should reflect the makeup of society. Otherwise, the needs of certain groups can easily be overlooked, and their unique experiences aren’t brought to the table.

Complex, because this is a new concept. Despite America’s goal to bring equality and justice to all, our history is riddled with different groups struggling to be heard and treated fairly. Certainly, never before have we been dedicated to ensuring that the governing power be divided based on the composition of our population. And don’t get me wrong—we aren’t now.

But there is, luckily, a growing sentiment that we should be thinking about the disparity between our government leadership and our society. And it seems that this idea is beginning with the need for women’s voices in our country’s leadership.

Many are conducting and reporting on research which shows that women having an equal seat at the table equals greater success. As Dee Dee Myers pointed out yesterday on MSNBC:

“Increasingly, there’s a body of research which says that when you have a diverse group of decision-makers, they actually reach better decisions. [...] Businesses with more women on their boards and in senior management positions are more profitable.”

Many articles have been written about the financial crisis, asking, if more women had been involved, would we be in such an economic disaster? Debora Spar, former Harvard Business School professor, says that women may “perceive and act on risk” in different ways - possibly leading them to avoid the “massively aggressive behavior that seemingly overnight brought us a crash of epic proportions.” She goes on to say,

“We desperately need to bring more women into leadership positions on Wall Street, in politics, in regulatory bodies and in American life generally. We need women in leadership positions not only because they can manage as well as men but because they manage differently than men [they tend] to make different kinds of decisions and to accept and avoid different kinds of risk.”

Now, before we go into any “wise Latina-she thinks women make better decisions” type territory, let me stop you there. That’s not the argument. The argument is that if women were equally represented on these bodies of power, the decisions made could have a different outcome. With a more diverse set of people working together, you increase the chance that a more balanced and well-thought-out conclusion might be made.

What Sonia Sotomayor has said, repeatedly, during her confirmation hearings is true: “Our system is enriched by a variety of experiences.” Simple idea in theory—endlessly complex in execution. But we have to start somewhere, and having Sonia Sotomayor on our Supreme Court is a heck of a start.

Twitter has been going wild all day. The tweets?

I signed petition to support legislation for presidential commission on women. Have you? http://twurl.nl/ezeuxi #womencount

photo: AP

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) has launched an initiative to set up a permanent federal commission on women. Some are questioning the necessity for this commission since Obama started the White House Council on Women and Girls weeks ago. But Speier says they would work to complement each other and work together. WomenCount says:

“We need to bring together the efforts of the many organizations devoted to women’s issues and causes, and create a common movement to benefit the future of all women.”

Pointing out the great gains made in recent years, WomenCount also points out what we learned in 2008:

The election exposed extreme gender bias in the media, in politics, and throughout our culture.  This demonstrated that although women in the United States have come a long way since the last Presidential Commission on the Status of Women in 1961, we still have far to go.

Rep. Speier agrees, saying, ““I would say, ‘We’ve come a long way, baby’ … not.” True true. It seems that despite our gains, whenever women initiate concrete steps to change women’s leadership in society, we inevitably encounter opposition. (What, you can vote - aren’t you happy yet? You’re serving in Congress, what more do you want?)

But thanks to leaders like Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and Jackie Speier, the fight for women’s equality will not fade into the background. If you see any coverage (good or bad) about the women’s commission, post a comment!