Women and Politics

This post was submitted by Jean Qiao, WCF Communications Fellow

Who needs more women in government? Everyone. Women make up 51% of the U.S. population; shouldn’t the federal government reflect that population in its elected officials? Sadly the U.S. Senate consists of only 17 women senators.

With the primary season already well underway, it is evident that 2010 will be a competitive election year for women. Current New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is facing a possible challenge by former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr. in the September Democratic primary.

But will New York voters accept this out-of-state candidate, when they already rely on Gillibrand’s leadership on issues like women’s rights?

Probably not. Harold Ford Jr. has proven that his stance on choice is anything but clear. Ford claims that he is “not pro-choice” and “pro-life” and his voting record on these issues show no clarification on his views. He has consistently supported stem-cell research and opposed the global gag rule but voted “yes” twice to ban partial-birth abortions. In addition, he supports the failed abstinence-only programs.

So Gillibrand, the incumbent, who has a strong record fighting for reproductive freedoms faces a challenger who cannot seem to differentiate between the two ends of the reproductive rights spectrum? The choice is pretty clear to me.

After being appointed to fill Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s seat in the Senate early last year, Sen. Gillibrand has been nothing but a powerhouse on women’s issues. She has sponsored and voted for various legislation that helps working mothers and their families. In addition, Gillibrand has been a strong supporter for President Obama’s healthcare plan and has fought to ensure that women’s reproductive freedoms are not excluded from healthcare coverage. In December of last year, Gillibrand was amongst the many outspoken leaders against the Stupak-Pitts amendment. Gillibrand is a proven leader and is the clear choice for New York State Senate.

Leaders of many women’s organizations agree with this sentiment. WCF President/CEO Sam Bennett was recently quoted in an article in the popular online news magazine The Daily Beast saying:

“Gillibrand has been a “trailblazer” on women’s issues, and that her organization and its donors will do ‘whatever’s necessary’ to get her reelected. I was just with a donor in New York the other day who said, ‘I supported Ford when he ran in Tennessee, he has a lot of nerve coming to my state now and asking me to vote for him instead of Kirsten.’”

It is no secret that women lack representation in the U.S. government. The narrow defeat of the Nelson-Hatch Amendment in December would most definitely not have happened if it weren’t for the outspoken women representatives in Congress. Electing women such as Kirsten Gillibrand is absolutely necessary to ensure that women’s issues are a priority in the U.S. government.

When will you female candidates learn? You can’t be too emotional, that makes you seem weak. But don’t be too cold, that makes you an Ice Queen. Definitely don’t focus on your gender, but don’t ignore it either.

Talk about your family and kids, but not too much, because a busy candidate can’t be a good mother. If you don’t have kids, you’d better be extra warm and fuzzy.

So how can you act, you ask? That question remains unanswered. Why? Because our society has developed so many extreme stereotypes for women that we no longer know how to respond. We don’t know what’s safe.

As a result, female candidates end up trying to traverse the icy trail of double standards, attempting to choose between one extreme over the other, floundering around in the middle, or just trying to be themselves.

Hillary Clinton has always been a strong leader who doesn’t take any crap. But it wasn’t her experience or vision that won over some voters, it was the fact that she cried on television. (”Oh good, she does have emotions, I had no idea”). Would voters ever need to see a male candidate cry to earn their support? Of course not. But apparently Clinton had acted too removed, too hard, too much like…a man for people’s taste.

But if Clinton had come out of the gate overflowing with emotion about women and her campaign, she would have been blasted for being a sappy female.

Meanwhile, Martha Coakley has repeatedly been called “icy” and is now criticized for not emphasizing the historic nature of her campaign. But should a female candidate dare express that her gender is indeed one of her many qualifications, the response I always hear is, “I won’t vote for a woman just because she’s a woman.”

It seems women just can’t win. And believe me, it’s not just women pointing this out (nor are women excluded from judging based on stereotypes). To POLITICO, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) recounted that despite her overwhelming win in Massachusetts, Hillary Clinton still faced sexism from voters there.

McGovern also brought up how a local paper concluded that Coakley’s new hair and makeup style were to blame for the race tightening:

“They wouldn’t write this about a man,” McGovern said. “I still think we have a long way to go to make this an equal playing field.”

James Carroll of The Daily Beast describes Massachusetts’ rich and long history of misogyny toward female candidates:

“The short of it is that the most liberal state in the nation … practices the politics of misogyny. When it comes to positions of real power, no women need apply. Martha Coakley was croaked by an electorate that could not get past her gender.”

Martha Coakley’s loss in the special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat leaves many of us angry that the “progressive” state of Massachusetts continues to squeeze out women. It also leaves us frightened about the future of women’s reproductive rights in the health care bill.

Without Coakley, preventing attacks on choice in health care reform looks bleak. And if Massachusetts serves as a thermometer for the way our country is viewing female candidates, we’re in big trouble.

It’s 2010, folks—when will the double standards stop?

The rallying cry of women’s political organizations has been that we need gender equity in public office. But why? Because it’s only fair? Women deserve to hold equal leadership roles?

Well, yes. However, the increasing trend is not to base our argument on entitlement, but the fact that women bring unique and needed skills to the political table.

As Renee Loth writes in the Boston Globe, women have traditionally morphed themselves into a male image in order to succeed in the political realm. Even women candidates today such as Hillary Clinton have been reluctant to emphasize their gender too much, for fear of losing votes. But, Loth says, women’s uniqueness is something to be celebrated:

“That women might see the issues through a different prism is something worth promoting, not hiding. Women doctors have pushed for more research into breast cancer. Women lawyers bring gender discrimination and sexual harassment cases. Domestic violence was quietly tolerated in society before women started joining police forces - and newsrooms. Collectively, having women in positions of influence rewrites every equation.”

And Martha Coakley, who recently won the Democratic primary and is well on her way to becoming the first female senator from Massachusetts, tends to agree:

“Women bring so much to the table and it’s important that women run. When women get involved they get enthusiastic, they get everyone else enthusiastic, and women will get the support of other women and of men.”

And luckily, women’s exceptional governing skills aren’t just being touted verbally by female candidates themselves, but finally being quantified. In September, Politico released a report showing that women lawmakers are more effective than their male counterparts.

Still, some women who dare to promote this idea experience backlash, as Sonia Sotomayor did during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. We all remember the Wise Latina hubbub.

But hopefully more and more women will be able to flaunt their uniquely female set of skills openly and proudly, without the fear of losing support.

Martha Coakley knows that women bring something special and needed to politics, and is encouraging them to run for office:

“Don’t be afraid that you won’t win the first time around. If you don’t run you can’t win. So I’m asking you to run, and I hope you’ll consider it.”

Listen to Martha - ask a woman you know to run for office today!

This post was submitted by Jamie Bence, one of WCF’s Summer 2009 Fellows.

When Hillary Clinton became the nation’s third female Secretary of State, she brought a strong background in women’s rights and reproductive justice to her job.  More than any of her predecessors, Clinton imbues her work with a sense of how reproductive rights and global security are connected.

Secretary Clinton has been a well-recognized advocate of the global women’s rights movement since her historic speech at the 1995 United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing.  There, Clinton famously declared: “Women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”

Women and girls are still the majority of the world’s poor, unschooled, unhealthy, and underfed.  Thus, it is still vitally important that women have access to the knowledge and resources that allow them to plan their families.  Nations which respect women’s rights to contraception and female health care are more likely to be progressive partners in Democracy.  According to the United Nations, gender equality is an important indicator of national stability.

It seems that Secretary Clinton’s preeminence on this issue may be inspiring change in Washington, which has long been stagnant on international women’s issues.  Shortly after Congress convened in January, Senator Barbara Boxer announced that she would be heading the first ever Senate Subcommittee on Global Women’s Issues.  In March, the White House Council on Women and Girls (led by Valerie Jarrett) was created to study gender implications of federal initiatives.  The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act is making its way through Congress, and another, the International Violence Against Women Act, will likely be brought to a vote in the next session.

The United States can act in consort with the United Nations to improve the station of women around the world.  Though both have acknowledged that rape has been used as a tool of war, there has never been a trial in any U.N. court for committing or allowing rape as a war crime.

However, the United States could gain credibility by ratifying CEDAW, the Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.  Besides the United States, the only other countries that have refused to ratify CEDAW are Sudan, Somalia, Iran, and a few Pacific Island states.  Moving forward, Secretary Clinton has much she can do to make the U.S. a leader in ensuring women’s rights around the world.

Hopefully, she will have continued, expanded support in the White House and Congress to accomplish her task.

For more information on Secretary Clinton’s weekend trip to Mumbai and what she said to students there about women in the world, click here.

This post was submitted by Jamie Bence, one of WCF’s Summer 2009 Fellows.

With all the excitement surrounding Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination, it’s easy to ignore that the Supreme Court wrapped up its 2008-2009 term, which has some important decisions concerning women.  Our summary below, with links to each of the opinions:

• Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee: The case involved the parents of a Massachusetts kindergartner claiming that their daughter was discriminated against repeatedly when an eight-year-old boy in her school required her to lift her skirt or pull down her panties.  The court ruled that students could pursue recourse for harassment in school claims under Title IX, which bars sexual discrimination in schools.
• Crawford v. Nashville and Davidson Counties:  Vicky Crawford was fired from her job of 30 years after she answered her employer’s questions during an internal investigation, and told them that she had been sexually harassed.  The Supreme Court determined that Ms. Crawford was protected under the anti-retaliation provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination in
  employment.
• AT&T Corp v. Hulteen: In this case, the court considered whether employers violated Title VII by not fully restoring service credit for pregnancy leaves taken before the AT&T Corp v. Hulteen: In this case, the court considered whether employers violated Title VII by not fully restoring service credit for pregnancy leaves taken before the 1978 passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.  Justice Souter’s opinion held that AT&T is not required to include some pregnancy leaves when calculating pension benefits for its female employees.  In her dissent, Justice Ginsburg remarked that she would not dissent if the Pregnancy Discrimination Act were merely “an ordinary instance of legislative revision” of the Court’s construction of a text.   Ginsburg held, contrary to the ruling, that AT&T’s conduct was facially discriminatory, and actionable because it denies equal benefits post-PDA.
• Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding: This case considered whether the Fourth Amendment prohibited public school officials from conducting a strip search of a student suspected of possessing a drug on campus in violation of school policy.  A thirteen-year-old honors student was rumored to have one or more ibuprofen pills, in violation of the school’s drug-free policy.  After an extensive bodily search which involved the partial removal of the girl’s undergarments, no drugs were found.  The court ruled 8-1, with only Justice Thomas dissenting.  Read here about how Ginsburg said gender changed her perspective on this case.

The justices can’t start a new term just yet though, as they have yet to decide on an election law case involving an anti-Hillary Clinton movie.  Stay tuned, and stay supportive of Sotomayor!

One of the big stories this week has been around anti-choice conservatives blocking confirmation of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). She has over 20 years of experience and has been elected in Kansas four times - yet once again, anti-choice dogma is getting in the way of progress. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delayed the vote yesterday.

WCF PAC endorsed candidate Jennifer Brunner spoke up in support of Sebelius today:

“We must ask ourselves-why is her nomination being stalled? She is an expert on health policy, a strong advocate for health care reform and has a proven track record of increasing access to affordable care. She has a solid record of supporting common-sense prevention policies that help keep families healthy. And she has an impressive record of supporting a woman’s right to choose.”

Take action here to tell the Senate to confirm Sebelius by April 30th.

And to paraphrase John Stewart responding to the GOP’s recent objections over, oh, just about everything: you’re not in power anymore. It’s not supposed to feel good. This is what happens when we have pro-choice leadership.

Speaking of pro-choice victories - the FDA approved over-the-counter Plan B access to 17 year-olds. This is a big step in the fight to put science and women’s health before politics.

Amidst the Plan B and Sebelius chatter, we also learned that Ellen Moran decided to step down from her White House Communications Director position. Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post wrote an interesting article about what this means, and doesn’t mean.

And to leave you on a high note before the weekend, check out Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks about reproductive rights in her congressional testimony yesterday. As TAPPED, The American Prospect’s blog says: this is what a feminist secretary of state looks like. Love it.

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!