Women and Politics

This post was submitted by Jean Qiao, WCF Communications Fellow

Although the country remains deeply divided about how to accomplish health care reform, there are few who would dispute the great need for it. However, it seems only a fraction of people have a true grasp on just how sexist our current system is. And with women holding only 17% of the seats in Congress, there’s certainly no guarantee that this disparity will be properly addressed.

Adding insult to injury, last week’s White House health care summit included only six women out of 42 attendees. Dan Rather knows this is ludicrous:

“If more women were in the room, might the debate have been different? If there were more women in Congress (which is around 17 percent female), might our politics be less rancorous and might our elected officials get more accomplished? There’s a school of thought that is emerging that suggests the answer is yes.”

Luckily one congresswoman spoke up for women’s health. Rep. Louise Slaughter (NY-28) made a dramatic call for healthcare, touching upon a wide array of issues that relate to our broken healthcare system and women. Calling the pre-existing conditions regulations cruel and capricious, she said:

“Eight states in this country right now have declared that domestic violence is a preexisting conditions on the ground, I assume, that if you’re been unlucky enough to get yourself beaten up once you might go around and do it again”.

Yes that is correct. If you live in Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Wyoming, or the District of Columbia and you’ve been abused by your husband or significant other, you will probably be denied health insurance.

Furthermore, Slaughter called upon the importance of having a higher percentage of women in government  in order for our voices to be heard:

“In 1991, women were not included in any of the trials at the NIH because we had hormones. It wasn’t until we had a critical mass of women here that said this will not do for more than half the population of the United States, who pay taxes, that we made certain that diseases like osteoporosis, mainly a woman’s disease, cervical cancer, only a woman’s disease, uterine cancer and others were really looked at”.

In time when crucial legislation is constantly being debated, most of which affects women directly, it is unacceptable that only 17% of Congress is women. Without increasing the number of women we have in elected office, we leave ourselves open to more legislation that restricts our reproductive choices and endangers our health.

A clip of Slaughter’s statement can be found here.

It took strong women such as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Sen. Barbara Boxer to narrowly defeat the Nelson-Hatch Amendment last December.

Women know what’s best for women, but 90 out of 535 in our federal government not nearly enough. Perhaps fixing our lopsided government is the first step in fixing our broken health care system.

By WCF Fellow, Trish Calvarese

After being held captive and repeatedly raped for 18 years, a young girl bore two children from the man who kidnapped her. After being strangled to death and discarded in a dumpster by her husband, the body of another woman was so mutilated  that she could be identified only by breast implant. These gruesome headlines give a tragic face to the fact that violence against women in the United States has recently increased.

• One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime
• There are more female victims of violence in the Untied States than there are casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
• The proportion of women experiencing physical or sexual assault is higher than the proportion of women serving in elected office.
• 1.3 million women are raped or assaulted in the United States every year, yet there are only 75 female Representatives, and only 17 female Senators currently serving in Congress.
• One in four women are raped or assaulted every year, yet only three women have ever served on the Untied States Supreme Court.

I dare say that there is a relationship between these sorry statistics. I dare say that the lack of women in office is a threat to our national security, and only if we achieve equality in our political systems will we end such terrorism and violence against women.

The image of the powerful female is, unfortunately, not as sanctified, not as habituated, not as glorified as the figuration of violence against women.

How do we counter the fact that video games like Grand Theft Auto reward the virtual raping and beating of women—systematically teaching an entire generation of males to disrespect their female peers? We need women in positions of authority, openly and earnestly in power, to change the face of women’s role in our society.

The proof is in the policy:

• DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s 2009 revised budget proposes a cut that would have a devastating impact on victims of domestic violence—which is about one-fourth of women in the District.
• California Governor Schwarzenegger this summer completely cut state funding for all domestic violence programs. Ninety-four shelters will be affected, and the cut may lead to domestic violence victims being turned away at the door.

On the other hand, Lynn Rosenthal, White House Advisor on Violence Against Women, successfully championed 225 million in stimulus money to be spent on programs that deal with violence against women.

The simple fact is that women are more likely to champion efforts to reduce violence against women. If we want to see real change in issues such as domestic violence, reproductive health, and fair pay, we need more women at the political table.

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