Getting Blogged at the BlogHer Conference

What do you stand for?

CHICAGO--Here at the BlogHer conference, one of the operative words is "brand." While policy-based and mainstream political media have been notoriously slow to welcome women into their commentary continuum*, the masterminds of corporate brands see the dollar potential of the greater female blogosphere -- the part that includes the self-described "mommy bloggers," make-up bloggers, sex bloggers, as well as feminist bloggers, political bloggers and business bloggers. If it's specific to women, there's money in it, since women make more day-to-day purchasing decisions than men. Among the sponsors of the BlogHer conference are General Motors, AOL, Butterball turkeys, Dove cosmetics, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Windows Live (a sort of social networking software package).

But the brands aren't just corporate. In fact, brands are people, too. Women, to be specific -- women bloggers, that is. And they packed to overflow what appeared to be the most popular opening break-out session: The Business of You: Self-branding and Self-promotion. Moderated by Penelope Trunk of The Brazen Careerist, who was joined by panelists Nina Burokas, a digital branding expert, and Stephanie Cockerl, entrepreneur of a successful Web-design site, the session was jammed with women who blog on everything from knitting to radical feminism (sometimes in the same blog).

Penelope Trunk let on that, when she first started blogging, she tried to maintain separate identities -- one for the name she was given at birth, and one for the self-created character, Penelope Trunk. "Penelope Trunk was more the person I wanted to be," she explained. As time went on, she found she couldn't really keep the two identities separate, so, "I ditched my [given] name and became Penelope Trunk."

As for posting about knitting and politics in the blog, Nina Burokas contended that it's not really a good idea. Well, actually, she said, don't do it. "You can't blog about politics and knitting" and have a successful blog, she said. (We at the National Women's Editorial Forum politely ask, as you make your choice: "May we suggest politics?") Try telling that to the women in the category who describe themselves as "junk-drawer" bloggers.

Stephanie Cockerl perhaps put it most succinctly. She asked: "What do you stand for?"

--Adele M. Stan

The Digital Divide: Getting Access To The Debate

Now that some of the dust has cleared from the CNN/YouTube debate there have been some thoughtful reactions to CNN’s staging of the debate. Jennifer L. Pozner’s WIMN’s Voices has an extremely interesting reflection video by independent media producer Stephanie Mackley, better recognized as the woman who asked about energy consumption in her bathroom.



Some of her responses are both informative and insightful – she susses out more information regarding the ratio of women-submitted videos and realizes that the initial reaction to being on TV made her (temporarily) lose sight of the fact that Anderson Cooper completely misdirected her question from a policy discussion to one of personal responsibility.

But one important thing Mackely notes is that she’s hardly a veteran of video-blogging. As she states:

The thing I’d hope you’d take away from this is that you can have a huge impact on the media discussion with relatively little effort. I posted my very first video a month ago and have since seen it on CNN as a question posed to the Democratic presidential candidates. So it’s not as difficult as you would think to add your own voice to the public debate that we’re having about the presidential candidates right now or any political topic. And you might end up influencing the debate in ways you would never imagine.

It’s good to remember that commentary isn’t divided into “experts” and “novices” – even in blogging. The technical aspects of providing commentary however probably can seem daunting, whether its putting up a blog or posting something to YouTube.

I meant to point people to this article in the Washington Post a few days ago. Binary America: Split in Two by A Digital Divide which discusses the fact that a few miles from where the debate was staged existed a place where residents could only access the internet, let alone high-speed access, with great difficulty.

There exists "two Americas," as John Edwards, South Carolina's own son, likes to say: an America for the rich and an America for the poor. But what Edwards and the rest of the presidential field have yet to adequately address are the two Americas online: one that's connected to high-speed Internet -- socializing, paying bills, uploading debate questions to presidential candidates on YouTube -- and one that's not. This is the digital divide, now more than a decade old, a rarely discussed schism in which the unconnected are second-class citizens. In some parts of this so-called Internet ghetto, the screech of a telephone modem dialing up to get online is not uncommon. And with dial-up, YouTube is impossible to use.

The digital divide is practically ignored as a political issue.

And though a study released last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that broadband use among African American adults increased from 14 percent in 2005 to 40 percent this year, blacks continue to lag behind whites and English-speaking Latinos. In fact, a great number of American households , especially in rural areas and poorer parts of cities such as Charleston, are without broadband.
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"At one level, the YouTube debate shows that the Web has really become a centerpiece of American political culture," adds Lee Rainie, director of Pew Internet. "At another level, it also shows that the debate is not for everybody. It's certainly not available to all Americans."

And since the internet is sometimes assumed to be the domain of the young, what will happen if young people grow up with much access? Will they then fall behind their more technologically advanced peers, the kind who have home computers and high-speed connection. That’s why the story about 14-year-old Tiara Reid struck me.

That is especially true at Cooper River Courts, where Tiara Reid, 14, in her jeans shorts and pink striped top, runs up and down the complex asking friends if anyone wants to go the library. Finally her mom, Jossie, who works at a deli, drives her and a neighbor's daughter. With school out and without Internet access at home, the library is the only place where she can go on the Web -- for a maximum of two hours a day. Says Tiara: "It's 10 minutes to get to the library if someone drives you. It's 15 minutes if you take the 30 bus. It's about 30 minutes if you walk."

Sure, she knows how to use e-mail and MySpace, but she’s clearly at a disadvantage because she is not acquiring the same comfort levels with the internet that other children are. And because the internet is such a resource, those who only get it in minimal levels really are deprived of information that is useful, everything from greater access to media to more information about their public schools.

--- Rachel Joy Larris

Not All Issues Are Colored In Pink

Ruth Marcus’ column in today’s Washington Post epitomizes the need for efforts such as those undertaken by the National Women’s Editorial Forum. Women as a whole really lose out when there aren’t female voices in the editorial pages…or on the campaign trail.

Marcus’ column is on Hilary Clinton, Pretty Formidable in Pink, but I think her take on even writing about candidate Clinton speaks to why sometimes a dearth of women’s editorial voices means that if there’s only one woman on an editorial board it can mean, by default, you get to write the “women issues” while men get to write about everything else.

But as a columnist who happens to be a woman -- you may have noticed, there aren't too many of us -- I understand what [Elizabeth] Edwards means. In fact, I initially resisted writing about her comments, reluctant to be pigeonholed as a "woman columnist" and not taken seriously by the Big Boys.

There was some anger directed at the Post over a fashion column last week by Robin Givhan which focused solely on Hilary Clinton’s cleavage. Ms. magazine even sent out an e-mail asking people to write to the Post:

Women politicians' clothes, hairdos, weight, and other physical characteristics have been the obsessive focus of journalists ever since women first began holding public office in this country. We've had it!

Let the Washington Post know that sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton or any women politician is unacceptable.

Without a concerted effort to call attention to their coverage major media organizations won’t even be aware how they treat women politicians and women voters’ concerns differently from men’s. When editorial boards should beging to show a more equitable balance between men and women (instead of a sometimes token one or two). Its not enough diversity to have one token female voice on an editorial board (or a news room or a campaign bus or a cable TV show) to provide a “woman’s perspective” on femaleness and politics. Such lack of diversity can end up limiting the sole female voice to a virtual ghetto, deigned only fit to comment on supposed female-centric topics. Women make up 50 percent of the planet and there’s no reason we can take up 50 percent of an editorial board either.

--- Rachel Joy Larris

YouTube Debate: Men Ask the Questions

Last night, the Democratic presidential candidates faced off in a forum that featured questions submitted by regular folks, in video format, via YouTube.

A few days ago we urged women to submit questions to YouTube for the debate because the numbers of women-submitted questions was pitifully low. (If you missed the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate last night it can be found here on YouTube.)

I don't know whether YouTube received a last-minute rush of submissions by women, nor do I have a count of the final tally of the submitted videos broken down by the ratio of men versus women.

But I do have the number of questions CNN picked that featured women: eleven. Out of the 42 viewer-submitted videos aired by CNN, 30 featured men speaking and only 12 featured women. (There were 39 questions but one question, #33 showed four clips, two women and two men.)

The questions women were shown asking: question #7 on race and class being a factor in the Katrina disaster, #9 on gay marriage, #13 a mother asking how many soldiers have to die in Iraq, #19 a young woman asking the candidates to name their favorite teacher, #22 a Planned Parenthood worker from Pennsylvania asking whether the candidates talk to their kids about sex, #25 about energy consumption by the U.S., #27 about whether they would work for minimum wage, #29 a quick one on paying Social Security to those earning over $97,500, #33 featuring two women and two men asking health care-related questions and, lastly, #34 a woman asking, she said, on behalf of "friends," about whether their health care plans would include undocumented workers.

Among the 28 video questions posed by men were three that focused specifically on women. In question #8 a man asks Obama and Clinton to comment about being asked if they are black enough or female enough. In question #15 a man asked if the candidates felt a woman should have to register for the draft when she turns 18.

Question #16 shows a man serving in the military asking Senator Hillary Clinton whether she would be taken seriously by the leaders of Arab and Muslim nations. I transcribed the man's video in full. Here is the text of his question:

Hello, my name is John McAlperin. I'm a proud member of the United States military and I'm serving overseas. This question is to Senator Hillary Clinton: The Arab states and Muslim nations believe [in] women as being second-class citizens. If you're president of the United States, how do you feel that you would even be taken seriously by these states in any kind of talks negotiations or any other diplomatic relations?

I feel that's a legitimate question.

I wonder why CNN picked this question. It's not as if nations other than ours -- even Muslim nations -- have never had a female head of state. Pakistan had a woman prime minister as did the Muslim nation of Bangladesh. India, home to one of the world's largest Muslim populations, just elected its first woman president. (In the mid-20th century, Indian politics was dominated by the figure of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.)

UPDATE: Jennifer L. Pozner on WIMN’s Voices offers her take on the debate formatting, particularly the example of Stephanie Mackley, the woman who posed a question about energy policy to the candidates from her bathroom.

---Rachel Joy Larris

Minimum Wage Raise Is No Worry For Business
By Lya Sorano

In Georgia, one of the reddest of the "Red States," one might expect an almost universal denouncement of the raise in the minimum wage. In fact, the opposite is true.

Business owners and managers I've spoken with aren't concerned. They're glad the minimum wage is going up because workers deserve it, and they believe it will help our local economy.

The $5.15 minimum wage has been in effect for a decade -- the longest period without a raise since the minimum was established in 1938. Georgians covered by the federal minimum wage saw their hourly pay rise to $5.85, on July 24, 2007. It will increase to $6.55 on July 24, 2008 and $7.25 on July 24, 2009.

Those increases are lower than they seem. The minimum wage has lagged so far behind inflation that even at $7.25 the minimum wage will still be lower than it was in 1956 when it was $7.65 in today's dollars.

Tony McBride, general manager of Cracker Barrel on Highway 53 in Braselton, said his employees who are not servers are paid "well above the minimum wage." He added, "We start them at $8.00 an hour."

Theresa Meadows, general manager of Jeffrey's Sports Grille in Braselton, says their employees are paid minimum wage during training, "but that is only 20 hours" before they get a raise.

BB Webb, owner of Carl House in Auburn, believes a minimum wage increase is one of the changing economic conditions business owners need to build into their business plans. Absorbing a minimum wage increase, she said, is "just a part of being a good citizen." And a good businessperson. Webb says the raise will have a positive effect on the local economy, which would be especially beneficial for businesses serving lower-income markets "because their customers would have more money to spend."

States that have already raised their minimum wages above the $5.15 federal level have had better employment and small business trends than the other states, according to reports by the Fiscal Policy Institute and other research organizations.

According to Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, "Higher wages benefit business by increasing consumer purchasing power, reducing costly employee turnover, raising productivity, and improving product quality, customer satisfaction and company reputation.”

"A fair minimum wage is a sound investment in the future of our communities and our nation," concludes the statement, which I endorsed at Business For a Fair Minimum Wage along with hundreds of businesspeople nationwide, including the owners of many Georgia businesses including Morning Glory Farm in Clermont, North Georgia Woodworks in Toccoa, and Sugar Magnolia B&B, Flyer Candy Bars, Simply Web and Grand Central Pizza in Atlanta.

Georgia's poverty rate is higher than most other states. A minimum wage that keeps workers in poverty hurts our communities and our state.

Our elected officials should raise the state minimum wage above its meager $5.15 level so that all workers, whether covered by state or federal law, get a long overdue raise.
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Lya Sorano is the founder of Atlanta Women in Business and chief executive of the Oliver/Sorano Group, a marketing and public relations firm.

This article has also run in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Turning Down The Heat On Abortion Clinic Protests

By Gloria Feldt

(Click here to listen to a Public Service Announcement distributed by American Forum on how the locality of abortion clinics puts them at a higher risk to violence and harassment.)

It’s the sweltering heat of summer. We can count on seeing ads for escapes to the beach, reminders to wear sunscreen, and the extreme anti-reproductive rights, homophobic Operation Save America's annual attempt to turn up the political heat by mounting a media-circus demonstration at a high-profile women's health center that provides abortions. This summer from July 14 to 22, the target-of-choice is the New Woman, Every Woman Healthcare Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.

If the location and clinic name ring a bell, there’s good reason. In 1998, Eric Robert Rudolf detonated a firebomb of dynamite and nails at the clinic’s front door, killing police officer Robert “Sandy” Sanderson on his beat and seriously wounding clinic nurse Emily Lyons. In addition to sustaining first, second, and third degree burns covering the front of her body, Lyons lost her left eye and her right was seriously damaged. A hole the size of a fist was blown in her abdomen and her left leg was shattered—just for starters.

There's something else we can count on too during these heated summer encounters. The doctors and women's health groups subject to these demonstrations, along with their allies in pro-choice organizations such as NOW and the Feminist Majority that flock to defend women from OSA's intimidating harassment, will be joined together with their adversaries in the Kabuki theater of irreconcilable opposites locked into predictable but intractable battles. The only way to stop the Kabuki dance that resolves nothing is for the community around all of these players to decide enough, stop, we're changing the story. Three groups bear a special responsibility to cool things down.

Community leaders of good conscience, regardless of where they stand on the abortion issue, must see themselves as part of the story, whether they want to be or not. It is they who must set the standard for what constitutes freedom of speech versus what constitutes harassment, intimidation, possible incitement to violence, and definite interference with providing and receiving health care services. Do not accept these demonstrations as just normal free speech because they are most certainly not, neither in intent nor practice. Give groups like OSA their platforms for expression to be sure, but not at a location where women can be hurt—and especially not a place where their own allies have killed and maimed in the past.

Every city council should pass two resolutions: one to set a tone of civility and the other to establish alternate ways for dissenters (and they are dissenters—fully two-thirds of Americans want abortion to remain legal and safe) to express themselves away from the health care facility. And there must be zero tolerance for violence against the women, the doctors and other staff, or the facilities. That’s terrorism, plain and simple. Name it and confront it.

Clergy, regardless of where they stand on abortion, must join hands preemptively, before the demonstrations start, and declare their own open microphone day to decry violence and intimidation of women. Pro-choice clergy have an especially important role to publicly support the women who are making decisions they believe as fervently are moral and responsible ones as their detractors scream are otherwise. Pro-choice people of faith need to create a supportive welcome to the women and courageous staff and volunteers by their public words and deeds.

Clinics are vulnerable to violence and harassment precisely because they are isolated from the rest of medical practice. And how ironic it is that these very same clinics are so often women’s main source of medical care, in particular family planning services that prevent unintended pregnancy and abortion. So the medical community has a role to play too. Abortion should be defined and practiced as part of women's health care, and that would in itself diffuse much of the confrontation.

It’s the heat of summer. Time to go to the beach slathered in sunscreen. Time to take a new look at an old story and cool down the script so that our passion can be spent not on fighting intractable battles but on assuring that women have the health care, information, and social supports to make their own childbearing decisions without fear.

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Gloria Feldt is the author of The War on Choice: the Right-wing Attack on Women’s Rights and How to Fight Back and former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She frequently lectures on the history and future vision for reproductive rights, health, and justice.

Supreme Court Decision Jeopardizes Pay Equality

By Lisa Grafstein

You get your first paycheck at a new job and, not one to be shy, you ask the coworker in the next cubicle how much he makes. It turns out you are making fifty cents less per hour doing the same work. Do you literally make a federal case out of it? Under the Supreme Court’s decision this term in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, maybe you should. If you don’t, you may be forever barred from claiming pay discrimination, no matter how much you may have lost in wages over time.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Using Title VII, employees may challenge workplace discrimination, including pay discrimination. Since the Supreme Court’s 1986 unanimous decision in Bazemore v. Friday, it was understood that pay discrimination occurs each time an employee receives a paycheck that reflects a discriminatory pay structure. In Bazemore, employees brought race discrimination claims based on pay disparities that had begun before the enactment of Title VII, and continued after the enactment. The Court rejected the argument that the plaintiffs could not sue because the discrimination began before Title VII because “[e]ach week's paycheck that delivers less to a black than to a similarly situated white is a wrong actionable under Title VII.” The “paycheck rule” recognized that pay discrimination is not a single, distinct act like a firing or refusal to hire; rather, it is often hidden and cumulative.

In the 5-4 Ledbetter decision, the Court rejected the ‘paycheck rule’ and determined that a case for pay discrimination under Title VII must be brought within 180 days of the discriminatory pay decision. In Ms. Ledbetter’s case, that meant that the pay discrimination she was unaware of during the first 18 years of her employment, and that resulted in her eventually making about 75 percent of what her male coworkers made, would not be remedied, even though it affected her pay every week.

After Ledbetter, Title VII no longer provides a real remedy for pay discrimination. Even when an employee discovers discrimination in time, small pay differentials would rarely be enough to cause her to take action. As Justice Ginsberg stated in her dissent, “[s]mall initial discrepancies may not be seen as meet for a federal case, particularly when the employee, trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment, is averse to making waves.” Yet, even minor disparities will increase exponentially over time. By the time the difference is significant, the time for pursuing a remedy will have passed.

We all know the statistic that women make 70 cents for every $1 a man makes. What makes this statistic hard for many of us to understand is that we simply do not believe that an employer would start two employees out on the same job at such disparate wages. The reality is that the gender gap in pay—for individuals or women as a group—was not created overnight; it is the result of incremental, compounded differences over time.

The Court has imposed an unrealistic interpretation of Title VII. If the Supreme Court is unwilling to interpret Title VII in the context of the real workplace, Congress must take steps to correct the Court’s unworkable interpretation. Some members of Congress have vowed to repair the loophole the Supreme Court has created in Title VII, and undo the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the statute.

As Justice Ginsberg noted in her dissent: “Once again, the ball is in Congress’ court.”

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Grafstein is a private practice attorney in Raleigh.

Look Who's Watching Now

By: Kathleen Taylor

A couple went into an exercise equipment store to buy a treadmill. They found one they liked, and applied for financing. The bank representative told them—in front of other customers —that because the husband’s name is Hussein, they would have to wait 72 hours for an extra identity check “because of Saddam Hussein.”

A case of unlawful discrimination based on ethnic or national origin? Not these days! Not only was this incident legal; it was encouraged by the federal government.

This and other disturbing anecdotes were documented in a recent report by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. The report focused on the unintended effects of the Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC) list maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department.

The OFAC list includes more than 6,000 names of people and businesses that allegedly “have ties” to criminal or terrorist groups. Banks, lenders and other companies are forbidden from doing business with persons on the list, or face years in jail and millions of dollars in penalties.
Trouble is, many more than 6,000 people carry those names or names that are very similar. Businesses, eager to avoid legal trouble, are aggressively matching names to the Treasury Department list during credit checks, often declining to do business even if a person’s name is only partially the same. As a result, countless numbers of people with common names like Muhammad or Sanchez are being denied or delayed access to rental cars, mortgages, credit, insurance and other everyday services.

If this sounds a lot like the “No Fly” list, its because its basically the same idea, with all the same problems. It is notoriously easy to be placed on the No Fly list and nearly impossible to get off. Congress was supposed to have reformed the No Fly list so that people could get their names removed if they could “prove” their innocence. That didn’t quite happen though. The Transportation Security Agency does offer people the chance to send copies of identification to prove that they are not the people on the No Fly list. But that does not actually get one’s name off the list, it merely puts it on another list that airlines can use to cross-reference. The end result is still a delay at the airport, and the inability to self-check at the counter.

Besides the No Fly list, the government maintains an unknown number of other watch lists—databases of names or organizations—used by law enforcement and other agencies to find or monitor people or groups. The lists could include everything from details of confirmed fugitives to second-hand reports of people with tenuous connections to crime or terrorism.

The lists act as a government accusation of wrongdoing, without giving people due process or an opportunity to defend themselves. In effect, they become blacklists, stigmatizing people who may not have any connection whatsoever to crime or terrorism.

Nobody really knows how the government puts people or groups on its watch lists. Nobody knows who keeps them, and only rarely how to get a name removed. What we do know—through news accounts and public records requests—is that these watch lists are multiplying, accumulating more records on hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people.

So what can we do? The first step is to shed light on what the government is doing. We have very little idea of what lists exist, what information they hold, and how that information is used. Congress should use its powers of oversight to review these programs, ensure that they are legal, and that they respect due process and privacy.

Part of that oversight must include creating a system to fix problems in the watch lists. People who have been wrongly included must have a way to remove their names. Lists need to have a specific, reasonable purpose; government and businesses need to be held accountable when they misuse watch lists for any other reason. The people who run or use these lists need to be properly trained and screened for the job.

It’s important to remember that watch lists don’t keep people safe. At heart, a watch list is an electronic tool, imperfect, without common sense, experience or good judgment, as the results have shown. Ultimately, Americans need to restore their confidence in a free society and forsake the illusions of false security.

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Taylor is the Executive Director of the ACLU of Washington

Contraception and Health Insurance:
The Bush Judiciary and Democracy

By Sylvia A. Law

Whatever happens in the 2008 elections, the federal judiciary will be a lasting legacy of George W. Bush. While the implications of his nominees to the federal bench are still being watched, Bush’s judiciary changes will not be limited to the Supreme Court or simply abortion. On March 15, a divided panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Title’s VII’s prohibition against gender discrimination does not protect women’s access to contraception.

Is it sex discrimination if a company provides coverage for the most common prescription drugs, but excludes prescriptions women need to prevent pregnancy? In the 1990s, coverage of birth control through insurance plans was spotty—some plans failed to cover any contraceptives under the guise of not paying for “preventive care.” Other insurers treated birth control as medically unnecessary “cosmetic,” like skin cream.

So women began to challenge the contraception exclusions with solid evidence. Without contraception the average women is likely to become pregnant 12 to 15 times over the course of her life. In any given year, 85 out of 100 sexually-active women of childbearing age will become pregnant if they don’t use contraception. Child birth, after all, typically costs insurers more than birth control pills. In response in 2000, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), interpreting federal anti-discrimination law, found the exclusion of prescription contraception from otherwise comprehensive coverage for prescription drugs to be an act of sex discrimination. Since 2001, several lower federal courts have reached the same conclusion. Thanks to these legal victories and passage of contraception coverage laws in the states, many employers now cover the costs of contraception, recognizing that the old practice of excluding it from health plans is both discriminatory and fiscally irrational.

Now the Eighth Circuit reverses this tremendous progress for women. Judge Raymond Gruender, a recent Bush appointee, used remarkably weak reasoning his decision, writing that: “Contraception is not related to pregnancy . . . and is gender-neutral.”

What this means is that employers can take away benefits for birth control, even if they cover all other preventive care and Rogaine and Viagra for men.

Women have historically been routinely marginalized based on stereotypes they would “just get pregnant and leave the workforce” and the like. It was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who 35 years ago was our leading women’s rights lawyer, who asked the Supreme Court to consider the claims of competent women, including an accomplished Air Force pilot, who were forced to leave their jobs because they were pregnant.

When the Court finally spoke to the issue of pregnancy and gender equality, it was in the context of health and disability benefits. In 1974 a divided Supreme Court held that denying medical and disability insurance for medical problems related to pregnancy was not a form sex discrimination prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause. Two years later, a divided Court similarly held an employer’s otherwise comprehensive insurance program that excluded pregnancy-related disabilities from coverage was not sex discrimination prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In upholding these exclusions, the Court said, “the program divides potential recipients into two groups—pregnant women and non-pregnant persons.”

Americans were not fooled by the Supreme Court’s thinly veiled assertion that pregnancy has nothing to do with gender. Thousands petitioned Congress to overturn the reasoning and result of these Court decisions. In response, Congress adopted the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which recognizes a woman’s capacity for pregnancy is a defining element of sex. Employers can no longer use pregnancy as a basis for discriminating against female workers.

The Eighth Circuit both ignores and repeats history. Then and now, the courts held that the health plans before them “treat men and women the same,” ignoring the biological reality that only women get pregnant. Then and now, dissenting judges urged their brethren to interpret the law to recognize the capacity for pregnancy as a defining element of gender. Then and now, the dissenters were outvoted by slim margins.

It has become apparent that the Bush judiciary will not be sympathetic to civil rights or women’s health. Fortunately, courts are not the final arbiters of social policy. An overwhelming majority of Americans understand contraception is essential to women’s health and believe health insurance should cover it. If we can no longer count on the courts to protect basic rights and liberties then we must call on Congress reverse the Eighth Circuit decision.

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Law is a professor at New York University Law School.

Immigration And Corn

By Sally Kohn

Thankfully, immigration reform is progressing in Congress. There are 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States who have made invaluable contributions to our culture and economy and deserve the basic rights and dignity that citizenship provides.

Yet some nasty provisions stand out in the recent immigration reform proposal in Congress. The proposal would prioritize highly-skilled English speaking immigrants over the working-class immigrants and people of color whose families are already here. In addition those who would apply for the proposed “guestworker” vistas are actually denied the opportunity to gain citizenship. The plan would merely continue the two-tiered system of discrimination and exploitation that currently exists. Yet if we examined the root causes of migration, we might actually help—rather than punish—immigrants.

And here “root” cause is not just a metaphor. The seeds of the immigration dynamics we now face are planted on the U.S. side of the border, the kernel of which is corn. Corn is what causes migration and corn is the only way the injustices of immigration, on both sides of the border, will ever be solved.

As the birth nation of just over half of the undocumented immigrants in the United States, Mexico provides a good example. Although agriculture is less than 5 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product, more than a quarter of Mexicans still make their living as farmers. And most of the poorest of those farmers grow corn. Over 60 percent of Mexico’s cultivated land is planted with corn, most of which are small family plots. In all, 18 million Mexicans, including farmers and their families, rely on corn for their livelihood.

Enter NAFTA in 1994, which opened the U.S.-Mexico border to trade. It’s worth noting that before the wealthy nations in the European Union like France and German expanded trade with poorer nations like Portugal and Greece, the wealthier countries first transferred huge sums of money to the poorer nations to build their infrastructure and help get them to the equal footing necessary for trade to work. Not so with Mexico. The United States (1990 GDP: $23,130 — a.k.a. Goliath) became “equal trading partners” with Mexico (1990 GDP: $6,090 — a.k.a. David).

On top of that, corn production in the United States is heavily subsidized. Under the farm bill, which is up for reauthorization this year, we taxpayers give over $25 billion each year mainly to large, industrial corporate farms. And the more corn the factory farms produce, the more money they make. That means there are big corporations with mounds of corn on their hands that they can sell for cheap because they’ve already made plenty off the subsidies. Cheap corporate corn floods the Mexican market, drowning local producers.

So what’s the result? Imported corn now dominates the Mexican market. For instance, in Mexico—the birthplace of corn—one-out-of-three tortillas is now made with imported maize. An estimated two million family farmers who can’t compete with subsidized U.S. corn have been driven from their land. They now have to buy imported corn to feed their families but don’t have the income to afford it. Meanwhile, American politicians following the instructions of corporate farm lobbyists start pushing ethanol. Even though the “alternative” fuel actually wastes more energy than it produces, it’s made from corn so agribusiness loves it. The new demand for corn drives up prices. And so the price of a tortilla in Mexico has risen 279 percent since NAFTA. The overall effect impacts not only farmers but all Mexicans, especially the poor. Since NAFTA, poverty in Mexico has increased. As of 2001, over 80 percent of people in rural Mexico were living in poverty.

So is it any wonder that as more and more U.S. corn flows to Mexico, more and more Mexicans cross the border to the U.S.? And corn is just the beginning. Migration around the world is the direct result of U.S. policies and actions. As immigrant rights leaders in England often chant, “We’re here because you were there.” Exactly.

Improving immigration policy in the United States is an important start and hopefully the legislation that comes out of Congress will far better than the current draft. But immigration reform is only the first step. American farmers and factory workers who have also been devastated by U.S. economic policies must join with immigrant rights leaders to repeal NAFTA and other disastrous trade agreements and remove bloated corporate subsidies from the farm bill. And the United States must start spending far more money on foreign aid and assistance than on border enforcement and war. Maybe then we could start producing an abundance of fairness and justice on both sides of the border, instead of corn.
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Kohn is the director of the New York-based Movement Vision Project, working with grassroots organizations across the United States to advance shared values of family, community and humanity.

More Money Needed for Foster Care Services

By Vanessa Jones

There are more than 500,000 children living in foster care at any given time. For 12 years I was one of these children.

When I was 8 years old, I was removed from my biological family due to domestic violence and alcohol abuse. Although I was never adopted, I was placed with a foster mom in Austin who wholeheartedly embraced me. Her home became my permanent home and the place I go back to today. She still celebrates my birthday every year and is even helping me pay for my upcoming wedding. She truly is my family.

I was one of the lucky ones. Although foster care was intended to be a temporary place for children to stay when they experience abuse and neglect and can no longer safely live with their families, most children entering foster care linger in the system for months, if not years.

Separated from friends and family and bounced around foster homes and schools, these children live in a constant state of uncertainty. On average, children in foster care will spend at least two birthdays in the system. Sometimes these birthdays are not celebrated, or even acknowledged.

Because I was fortunate to live in a safe, loving, and secure home, I had the support and confidence to pursue scholarships for college and graduate school.

I decided to earn my master’s degree in social work because I want to give back to a system that has worked in my favor. Today I serve as a Program Manager for Youth Services at the Child Welfare League of America in Washington, D.C. I work to make the opportunities I had growing up a reality for more foster youth.

As a former foster youth, I am also active in coalitions of current and former foster youth. I am currently part of “Kids Are Waiting,” a Pew Charitable Trusts’ project urging Congress to change the way it funds foster care.

Currently, most federal dollars dedicated for child protection can only be used when children are removed from their homes and placed in the foster care system.

This means that right now, some children are entering foster care when preventive services (such as child care or mental health services) may have kept them safely at home with their families. Many other children are waiting too long to return home or to find permanent, loving families. Far too often, these children never find a family they can call home.

Congress needs to provide flexible funding so that states can have more resources to prevent abuse and create and support permanent families for children in care.

Unless Congress changes the federal financing system, others won’t be as lucky as me.

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Jones, a foster child who grew up in Austin is the program manager of youth services for the Child Welfare League of America. May is National Foster Care Month, a time to focus on the children who are in foster care waiting for permanent homes.

On Wealth, Equality and Responsibility

By Donna P. Hall, MPH, MBA

It hasn't even been a century since American women won the right to vote, so we are still working toward full equality in many fields, including sports, employment, salaries and, yes, personal wealth. In fact, it's been only a few decades since the American woman was permitted a credit line of her own. As late as 1973, a married woman in Texas could not acquire a credit card without her husband's signature.

Despite the challenges women continue to face with regard to earning power (women still earn 25 percent less than men), it is women who control the household purse strings, decide most major purchases and hold the most consumer debt. And with education, experience and centuries of feminist prodding behind us, more women than ever before have control of significant assets.

The late 20th century saw a blizzard of new business start-ups, with women in 1990 starting companies at three times the rate as men. At the same time, the numbers of women entering college began to outpace male enrollments. As women assume greater roles in the business economy, their role in philanthropic enterprises has increased, as well.

Of the 3.3 million Americans with annual incomes greater than $550,000, women comprise 41.2 percent of the total, according to Learning to Give.

In the coming years, women's new found pull in the world of charitable and philanthropic giving promises to shape the mission of nonprofits in ways that male philanthropists never tried. As we celebrate Women's History Month, more women than ever see philanthropy as the means for making history today -- to leverage the work of today's ground-breaking women as they stand with the suffragists, abolitionists and liberationists of the past.

In a study by the Corporation for National and Community Service, women were found to be more likely to donate their time to nonprofit organizations than are men. That fact is similar to the findings by University of Pittsburgh's Lise Vesterlund that women appear to be more personally invested than their male counterparts in the work done by the organizations to which they give.

Today I am privileged to be part of a philanthropic landscape that includes a group of more than 160 wealthy women, all determined to make social and environmental change, who are leveraging our giving by pooling our resources, collectively making grants and gifts to nonprofits whose goals comport with ours. As members (some anonymous) of the Women Donors Network, my colleagues and I contributed, collectively and individually, more than $120 million last year in pursuit of a social agenda for America that is very different from the one most of us grew up with.

We're seeking out creative ideas to help make the U.S. a better place for all people. Women donors are supporting ways to reduce unintended pregnancy, promote healthy families, provide quality education and preserve our natural resources. We care about sustainable agriculture and food policy; we worry about the rise of regressive social and political forces and seek to bring women's voices to the fore in our national debates.

The women donors I know wrestle with difficult questions and look for new ways to create social change: What does the Middle East conundrum mean to a woman funder who is committed to peace? How can we help change the way disaster relief should work after what we learned about Hurricane Katrina?

For each of these questions, philanthropists, through the Women Donors Network, have funded initiatives designed to offer answers. As women philanthropists increasingly take their concerns and resources into the marketplace of ideas, they make their mark on the public debate.

Women who give are putting our money where our rhetoric is. We have an agenda. We have a vision of meaningful social change for America, and we're working to make it real.
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Hall is the President and CEO of the Women Donors Network based in Meno Park, California.

Women's History - Still Being Written

by Martha Burk

As we approach International Women's Day, advocates of women's rights have a lot to celebrate. Here and abroad, women are making strides on terrain both old and new.

This March, leaders of the nation's women's organizations concurred that the month dedicated to history made by women needs a name that reflects not just the landmarks of the past, but the ongoing achievements of women as we advance toward equality. This year, we celebrate the third month of the year not as simply "Women's History Month," but "Women Making History Month."

In the history books of tomorrow, 2007 will doubtless be designated a landmark year, beginning with Nancy Pelosi's election in January as first Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Harvard University named Drew Gilpin Faust its first woman president in the school's 371-year history, and Frances E. Allen became the first woman to receive the highest award in computing in February. This country's very first public space dedicated to feminist art becomes a reality on March 23, 2007, when the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art opens in the Brooklyn Museum. The Center provides a permanent space for Judy Chicago's legendary work "The Dinner Party," honoring women throughout history.

Across the pond, the Wimbledon Championships -- the oldest Grand Slam event in tennis -- will finally join the United States Open and the Australian Open in granting equal prize money to female and male competitors. In France, women are looking forward to the likely election next month of Ségolène Royal as the nation's first female president next. If elected, she will join Michelle Bachelet of Chile, her nation's first female chief executive, elected last year.

Amid the progress, there are also setbacks. With the re-emergence of the Taliban, women in Afghanistan are back in the burqa, the head-to-ankle garment, and generally purged from public view. And women in Darfur, with fewer resources than men and primary responsibility for children, continue to bear the brunt of the ongoing genocide and rapes.

Here at home, the pay gap between women and men working full time (year-round) in this country remains a stubborn 24 cents on the dollar, and women are still the largest group of elderly poor. There's not much good news on the executive front either. A recent report from Catalyst, an independent research organization, says it will take another 47 years for women to reach parity with men as corporate officers in the Fortune 500. That's more than a full career span in anybody's book.

National women's groups in the U.S. aren't waiting for history to catch up with fairness. They're planning a national Women's Equality Summit March 26-27 in Washington D.C., to honor legislators who have done the most for women, and educate activists from around the country about areas where women are still left behind. Those activists will, in turn, lobby their members of Congress for faster results enacting measures that benefit women and their families. Summit participants will also hear from presidential candidates. It will be interesting to hear how many of them will address the pay gap, cuts in child health funds, the woeful lack of child care in this country, and why the U.S. hasn't ratified the international women's human rights treaty. And, oh yes -- the 900 pound gorilla -- ending the war. Polls show that women in both parties are far more anti-war than men, and we've known for years that nobody can be elected president without women's votes, even if they garner 100 percent of male ballots.

Speaking of gorillas, my favorite recent females-making- history story comes from the animal kingdom. Seems researchers in Senegal have established that chimps can and do fashion spears from sticks and use the tools to hunt small mammals. They say the landmark observation supports the notion that females, who do most of the crafting, are the main innovators and creative problem solvers in primate culture. Could be true in the human realm as well, but we won't know till women are equal to men politically, economically and socially. So let's cheer these small steps for womankind, and hope that future steps will be giant ones.

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Burk is Director of the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women's Organizations.

Women and the Politics of Morality
by Amy Caiazza


Some are calling this the "new year of the woman." We have already seen one woman, for the first time, occupy the Speaker's chair during a State of the Union address and another emerge as the frontrunner for her party's presidential nomination. Indeed, for women leaders in U.S. politics, things have been looking up in the last decade. We've seen an increase in the number of women governors and the second woman to serve as secretary of state.

Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice have given us new inspiration to think about what the world might be if women were in charge. In large part, this debate has focused on what women's leadership might mean for policy: Would we have universal child care? Higher quality education and universal health care? Paid family leave? If women were really in charge -- that is, if women's leadership, lives, and concerns were fully included in politics from the local to the national level -- we could see even more earth-shattering change. We might see our country pursue a set of values that would shift the focus of political debate altogether. Women have the potential to push America to embrace values of mutuality, shared responsibility, and concern for the weakest and most disadvantaged.

America needs the kind of leadership that women can provide. We, as a nation, can look to myriad examples where we have fallen short: Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, increasing levels of economic inequality and hardship, a messy health insurance system and the war in Iraq. Women have a long, historical, lived experience that speaks to the new perspectives and values that they can bring to these issues. For all of the talk in recent years about "family values," it's been women who have tended to the values of our families, caring for one another and recognizing our responsibility to people other than ourselves. We understand that self-interest and individual rights are important but cannot be the only values that define our lives.

This perspective is not essential to being a woman, or even exclusive to us, but it is shaped by centuries of living out our historical roles, passed down, generation to generation, and is still often evident in how many women talk and think about politics.

While women have historically applied these values primarily to our families, homes, and in service to our communities, we know on some level that they are equally applicable, relevant, and profoundly important in public life at its highest levels. Now, as women take political leadership in increasing numbers, we hope to be taken seriously in the ways we discuss and consider our policies and practices.

This is a moral vision worth aspiring to. We need women's leadership to translate it into the practice of politics. Women can use their values to rethink policy and government in ways that acknowledge a sense of shared responsibility and recognize that people do not have control over all aspects of their social and economic lives. This should lead a rich nation to help its people, out of respect for basic dignity, when they have few choices in their quest to keep body and soul together.

It's not hard to imagine what America, under the kind of women's leadership we envision, might look like. Communities torn apart by disaster would get the resources they need to rebuild. Schools would have the resources they need to truly ensure that no child is left behind. We would not constantly toil to implement more tax cuts for the wealthiest. And we would not wage war against people who are not attacking us.

This is a moral vision that could pull us together rather than tear us apart and build empathy rather than hatred. It has very little to do with how politicians usually talk about moral values, but may be closer to how most of us live our lives -- and how most of the American people would have our government and politicians lead the country.

When politicians return to the mantra of moral values, we hope that women are at the forefront of those conversations. In the 2006 congressional elections, women voters led the call for fundamental change. Their voices should be heeded. We believe that an infusion of women's political leadership carries the promise of reframing our policy debates in ways that bring new and fresh ideas about the values we pursue as a country. We believe that, given the chance to lead, women just might hold the country to a new, and higher, moral standard.

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Caiazza, Ph.D., is director of Democracy and Society at the Institute for Women's Policy Research.

Moms Making History - and Policy
by Valerie Young

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz carries crayons in her purse. She also coordinates the pick-ups and drop-offs of her children's after-school activities. Nothing remarkable in this; certainly, millions of mothers do this every day. But this mother of three, a Florida Democrat, happens to be a member of the United States House of Representatives. And that makes it pretty remarkable indeed.

Not so long ago, mothers in the labor force were advised not to keep family photos on their desks, or the kindergarten art project tacked up over the file cabinet. Almost overnight, it seems, motherhood has emerged as an important employment asset, at least in the political arena. That's because most households in which children are being raised are run by a working mom; today 70 percent of households with children have all resident adults employed outside the home.

And so, as we celebrate what leaders of women's organizations call "Women Making History Month," we note that Nancy Pelosi's first few speeches in her history-making role as Speaker of the House were full of references to her status as a mother and a grandmother. When Hillary Clinton declared herself a candidate for the 2008 presidential election -- making history in national polls that show her as a frontrunner -- she invoked the phrase "as a mother" almost in the same breath as "I'm in it to win." Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), a single mom, is raising a 4-year-old daughter. And you just can't get more obviously maternal than Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (D-WA), pregnant and due this May.

Now that mothers are stepping into positions of political influence, hope for some real change in our public policies is spreading. Women in groups such as MothersOughtToHaveEqualRights, the National Association of Mothers' Centers, Mothers & More, MomsRising, and the Mothers Movement Online have been advocating for paid family leave, accessible and affordable child care, healthcare reform, and better family policies in the workplace, among other proposals.

Congress appears be tuning in, evidenced by a recent Senate committee hearing on a paid sick leave bill, the Healthy Families Act, and by the floating of numerous plans for universal healthcare. On March 27, the Congressional Action Day of the Women's Equality Summit, women from a broad range of organizations will converge on lawmakers to press a family-friendly agenda.

As women legislators bring the sum total of their experiences to Capitol Hill, we are certain that today more members of Congress than ever before know what it's like to have a sick child at home on a day you absolutely have to get to work; to spend way too much of your income on childcare, if you can find it; as well as other care-giving dilemmas encountered millions of times a day in households around the country. (If only they could learn what it's like to put off filling your own prescriptions so you can pay for medicine for your kids; thanks to the comprehensive health insurance they enjoy as members of Congress, they'll have to take my word for it.)

Almost three-quarters of American mothers work outside the home for money, and the majority are working full-time. With household income virtually stagnant in recent years, women's wages are critical to making ends meet. The lack of adequate support for care-giving in the United States is appalling, and mothers aren't they only once who suffer the indifference. Americans are living longer and, with pensions, savings and retirement benefits shrinking, will be working longer and caring for ill or disabled parents, in-laws, spouses and others, all at the same time. That's why we, as a nation, so badly need the paid family leave advocated by mothers' rights organizations.

The legislator-mothers currently serving in the House and Senate are singularly placed to tackle these critical public policy issues, and bring to them a certain practical expertise not typical among members of Congress. The healthcare delivery system is in shambles, with 46 million Americans uninsured. The Family Medical Leave Act is currently under threat, in the process of a review being conducted by the same Department of Labor that has implemented other cutbacks in worker protections and compensation. As it is, the act covers only half of the private sector workforce. The well-being of most Americans will depend in the future on the enforcement and expansion of the act to include all workers, and to provide paid leave, so eligible workers can actually afford to take it.

The women currently making history in Congress know this, see this, and live this. To Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, I say sharpen your crayon. It's time for some serious multi-tasking.

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Young is the advocacy coordinator at the National Association of Mothers' Centers.

Unbought and Unbossed: Following Shirley Chisholm's Path

by E. Faye Williams

As we celebrate Women's History this month, countless references will no doubt be made to the historic strides made by America's women politicians this year, when we saw, for the first time, the gavel of the Speaker of the House wielded by a woman, and a woman candidate emerge as the frontrunner for her party's presidential nomination. And it looks to be an historic year in Black political history, as well, as an African-American senator is touted as a serious contender for the same nomination. Indeed, these are historic precedents in all of American history.

But more than 30 years ago, one person embodied two "firsts," when Rep. Shirley Chisholm of New York threw her hat into the ring of presidential politics when she announced her 1972 run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Her slogan spoke to neither her race nor her gender, but to the state of U.S. politics in her time (and ours): "Unbought and Unbossed."

Shirley was a woman of "firsts." She was the first Black woman to serve in the U.S. Congress, the first woman to run a meaningful campaign for the presidency of the U.S and the first to chair the National Congress of Black Women, the organization I am privileged to lead today. But to hear Shirley tell it, she'd rather be remembered as "a woman who had guts" than a "first."

I was blessed to meet Shirley while she was in Congress. Like so many young women, I was inspired and awed by her audacity in choosing to run for president. Unfortunately, 35 years later, a woman has yet to win the presidential nomination of either of our political parties, but the momentum generated by Shirley Chisholm assures us that the men-only presidential ticket is a state of affairs that simply can't last.

In 1968, when Shirley came to Congress, it was a lonely place for any woman, never mind one who wasn't white. Today, 87 women serve in the Congress -- 16 in the Senate and 71 in the House, of which 14 are Black. A woman serves as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and many chair powerful committees. "Firsts" do matter when they serve so well that others are inspired to follow.

In 1972, Shirley explained her rationale for running a presidential campaign for an office yet unattainable by a Black person or any woman, as an act that "itself can change the face and future of American politics -- that it will be important to the needs and hopes of every one of you -- even though, in the conventional sense, I will not win."

Shirley was right about changing the face and future of American politics. Just think for a moment about all the women who are serving in state legislatures, as governors, as mayors of cities. Many of these victories are an extension of her races in 1968 and 1972.

Yet, as a nation, we have yet to fulfill the legacy of Shirley Chisholm. As I review the list of legislative priorities that inspire this month's Women's Equality Summit and Congressional Action Day, organized by the National Council of Women's Organizations and the Younger Women's Task Force, I find much of the work Shirley began still unfinished.

In 1970, Rep. Chisholm, a schoolteacher and nationally renowned expert on early childhood education, co-authored a comprehensive childcare bill that met the veto pen of President Richard Nixon, who called it the "Sovietization of American children." Shirley pressed Congress to increase the minimum wage and to provide funding for health care, battles we continue to wage today. She advocated equal pay for women and men; today, women still earn 76 cents for every $1 earned by men. She spoke boldly of a woman's right to reproductive freedom, rights that today are in peril.

Shirley Chisholm's 1970 floor speech introducing the Equal Rights Amendment is considered to be one of America's most important political speeches. And we have yet to ratify this simple statement of equality of the sexes.

So this March, more than simply celebrating women's history, we've got our eyes on the present and the future -- on women making history. Shirley Chisholm laid out an agenda for bringing freedom and justice to all Americans, women and men of all races. It's our task to fulfill.

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Williams is the national chair of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc.

The Equal Rights Amendment Redux
by Idella Moore

When Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, in order to get around powerful North Carolina Sen. Sam Ervin's opposition, it added a seven-year time limit on ratification. Even after Congress bowed to public pressure to extend the deadline, proponents were given only an additional three years to finish ratification.

Throughout the 10 years of the ERA campaign, national polls consistently showed the majority of Americans were in favor of the amendment. But state legislators who believed (or purported to believe) the anti-ERA claims that the ERA would destroy families, legalize gay marriage, subject women to the military draft, and mandate unisex toilets, were successful in preventing the ERA from being ratified in 15 state legislatures. By June 30, 1982 the deadline came with the ERA lacking just three of the 38 states needed for ratification. The ERA was defeated. Or was it?

Twenty-four years after the Equal Rights Amendment's ratification "deadline," there is a new campaign to finish ratifying the ERA, and the campaign is beginning to gain some momentum. Although members of Congress have re-introduced ERA ratification resolutions into every session of Congress since 1982, only recently have grassroots proponents developed a new strategy. This "three state" strategy is based upon a legal opinion that says the ERA ratification process is still legally active and can continue from where it left off.

The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress has presented findings which support such a strategy. According to this opinion, if three more states ratify the ERA Congress has the power to declare it fully ratified and add it to the Constitution. North Carolina is one of the 15 states that didn't ratify the amendment.

This new ERA campaign has had some success. For instance, Illinois' House passed the ERA in May 2003, and Missouri and Florida have introduced ratification resolutions in the last several legislative sessions. In 2005, the Arkansas Senate voted on an ERA ratification resolution. That resolution failed by a margin of only two votes. On January 24, 2007, it was re-introduced during an ERA rally attended by Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe and all of the state's constitutional officers. The committee hearing drew revered former Governor and U.S. Senator David Pryor to speak in favor of the ERA. The committee vote resulted in a tie so the resolution is expected to have a second hearing sometime during the next few weeks. A week after the Arkansas resolution was introduced, ERA advocates in Arizona also introduced a ratification resolution. Currently there are ERA resolutions pending in Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Missouri.

But would ratification of the ERA really mean that we would have to share toilet facilities with members of the opposite sex? In 20 states, equal rights amendments (or near equivalents) have been added to state constitutions, yet unisex rest rooms have yet to be mandated. In fact all of the anti-ERA claims are equally without merit.

But why is the ERA still needed? For all the same reasons it was needed before. Although women have made some gains since the 1970s, sex discrimination in the workplace continues to impact women and consequently their families. For instance, the largest class action lawsuit in the history of the U.S. is currently being argued involving 1.6 million women who are suing a major box store for sex discrimination in hiring and promotion practices. These types of cases would be rare if the ERA was ratified.

Furthermore, full time working women continue to make on average 75 cents for every $1 a full time working man makes. Forty-two years after the Civil Rights Act outlawed employment discrimination it is evident that laws are not sufficient for protecting women from unequal treatment. The ERA is necessary to provide the legal muscle to attack sex discrimination vigorously and consistently.

Americans still overwhelmingly support equality of men and women. Eighty-eight percent of the public believe that the ERA should be in the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, our U.S. diplomats insisted that equal rights for men and women were included in the new constitutions of Afghanistan and Iraq. An explicit statement to our Constitution that men and women in this country are citizens of equal worth and are entitled to equal treatment under the law is long overdue.

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Moore is the executive officer for 4ERA.org.

The Economic Status of Arizona Women
by Jodi Beckley Liggett

Women have made tremendous economic gains over the last several decades. While women fare much better in some states than others, nowhere do women fare as well economically as men.

So go the findings of the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) in their report, "The Best and Worst State Economies for Women." IWPR is a think tank that tracks women's well being across the states. Arizonans will be pleasantly surprised to learn that Arizona does not vie for dead last on these particular rankings. Yet, all the states have far to go in achieving economic equality for women, and Arizona is no exception.

The Arizona Foundation for Women commissioned the Arizona portion of the "Best and Worst States" report which presents rankings on measures related to women's health, education, social justice, and political participation.

The rankings are contained in the Foundation's report, "Arizona Women 2007: A Status Update." The reports indicate that Arizona is doing well on many measures. However, some startling contrasts show just how variable Arizona women's well-being is.

Arizona ranks in the top quarter for measures related to maternal and child health, and female disease, yet has a poor ranking for health insurance coverage. Similarly, we are near the top for women's employment and earnings and business ownership, yet in the bottom half of the nation for number of women above the poverty line. The final weird juxtaposition: Arizona is one of the worst states for women's voter registration and turnout, yet we are near the top for the number of women legislators, and for women in statewide elected office.

A look inside the data reveals even more contrasts. Though our overall ranking for maternal and child health is good, the report indicates that Hispanic and Native American women receive far less prenatal care (about 67 percent) than white women (87 percent).

On another highly ranked measure, female disease mortality, a closer look shows that the incidence of AIDS among African American women in Arizona is over 10 times higher than that of white women (30.3 percent, versus 3.2 percent).

Arizona women's overall employment and earnings are good, compared to other states. However, Hispanic women in Arizona earn 51.5 percent of what white men earn, compared to 77.4 percent for white women. Only 65 percent of Native American women are above the poverty line compared to 90.7 percent of white women. Arizona is second in the nation for the number of women enrolled in postsecondary education, but only 12.7 percent of Hispanic women have a college degree, compared to 28.6 percent of white women.

The K-12 level shows some sobering, but not surprising, news across the board. Arizona has one of the worst dropout rates in the country, and our schools are struggling with one of the highest numbers of English-language learners.

What does it all mean? Arizona has some women who are doing really well, which boosts our ranking in areas like business ownership and earnings. However, as our closer look indicated, things are not going well for all of us -- women of color and poor women have less access to higher education, health care, child care and many other supports that are the keys to self-sufficiency. So while some standouts are pulling our average up, we shouldn't be content in the middle of the pack. A "C" may be a passing grade, but we've got to aim higher than "not the worst."

Helping Arizona women to aim higher should be our mission. We must bring business, governmental and social sector leaders together to affect social change and catalyze women to become informed about the issues, build coalitions and create action for change.

Arizona is doing reasonably well for many women, on many measures. But we must aim higher. By working from facts, and measuring progress over time, we hope to make Arizona the best place possible for women to live and raise their families.

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Liggett is director of programs and policy research at the Arizona Foundation for Women.

Legislature Attacks Reproductive Rights Again

by Ann O'Hanlon

RICHMOND, VA.--Here we go again. Extremist state legislators are taking the issue of abortion and using it to distract us as they quietly impose their alarming, turn-back-the-clock agenda on women's issues.

So far, by one or two votes, most of their radical proposals have failed to make it to the governor's desk and because of this do not receive much media or other public attention. But no one who cares about family privacy or the rights of women should be complacent. Right now, one Senate committee -- a committee whose members believe that the most intimate personal decisions should be made without intrusion from government -- is all that prevents these proposals from becoming law.

If those committee members weren't there -- and one day soon some of them will not be -- many forms of birth control, including the pill and the IUD, would be subject to Virginia's strict abortion laws or be made entirely illegal. An exaggeration? Not at all. Here's why.

Pregnancy begins when a fertilized egg implants in the uterus. Ask the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, even the Code of Federal Regulations of the U.S. Government. That's the definition. But every year, the extremists who want to regulate a woman's uterus try to write into Virginia law that a pregnancy begins the moment fertilization occurs. Beyond that, they try every year to legally define that moment as the beginning of life.

When and if they are successful, that moment of fertilization could be equivalent to the moment of childbirth under law. Anything that stopped the fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus could be construed as the legal equivalent of an abortion. This includes the birth control pills that 12 million American women use.

So as our state legislature meets for all of six weeks this calendar year to grapple with issues that truly need government attention, such as education and transportation, some politicians have thrown the following backward-looking proposals into the mix:

* A proposal that defines life as starting at fertilization;

* A proposal to dangerously misinform our young people in public schools' Family Life Education classes, including inaccurate statements on abstinence and contraception; and

* A proposal to ban all abortions (except those where the mothers life is in danger) should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade.

The sponsors of these proposals are legislators who are rightly troubled by the actions some pregnant women take to either intentionally or unintentionally harm their pregnancy. But rather than work to understand and help such women, who may have mental illness or an addiction and nowhere to turn to for help, the proposals would instead intensify the charges and punishments exacted upon these women.

What we need are bills that increase prenatal care for women in poverty and enhance substance abuse screening of all pregnant women with follow-up care if appropriate, or at the very least require treatment or counseling for the woman in conjunction with her court-ordered punishment.

So while these extremists in Richmond constantly use that divisive word -- abortion -- as their bumper sticker and their public face, make no mistake, what they are working on is an intrusion into more than just a woman's privacy, it is an intrusion into family privacy and family choices concerning birth control.

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O'Hanlon is the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.

Embracing Reproductive Justice

  

by Loretta Ross

If Georgia's lawmakers are smart, they'll take a lesson from the people of South Dakota, who having voted on a ballot measure in last month's election, rejected their legislature's abortion ban. Legislators would do well instead to embrace the cause of reproductive justice, which amounts to nothing less than basic human rights for all the people of our state.

Believe it or not, a majority of Georgia's voters are pro-choice. But that hasn't stopped one legislator from proposing one of the most sweeping anti-choice laws ever written -- one that would outlaw virtually all abortions, even those performed to save the life of the pregnant woman, and including those performed in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape and incest.

It's not as if a procedure to terminate a pregnancy is easily obtained in Georgia. Our restrictive and often discriminatory body of law aimed at women's bodies has resulted in a lack of access to abortion in 94 percent of our counties.

Meanwhile, still pending is a proposal that would prohibit young people from obtaining any form of contraception without parental consent. So restrictive is this law that a young woman in possession of a rhythm chart would be found to be in violation of the law.

Believers in reproductive justice push to create the conditions and opportunities that allow women to make responsible life decisions from a range of options: opportunities to work for living wages, opportunities for affordable quality education, responsive and accessible public services such as good health care, quality schools, and accessible and affordable child care, freedom from personal and state violence, and environmentally safe communities.

Reproductive justice rests on the full achievement and protection of women's human rights. In the realm of reproductive justice, the prevention of pregnancy and childbirth exist within an array of other options that facilitate the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, environmental and economic well-being of women and their children. It is equally important to fight for the right to have a child, the right not to have a child and the right to adequate resources and time for parenting the children we have.

Preliminary results from the 2006 election exit polls show the American people, and women in particular, are focused on fundamental human rights. Legislators who ignore this trend do so at their peril. As this era of change takes hold in the nation, now is not the time to settle for less; it's time to demand more.

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Loretta J. Ross is national coordinator for the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Rights Health Collective.