Talking Points, September 2004

A talk by
Deborah Siegel,
Director of Special Projects/Member Communications
National Council for Research on Women

I. WOMEN'S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

(Sources: Center for American Women in Politics; The White House Project)

• I'd like to begin by talking briefly about women's political participation before going into some of the issues. A number of the Council's member centers look closely at the role of women as voters - a topic that has certainly been at the forefront of media stories these days - and at women as candidates.

A. Women as Candidates

• Research shows that people (both men and women) have inaccurate perceptions about the numbers of female elected officials in the U.S. - many think we are above the worldwide average in terms of women electeds, when in fact we're significantly below. Any guesses?
  
  • Rwanda now has the world's highest proportion of female members of parliament (48.8% of Rwanda's MPs are women); Sweden has been the longstanding leader, where 45% of MPs are women.
  • In 2004, women hold 13.8% of the seats in U.S. Congress (14 women Senators, 60 Representatives). Women make up only 20-22% of state legislators, and the numbers there disappointingly don't seem to be rising all that much. (CAWP)
• Research has also found that although most people are very comfortable with women as teachers and principals, only 39% of men and only 52% of women would feel comfortable with a woman president. (Celinda Lake, Vote Run Lead training).
• Research also shows that women perceive it as harder for women to be successful in politics. Mentorship is very important, and women are much more likely to run if they are asked. We need to be invited.
• So if you or anyone you know has ever considered running for office, do it!

B. Women as Voters

• Voter turnout, in general, in the last national election was disturbingly low. More people voted in the American Idol elections than in the U.S. government elections in 2000! (from White House Project's "Go Vote" training)
• In 2000, 56.2% of women (compared to 53.1% of men) voted. Only 37% of women ages 20-24 and 43.3% of women ages 25-29 voted in 2000. (CAWP)
• There's been much discussion lately about best ways to engage young female voters. The White House Project's "Go Vote" trainings train young women - esp. students - to get out the vote in their communities, among their peers. Girls Incorporated is organizing a mock election for girls, encouraging 18 year olds to vote, through a project called She Votes. You can find out more about these projects at a panel NCRW is co-sponsoring at Barnard on Oct. 27 at 7pm on "Young Women and the Election"; free and open to the public.
• Research by pollsters has emphasized the importance of "the single women's" vote this season. Unmarried women comprise the largest group of unregistered voters and nonvoting citizens. 22 million unmarried women who were eligible to vote didn't vote in 2000. (If you're single, if you have single friends, make sure they vote!)
• Both candidates seem to be working hard to woo women voters right now - both these 22 million unmarried women and the so-called "security moms" (who have replaced the "soccer moms" of yore). They want our vote. For a brief moment, it seems, we may have their attention.

So what are some of the issues important to women in Election 2004?

II. ISSUES

• Polls show that the economy, health and healthcare, war in Iraq, education, and the environment are among issues that women care about most. Susan asked me to speak in particular about education and the environment, so I'll start there.

A. Education - It's a dim picture out there right now in terms of public education. A few facts:

(Sources: Taxes ARE a Women's Issue draft, NCRW)

• Childcare, early education and afterschool programs benefit children as well as their mothers. Since the most rapid brain growth occurs in the first three years of a child's life, stimulating and responsive childcare programs can make a big difference for a child's future cognitive development. Afterschool programs, in turn, improve school performance, cut down on juvenile crime, teenage pregnancy and drug use and help to keep children safe. Despite the enormous benefits to women, children and society, these programs are being decimated as a result of the tax cuts, which translate into service cuts. (Among these are Head Start; the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which helps low-income families pay for child care and finances improvements in state programs; 21st Century Community Learning Centers which support after school programs)
• By 2009, Special Education programs serving children with disabilities will lose $350 million.
• The No Child Left Behind law created accountability and standards for teaching in each state. But unfortunately, many of the programs supporting it are either under-funded or scheduled for possible elimination.
• More children than ever are pouring into already overcrowded schools.
• Many attend their first day of school without preschool education.
• And America now faces the largest wave of teacher retirements in our history, while young teachers are leaving the classroom at alarming rates.
• College costs are soaring, but loan and grant programs are not keeping up.

To find out more about these issues, and about the candidates' plans for dealing with these problems, visit the National Education Association website, at www.nea.org

B. Environment

• Over the past 4 years, we've seen a failure to enforce many of the nation's environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act.
• In particular, efforts to control the emission of mercury (which comes from industrial waste) have been left to corporations. So, reducing air pollution has become, under the current Administration, a corporate decision rather than a governmental one.
• Mercury gets into the air, and then into our food and water supply. And as many of you probably know, mercury is a neurotoxin, and can have dangerous effects on the brain development of a fetus or a young child. Neurotoxins like mercury can result in learning disabilities, for instance, and air pollution in general can worsen asthma in young children. Mercury and women - body fat.
• We can prevent mercury from entering our food and water supply, but to do so we need to preserve the principles of the Clean Air Act.
• Global warming and the question of can we control the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: The U.S. is responsible for almost half of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, because we are building world economy. In the past, the U.S. has been a pioneer in terms of efforts to control the release of carbon dioxide. We participated in the Kyoto Global Climate Change Treaty in 1997, but then, under the current Administration, the U.S. has refused to sign it.

C. Health

(Sources: NCRW's "MISSING: Information about Women's Lives" report; "Taxes ARE a Women's Issue" draft, NCRW)

• 1. Women's Reproductive Health
  
  • As NCRW reported in "Missing": Information provided by the federal government about women's reproductive health has been inconsistent with proven research, and, in some instances, has been contradictory to generally accepted medical practices. I'd like to give you 3 examples:
    
    • On a Health and Human Services website, sex education information has been distorted: Despite research, the government is now unwilling to state that condom use is important to protect women against HIV and STDs. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fact sheet that focused on the advantages of using a condom to prevent STDs was revised in December 2002 to cast doubt on condom effectiveness, calling evidence on condom use and transmission of HIV and other STDs "inconclusive." The new version focuses exclusively on abstinence and warns that "condom use cannot guarantee absolute protection against any STD."
    • The Union of Concerned Scientists, in a report documenting the privileging of ideology over science in the current administration, charges that officials distorted the CDC's science-based performance measures to test the effectiveness of sex education programs in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Performance measures used to test the effectiveness of abstinence programs were altered, in order to make abstinence-only approaches to pregnancy prevention appear more successful than they have been otherwise proven to be.
    • Dr. W. David Hager, an Ob-Gyn known for prescribing prayer as a treatment for PMS and refusing to prescribe birth control pills to unmarried women, has been nominated to chair the FDA's Reproductive Health Drug Advisory Committee. He is currently a member of that committee. Hager's writings include a book called As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now, and, with his wife Linda, a book called Stress and the Woman's Body, which puts "an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life" and recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments as headaches and premenstrual syndrome.
    • Plan B, Partial Birth Abortion Bill (see "MisInfo Clearinghouse")

• 2. Healthcare
  
  • In poll after poll, the #1 issue important to women is rising healthcare costs.
  • In one poll conducted by Lifetime, 82% of women polled said that a candidate's position on women's healthcare would have an impact on their vote.
  • In another poll, women believed 2:1 that the benefits a job pays are even more important than the salary (Third Wave Television video)
  • Growing numbers of people in this country - some 45 million in 2004 - lack health insurance coverage. Only 65% of women age 18-64 have employment-based health insurance coverage either in their own name or as dependents.

  For candidates' positions on healthcare, see www.americansforhealthcare.com.

D. Tax Cuts & Economy

(Sources: NCRW's "MISSING: Information about Women's Lives" report; Taxes ARE a Women's Issue draft, NCRW)

• The Council recently wrote an op-ed called "Sex and Taxes" - not a connection one usually makes! But tax policy - and the proposed tax cuts - actually have a particular effect on women's lives, and it's something that's not always talked about. (Our report, "Taxes Are a Women's Issue," to come out after the inauguration in January.)
• Because women generally have lower incomes, more interrupted career paths, lower rates of employer-provided insurance, smaller pensions, longer life-spans, and a highly disproportionate responsibility for the care of children, the elderly, and the ill, they rely more heavily than men on public programs like Social Security and Medicare (and TANF, Medicaid, and Food Stamps for those who are of lower income).
• The current Administration's tax cuts - which have largely benefited the well-off while leaving the tax bill of the middle class and poor little changed - disadvantage women because of women's disproportionate presence in the low- and middle-income groups that benefited least.
• Over the last few decades, the U.S. tax system has become less and less progressive, meaning, that the tax burden is shifting from those who have more to those who have less. Again, women are particularly affected because of their disproportionate presence in the category of "those who have less."
• The tax cut also bypassed or even hurt many female small business owners such as beauticians, typists, caterers, and other self-employed women with lower-income operations. More than a third of the 9.1 million women who own small businesses received tax cuts worth less than $100.
• To make these cuts permanent will have lasting effects on young women whose careers and family life are just beginning. Depleting tax revenue drains the Treasury, undermining programs that young women rely on for college grants and loans, and government-subsidized childcare, and even sometimes domestic violence and family planning programs.