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The Political Power of Women
You'll hear it all over the press this week: ninety years ago women across the United States won the right to vote. This came, of course, after a decades-long suffragist movement and after a slow progression of women gaining rights, state by state. In Oregon, women were actually granted the right to vote eight years before the 19th Amendment was ratified on August 26, 1920. To a large extent this was thanks to local activist Abigail Scott Duniway. Her story was told on this episode of Oregon Experience. Here's part of it:
After arriving in Oregon, Duniway became a schoolteacher and then entered upon a life as a pioneer farm wife. When her husband, Ben, suffered financial setbacks and was later injured in an accident, Duniway set out to support the family, which by 1869 included six children. She found that, as a woman, her opportunities were severely limited. After another stint at teaching, an occupation that paid women only a fraction of what it paid men, she built up a successful millinery business. But these were only preludes to the discovery of her true vocation — that of relentless campaigner for equal rights. In 1871, Duniway began publishing The New Northwest, a weekly newspaper devoted to promoting not just suffrage, but an entire agenda of women's issues.
Life has certainly changed dramatically since those years, but some disparity still exits between men and women. Some people say the fight today is mostly for working mothers: pay equity, access to affordable daycare, paid maternity leave, and more. According to Ann Crittenden, a former reporter for The New York Times:
The wage gap between mothers and childless women under age 35 is now greater than that between young men and women. Currently, 30-year-old American women without children earn 90% of men’s wages, while mothers of the same age and education are making only 70%.
And then there's the relative power of women actually in politics. Katharine Firestone of Emerge Oregon says "there is nowhere near gender equity" in politics today. We may see powerhouses like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi on the national scene, but according to The Center for American Women and Politics, only 16.8 percent of the U.S. Congress is women. In the Oregon legislature it's 27.8 percent. Firestone says that's "nowhere near the 50 percent it should be."
Women may have the right to vote, but how much political power do they actually have? From your experience, what women's issues — if any — remain? And who's fighting for them?
GUESTS:
- Debra Shein: Lecturer in English at Idaho State University
- Victory Walker: Southern Oregon Public Defender
- Kathryn Firestone: Executive Director, Emerge Oregon
- Samaura Stone: Graduate of Emerge Oregon and a residential counselor at St. Mary’s Home for Boys
Tagged as: history · politics · women
Photo credit: Dana Graves / Creative Commons
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Growing up, I consistently heard the phrase "women won the right to vote". I always wanted to know-shouldn't we acknowledge that "white women won the right to vote"?
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This Great Recession is particularly troubling to men, 78% of all jobs lost in this Recession has been lost by men. But where there is crisis there is also an opportunity. Last year for the first time, women outnumbered men in the national labor force (and still do 100% of childbirth labor.) And in the important education sector, women earn more college degrees and graduate degrees than men and are primed for future leadership roles.
After economic dominance, political power follows. Hillary was a heartbeat away from the American Presidency in 2008. Women will see their dominance, the question is when. But they will inherit a changed world, with the nation in decline, hard budget choices and NO revenue to start any new expensive program. Can you say Unfunded Mandate?
Ours is not a perfect democracy and far from a ideal society. And politicians no matter how idealistic, are hostages to a dysfunctional system. Maybe a women's touch can change it for the better. Maybe we need a new system.
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Women will wrestle the right to control their bodies and minds from oppressors and religion. Here religion is a system of mind and behavior control and not the spiritual pursuit of harmony with life.
Women will break glass ceilings and successfully lead corporations and governments in a just, compassionate, nurturing, successful, and cooperative manner.
Women will be paid the same as men for the same work.
Women will evolve beyond making the stupid, destructive and short-sighted thinking and actions that have plagued much of modern humanity.
Women will stop raising babies to be killed or maimed in useless wars. Allowing babies to grow up and die stupidly is not pro life.
Women will guide humanity from negative and destructive habits into positive and constructive ones.
Obviously, men have done good things, but men must evolve beyond being mono-eyebrowed knuckle-dragging, violent brutes. Men will consciously make it easier for women to live in the world.
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I think you're a bit idealistic about how women will be more nurturing, some of the most vicious thuggish leaders have been women, British Conservative, "TINA", There Is No Alternative, Thatcher, for instance, was devoid af anyting resembling empathy or compassion.
And Carly Fiorina led HP Corporation down a destructive path of losses.
And just look at Sarah Palin, now there's a vicious thug for you, she's pro-Corporations and anti-human rights, an accomplishd liar and a failed mother.
But I believe that on average, we are all better off when women are equal because of the things you mention, it's just that some of the bad apples will be enabled also.
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Harvard economist Claudia Goldin was asked if there is sufficient evidence to conclude that women experience systematic pay discrimination.
"No," she replied. There are certainly instances of discrimination, she says, but most of the gap is the result of different choices. Other hard-to-measure factors, Goldin thinks, largely account for the remaining gap—"probably not all, but most of it."
While you can find incidences of pay discrimination. The pay differences in pay are attributable to other factors. Choices controlled by women themselves. This is the Big Lie of feminisn. This just plays into the victim mentality that the is defining element of the latest wave of feminism.
When are women going to stop blaming "the man?"
You just got to conclude that women DON'T GET IT! Take responsibiity for you own choices already.
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@thx1138
A 2006 article in the New York Times cited labor department statistics that, for college-educated women in middle adulthood, the gender pay gap had widened during the previous decade. The phenomenon was attributed partly to discrimination, but also to “women’s own choices. The number of women staying home with young children has risen …. especially among highly educated mothers, who might otherwise be earning high salaries.”
The language attributing women’s lower pay to their own lifestyle choices is seductive—in an era when women are widely believed to have overcome the most serious forms of discrimination and in a society in which we are fond of emphasizing individual responsibility for life outcomes. Indeed, it is possible to point to a variety of ways in which women’s work lives differ from men’s in ways that might justify gender differences in earnings. Women work in lower-paid occupations; on average they work fewer paid hours per week and fewer paid weeks per year than men do; their employment is more likely than men’s to be discontinuous. As many economists with a predilection for the “human capital model” would argue, women as a group make lower investments in their working lives, so they logically reap fewer rewards.
At first blush, this argument sounds reasonable. However, a closer look reveals that the language of “choice” obscures larger social forces that maintain the wage gap and the very real constraints under which women labor. The impact of discrimination, far from being limited to the portion of the wage gap that cannot be accounted for by women’s choices, is actually deeply embedded in and constrains these choices ...
Learn more: http://bit.ly/aS7ZCg
US Dept of Labor / US Bureau of Labor Statistics 2009 Report on Women's Earnings: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2009.pdf
Harvard Research on Gender Discrimination in Salary Negotiation: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf
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@Tom D Ford
I'm not being naive about women. Palin is nutters as you suggest. It's hard to imagine Palin having a platform in 1970; we wouldn't have understood how somebody so ill equipped for leadership would have been given so much attention.
Over the past last 2,000 years mostly men have run things. Therefore most of the problems were caused by men. Sure there have been women evil doers, but not to the extent that men have mucked things up. Hitler or Palin? Pol Pot or Thatcher? Bush Jr. or Wicked Witch of the West?
Of course there will be women who are poor and ineffective leaders but I generally think women are more likely to find solutions that don't require fists and bombs than men.
Men in the U.S. are concerned about appearing strong and being on the right team. They will say stupidly say "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" when one has no access to boots.
A few rich and privileged men largely control everything. These rich men get the rest of us to fight for scraps amongst ourselves. I'm disappointed that white men and women don't call out those who claim to be on their side. I don't hear whites complain about their leaders who have failed them. Bush Jr. and Reagan are lauded for their values and actions but why aren't we holding them accountable for:
- high unemployment
- jobs and manufacturing outsourced overseas
- fewer people doing more work for declining wages
- gutted social safety nets
- gutted financial regulations
- environmental pollution caused by natural gas fracking, oil drilling, and mountain top removal
- mega farms providing poisoned/poisoning food
- clean drinking water rapidly vanishing
- denuded and destroyed wilderness
We point fingers at corporations or governments instead of the people who actually harm us with their self-serving agendas. Check out yesterday's Fresh Air episode:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129425186
Can we remove radical ideologues from power whether they be men or women? A middle path eschews extreme behavior which leads to failure in general.
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@ trurl9 — Fri Aug. 27th 10:41a.m.
Well, you're right about all of that and I did catch that Koch brothers show. What a pair of evildoers.
What I object to is the generalizations that women are good and men are bad because I know good and bad examples of both. I think the key is when a human develops into the stage of Compassion-Empathy, whether that human is a man, woman, or child.
Gandhi was good, the Bush family are bad. Palin is bad, Gro Harlem Brundtland is good. I forget the name of the woman who is the leader of Finland, who is good. On and on.
So yes, I agree that women tend to be better leaders for all of humanity, but we need to make sure we pick the good ones.
So, I agree with you, and with certain stipulations attached to my agreements.
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@Tom D Ford
I didn't say women were better than men. I created an idealistic hope list. I hope women will do things that nurture and improve humanity. I hope men (and women) put down egos and aggressiveness to correct and improve humanity. I'm tired of men-bashing too, Tom, but I look in the mirror every day and reflect on what I must do to improve.
I take too many short cuts and am prone to making unwise and impulsive "man" decisions. I light the cigar in a house full of natural gas fumes and wonder why I end up laying on my back pulling glass and splinters out of my face. I seek to understand the causes of my self-created suffering so I can reduce and eliminate it affects on myself and others.
We are raised in a society with strong undercurrents of class, sexism and racism, and these components have created psychological headwinds that are subtle and challenging to correct. But we can't come correct if we longingly gaze into our mirrors and proudly proclaim, "I'm so perfect!"
I've encountered too many people (women and men) who have not developed tools for introspection and self correction. They do what they want and effectively say with their actions and words, "To hell with everybody else."
Many people act upon the words they speak without thinking the situation through thoroughly. Ready, fire, aim! We'll build a 12-lane CRC even though there are only six lanes leading up to the thing from either direction! Are we idiots and whackaloons?
Too many of us seem woefully unaware of how our actions (or inaction) harms others. We can be purposely or unintentionally oblivious to others' needs. I hope women and men become aware that they are part of a whole which requires more than intent focus on our belly buttons.
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Sorry, My chrome browser ate my homework! I hit the wrong button before I was finished. Sorry to eat server space and reader patience with this additional edit.
@Tom D Ford
I didn't say women were better than men. I created an idealistic hope list. I hope women will do things that nurture and improve humanity. I hope men (and women) put down their egos and aggressiveness to correct and improve humanity. I'm tired of men-bashing too, Tom, but I look in the mirror every day and acknowledge that I must improve.
I take short cuts and make unwise "man" decisions. I light a cigar in a house filled with natural gas and wonder why I end up laying on my back pulling glass and splinters out of my face. I seek to understand the causes of my self-created suffering so I can reduce and eliminate it affects on myself and others.
We are raised in a society with strong undercurrents of class, sexism and racism, and these components have created psychological headwinds that are subtle and challenging to correct. But we won't come correct if we longingly gaze into our mirrors and proudly proclaim, "I'm so perfect!"
I've encountered a few people (women and men) who have not developed enough self introspection and self correction in my opinion. They do what they want and effectively say, "To hell with everybody else, I'm going to get mine."
A few act without thinking situations through thoroughly. Ready, fire, aim! We contemplate a 10 or 12 lane Columbia River Crossing even though there are only six lanes leading up to the thing from either direction! Is this reasonable? Build a new bridge and leave the existing bottlenecks? Create moe pollution and traffic congestion?
A few (okay I mean many this time) seem unaware how their actions (or inaction) harms others. We can be purposely or unintentionally oblivious to others' needs. My fervent hope is women and men realize they are part of a whole which requires more than intent focus on their belly buttons.
Finally, I write commentary with feather-ruffling generalizations and stereotypes in the hope that my words spawn thought, commentary and amusement. The limitation of the blog is that there isn't space to expand thoughts entirely. Maybe I could become a better writer.... Nah.
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I have proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would guarantee Supreme Court Gender Equality.
For more information, go to: http://supreme-court-gender-equality-pac.blogspot.com/
Steven A. Sylwester
Eugene, Oregon
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Does this amendment include equal responsibility for defense of the country? By that I mean required draft registration? One of my pet peeves is that people make a big noise about there rights, but don't stand up and balance the scales by demanding equal responsibility.
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It's wonderful to see the history of the equal rights movement, including the remarkable work of Abigail Scott Duniway, featured on your show. But, as jmmedd points out, it can be dangerous to imagine that the story of suffrage victories in the Pacific Northwest is the story of one extraordinary white woman. Women throughout Oregon made vital contributions to the struggle for political equality, from African American women who successfully voted in Portland in 1870 (thereby playing an important role in the national New Departure strategy for suffrage) to immigrant laundresses who sued for labor rights in the early 1900s. Recognizing that Oregon's successful movements for equal rights required the efforts of many women--and wasn't the achievement of one extraordinary woman-- can help us better understand what it takes to continue advancing equality for all kinds of Americans, today.
Thank you for devoting a show to The Political Power of Women. I look forward to hearing more about this as Oregon's suffrage centennial nears!
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Women realized having the vote was the first step in being full citizens in Oregon, the nation, and the world. In addition to Abigail Scott Duniway, people like Dr. Esther Pohl Lovejoy, Sara Evans, William "Pike" Davis, and Millie Trumbull worked to make Votes for Women a reality.
One of the reason's Oregon's 1912 campaign for woman suffrage was successful was that the women and men behind the effort made broad coalitions with groups and organizations across rural/urban, ethnic/racial, and class lines. Native women did not get the vote in Oregon in 1912 because the US did not consider them American citizens until 1924.
The centennial of Oregon woman suffrage occurs in 2012 and you can learn more about that history and centennial planning by going to www.oregonsuffrage.org
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Wow. Where I can agree that it is totally unfair that a woman doing the same job as a man may be getting paid $40,000 less a year, I find it hard to care when that pay difference is roughly my year's earnings.
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The major reason western states led the nation in granting women the right to vote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was not idealism but pragmatism: Newly settled and settling western states and territories had significantly smaller populations, which translated into significantly less representation and clout. The United States Government was dominated by the eastern establishment.
By including women in their voting count, western states dramatically increased their representation in Congress and, therefore, the ability to influence government on a national level. -
That's interesting, I didn't know that.
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This is such a great point to raise: pragmatism was a fascinating element of activism for equal voting rights in many places, especially Wyoming (where the governor famously hoped equal suffrage would bring more women to the state) and Utah.
But, in many western states like Oregon and Washington, the majority of male voters resisted all rationales for women's voting rights--including arguments based on pragmatism--for decades. Consider Oregon's history:
1870: First Oregon suffrage organizations
1884: Woman suffrage on ballot 1st time
1900: Woman suffrage on ballot 2nd time
1906: Woman suffrage on ballot 3rd time
1908: Woman suffrage on ballot 4th time
1910: Woman suffrage on ballot 5th time
1912: Oregon women achieve the vote
Ultimately, pragmatism was one important argument for equal voting rights advanced by activists in western states, but in Oregon and Washington that argument alone could not win success for the movement. It took decades of work by female and male proponents of equal suffrage, to alter attitudes about gender in politics, before the majority of male voters in Oregon and Washington were willing to enfranchise women even for pragmatic reasons.
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@ CKR — Thu Aug. 26th 11:02a.m.
The other point in your post it how much time it takes to get things done.
When I was younger I'd get frustrated when things did not change quickly but now I realize that it is a constant ongoing process and that we have to keep hammering away at it every day. I don't think that the world I that envision will come about in my time but I will keep working towards it for the kids who will come long after me. Change how we teach the kids of today and they will change the future.
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@ Tom D Ford
Well said, Tom.
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I'd like to see businesses become more humanized, to be more accommodating to children.
A few weeks ago someone mentioned programs teaching kids how to entrepreneurs, well, there is nothing better than watching role models to learn something and kids in a business environment watching their parents do business would sure teach them how.
I'd like to see kids in a business with their parents and other kids and parents getting along and taking turns in childcare and doing business.
I'd like to see business changed to be more supportive of human families and less just a money sucking device for the people of inherited wealth.
I wonder how Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the like do it.
In other words, I'd like to see business change to be better for women and families in addition to the way women and families have been changing to be better for business.
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While the Idaho professor interviewed for this broadcast was forthcoming in admitting she doesn't experience discrimination in her line of work, listen if you can to her painfully slow and carefully-worded response. Talk about a cautious reply and for good reason.
That's because in many areas, the pendulum has swung far in the other direction. For example, in academia we now see a disproportionate skewing toward women, with far more women attending college now than men.
Notice too, that she didn't appear to talk about Americans much, either...She has to reach outside US culture to discuss her students and THEIR problems with social expectations. Are you going to change those cultures too? Isn't that nation-building of sorts?
The bottom line is that this says a great deal about the strides American women have made, and good for them. There is a difference, however, between having choices and making good ones.
The professor's discussion on ensuring that women can SIMULTANEOUSLY have both career AND family, while still being fulfilled, flies in the face of what many women are now saying, unless one is Supermom.
Also interesting was her comment along the lines that women should realize ALL of their goals and aspirations.
While that makes for a fine thing to work toward, men typically don't realize all THEIR goals and aspirations, and they're presumably the knuckle dragging mono-brows in the way of women as described on your program.
So why does she think it's reasonable women are being held back? The reality is that practically speaking we all have trade-offs. Men and women must prioritize and realize that on this earth, at least, we don't always get what we want...but if we try sometime, we get what we need.
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I was one of three men in a training about a social issue. There were about 35 in the training. I was the only white man.
I think that humans tend to go to what interests them. The trick is to get those in power (white,straight, abled, middle/upper class men) to be interested in women, children and People of Color.
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After 20+ years volunteering with battered, traumatized, and sexually assaulted women, I think anybody who disavows gender-based oppression and inequality needs a big, hot dose of reality.
The political and economic advances of women are meaningful, but in my work these are tokens and totems. Men still comprise over 90% of violent offenders against women. Sexual assault and trauma still affects more women than heart disease and cancer combined.
In a truly equal society, the strong would not overpower the weak. Until men take ownership of this violence and do the work to end it, equality is still in the starting stages.
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From another veteran of the ERA effort: Certainly there have been enormous gains in the opportunities available to women today. That said, I truly don't think the majority of men (and too many women) believe in equality for women.
This is demonstrated in the workplace, in the media, in the government, and countless interactions everyday. But it is very subtle. Hence the complacency of women to put the issue back into the national spotlight. Making a molehill out of a mountain is what too many of us think. "Let it go", "whatever", or "that's the last time I'll go there/do that", etc.
Here are two examples: Technology: In your workplace, if the business uses a networked, how many women are in the IT department as network administrators? When you wait to talk to the Geek Squad, do you wonder if the woman will be able to help you as well as the man?
Shopping: If you are with a male partner in a store, restaurant or any commercial interaction, who does the sales person look at most of the time she/he is talking to the two of you?
It goes on and on. It takes women speaking up and calling attention to subtle but pervasive behaviors that reflect lingering attitudes about the equality of women. You don't have to be mad as hell, to stop taking it anymore.
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Yes, it is subtle.
Back in the 90s I was foreman on a construction job, well, it was the new Lexus auto sales building in Beaverton, and a woman carpenter went into the construction office trailer to ask for a job. After she walked out and off the site I went in and asked the superintendent, an "old guy", about it and he said he would not hire her because he was afraid to swear around her. I was dumbfounded, because I know women have some of the foulest mouths of all.
But the point is that it will take some more years for the "old guys" and their attitudes to leave the workforce or die off and for the new guys who have grown up and gone to school with the newer empowered girls, women, and their own mothers, to bring new respect for equality into the workplace and boardrooms.
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@ Tom D Ford
I'm concerned that waiting for "old guys to leave" won't change much, Tom. My white male friends complain about not getting a raise for five years. They ask, "What about equal employment rights for me?" They stare at me sheepishly when I say, "I haven't had a job offer or interview in years."
I recently attended Chip Shields and Lew Fredericks Living Wage Jobs Town Hall. About two-thirds of the audience were in their 50s and they asked why they weren't being hired even though they had proven work history?
Many businesses had human resources representatives who claimed, "We've got jobs," but when I talked to the recruiters they mostly said, "Go to our online website and submit your application for our current position." Same old same old. If you're serious about hiring someone, get them an interview immediately. Don't send them to the black hole of an impersonal web site.
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I woke up in the middle of the last night realizing that Sarah Palin has had her opportunities in politics and indeed in womens school basketball sports because of the work that Liberal women and men did as Feminism!
Sarah Palin owes Liberals a huge debt of gratitude for all of the money and political power that she has now.
What a horrible cruel irony for the original Feminists, that they enabled the rise of a corporate statist!
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Comments are now closed.
Well, I remember back in the days of trying to pass the ERA, when Conservatives argued that womens place is in the home, barefoot and pregnant, and that they would give their wives their rights and their lefts, with boxing punches to keep them in line, and that women did not need the ERA, because Conservative men were in charge.
We still need the ERA and we ought to revive the fight for it.