By
MARSHA MERCER
For
most of the last century, no more than two women served at the same time in the
U.S. Senate.
In
the 1980s, women House members were not allowed in the House gym.
After
the 1992 election, headline writers broke out the phrase Year of the Woman to
describe the vast crowd of women coming to the Senate – six. The phrase annoyed
at least one senator.
“Calling 1992 the Year of the Woman makes it
sound like the Year of the Caribou or the Year of the Asparagus,” Sen. Barbara
Mikulski, D-Md., complained at the time. “We’re not a fad, a fancy, or a year.”
Women
weren’t a fad, but they’re still a distinct minority in Congress. In January, 20
women will serve in the Senate, 16 Democrats and four Republicans. One in five
-- that’s the most women ever in the Senate.
In
the House, there will be a record 78 women, about 18 percent of the members.
Fifty-eight are Democrats, 20 Republicans. At least three of the new women in
the House are in their 30s.
For
the first time, women and minorities will outnumber white men among Democrats
in the House. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., celebrated the Democratic
caucus milestone, saying it would be “the first caucus in the history of
civilized government to have a majority of women and minorities.”
That’s
impressive, but it’s unclear how having more women and minorities in Congress
will affect policy. Republicans still control the House, and the Republican
caucus is dominated by white men. Their goal is to shrink the size of
government and cut entitlements.
In earlier times, women in Congress worked to avoid
being pigeon-holed as interested in “women’s” issues. In fact, when the Women’s
Caucus was formed in the House in 1977, “it met with considerable resistance
even among women members,” according to a history on the House clerk’s Web
page.
Political
scientists who have studied women in elective office are divided on whether
women have different legislative priorities than men. While some studies find women more likely to support certain family and
workplace issues, other studies find no trend.
For one thing, there’s
been a blurring of what women’s issues are. Plus, family-work balance, pay
equity, education and health care mean different things to different people, whether
men or women. Someone’s political party can be more predictive of his or her
stand than gender.
While
some Republican women in Congress supported certain benefits in the health care
overhaul -- such as not allowing health insurance companies to charge women
higher premiums than men -- not one Republican, man or woman, voted for final
passage of the Affordable Care Act.
“Based
on my experience, just because you’re an elected official and a woman, that
doesn’t mean you’re going to vote” for women’s issues, Rep. Rep. Rosa DeLauro,
D-Conn., says in Madeleine M. Kunin’s “The New Feminist Agenda,” published in
April.
As
the title suggests, Kunin, who was the first woman governor of Vermont and served
as ambassador to Switzerland, is calling for another social revolution ‘’not
for the benefit of women alone,” she says, “but for the sake of the
family.”
She
argues that while women have made great progress in the workplace, the country needs
social policies that support families. The United States is the only country in
the developed world that fails to offer paid maternity leave or paid sick
leave.
A
poll of international gender specialists in June ranked the United States the
sixth-best country for women -- behind Canada, Germany, Britain, Australia and France. In France, new mothers get 16 weeks of maternity
leave at full pay.
The
panel, which looked at the G20 developed countries, cited poor access to health
care and the debate over reproductive rights for the U.S. rank, the poll by
TrustLaw, a legal news service run by Thompson Reuters Foundation, reported.
We’re
No. 6? That doesn’t sound right. It’s time for women and men in Congress to
support working parents and stand up for families.
No
worries about the Year of the Woman or asparagus. Call it the Year of All of
Us.
©2012
Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Yes, indeed. We should call it the Year of All of Us. For better or for worse, women will soon hold over half the seats in Congress, as they now constitute more than half the students in college. We can hope that a female majority will improve the way Congress does its business. I wonder.
ReplyDeleteNice work, Ms. Mercer. You give us useful information in an interesting and well-written presentation.