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"A Woman’s Place is in the House -- and in the Senate" (Bella Abzug)

Women are more than half the population. Women have more than half the good ideas. Women have more than half the problems — and are probably cleaning up after the other half. So why aren’t women making at least half of the decisions? What if women ran the world?

Women have had the vote since the 1920s, but as of 2002, women make up less than 14% of Congress. Women are less than 27% of all state and local elected officials - and as of 2002, there were only four women governors.

When the 106th Congress was seated in 2001, it included more women than any previous session of Congress. Seventy-three women brought marvelous gifts to Congress that year; one gift was a hint of the rich diversity in women's views and experiences that Congress had been missing for all the years since its founding. As of that swearing-in day in 2001, Congress started to look a little bit more like the nation it represents.

Spending Priorities - Women's Work

Women bring lots of political and practical experience with them when they take office. Sometimes the practical experience is the most valuable of all.

Most women still do the shopping. We know this. But even that mundane experience is worth something - women have practical experience at deciding what to buy and finding the bargains. Would a Congress made up of women have decided to buy a $2,187 door hinge for a C-17 airlift military plane, when there was one on sale at Handyman for $31? Would women have gone for that $8,842 door hook? Would women allow military officers to fly by helicopter from nearby Andrews Air Force Base to the Pentagon - at $400 a ride - or just expect the officers to take a 15-minute cab ride like everyone else?

Even more important - would women decide to buy more weapons for a nation that is already bristling with arms? Or choose instead to improve our schools, so that our children could compete with the world's children in science and math? Would women choose to improve prenatal health care, so that fewer of our children would die as infants? Would women offer more drug addiction treatments, to rescue the human beings caught in this pernicious trap, and to make our communities safer? What would women's spending priorities be?

Who Knows What Women Would Decide?

As of 2002, women still make up less than 15% of Congress. Just 13 out of 100 senators are women and just 60 out of 435 representatives are women. That's an appalling record for one of the world's model democracies. According to the Center for the American Woman and Politics, the United States ranks 43rd in women's representation among the 106 nations with freely elected governments. We are somewhere in line behind South Africa, the Russian Federation, and Canada.

Of course, women don't speak with one voice. Women hold a variety of views on everything from getting more money to spending it. But women also share life experiences that can bring different perspectives into congressional debate. To hear the voices born of women's diverse lives, the U.S. needs many more than 73 women in Congress. In her book on the experiences of freshman women in the 103rd Congress, A Woman's Place, Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinski records some examples of this diversity of experience:

• Rep. Carolyn Maloney from New York spoke on the floor of the House just weeks after arriving in Washington D.C. She spoke "as a working mother with two children, and as the representative in Congress of tens of thousands of other working parents in New York City" in support of the Family and Medical Leave Act.
• Rep. Lynn Woolsey from California brought her experience of the sudden turns in some women's lives. When she and her husband divorced, she was left with the responsibility of raising her children alone. Woolsey's resume at the time was that of a homemaker- it did not command much of a salary in the job market. She relied on welfare and food stamps for a time, while she completed her education and started a business.
• Rep. Carrie Meek from Florida, the daughter of sharecroppers and the granddaughter of slaves, is a savvy political activist with years of experience in local and state government. But in a hearing about domestic workers, Rep. Meek's contributions came from her personal history. "I was a domestic worker," she said. All my sisters were domestic workers." No one else in Congress could open that particular window on the issue.

Some experienced legislators have noted that women in Congress are distinguished not only by a shared experience, but also by a tendency to do their jobs differently than men. Former Rep. Tim Penny of Minnesota, for example, observed that, "To a great extent, men view politics as a game... Women see it as a service to the country or the community, and they're more focused on solving the problems." The differences are readily seen by new members, too. Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio led the Republican freshman caucus for a time in 1993. She noted a distinct difference between the "ego grandstanding and backslapping" that occurs in the larger (mostly male) Republican freshman caucus, and the efficiency of the meetings of the freshman women's caucus.

Studies by the Center for the American Woman and Politics at Rutgers University support these observations; they conclude that elected women tend to be more open to working with citizens and to including all points of view in their job of representation. Women legislators also tend to favor an open style of governing, with discussions and decisions occurring in the public view.

Women Make a Difference!

All issues are women's issues - foreign policy, the economy, military spending, agriculture, trade and transportation, as well as health, education, and social services. "You see, there's not a single issue here in which I'm not interested, and I am a woman," advises Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas. But some women's issues don't get the attention they need until women are there to bring them up.

In May 1996, Representative Nita Lowey and Senator Carol Moseley-Braun introduced the Women's Pension Equity Act, to "attack pervasive poverty and unfair pension laws for elder women."

In February 1996, Representative Maxine Waters introduced the Women's Cardiovascular Disease Research and Prevention Act, to bring more health care resources to bear on the number one killer of women. Senator Barbara Boxer later introduced similar legislation in the Senate. Meanwhile, Representative Barbara Vucanovich introduced two bills to require the Medicaid and Medicare programs to cover breast cancer screening.

Senator Moseley-Braun also commissioned reports from the General Accounting Office on the physical state of America's schools, and on their readiness to teach technology relevant to the '90s and beyond.

Are Women at the Table When Decisions are Made on Capitol Hill?

Inside Congress, committee roles are key. On spending issues, the critical committees are the budget and appropriations committees. Before any testimony is received about human needs programs, environmental programs, or military plans, the budget committees make major decisions about how to slice the federal budget pie - deciding how much each major budget category will get to spend. Then it is up to the appropriations committees to decide the exact amounts to be spent on individual programs.

On the Senate Budget Committee of the 107th Congress, only 4 members out of 23 are women, and on the House side, only 5 out of 43 Budget Committee members are women. On the appropriations committees, just 5 out of the 29 members of the Senate committee are women, and only 10 out of the 65 members of the House committee are women. The total number of women in Congress - just 73 in 2002 - doesn't spread very far among the 20 House and 20 Senate Committees.

Getting in on the Ground Floor is Crucial.

In 1992, the "Year of the Woman," more women were elected to Congress than in any previous year. Had American voters changed their minds about accepting women's leadership? Apparently not. Women candidates were elected in the same proportion as men candidates. The difference was that more women ran for office that year. But these women candidates did not leap directly from kitchens to campaigns. They had begun their political careers in PTAs, in local chapters of national organizations, in city councils and school boards. They had already spent years steeped in the problems and challenges of their own communities, and they had already learned the power of working together toward a shared goal.

The ground floor of political power extends to every community. Getting in on the ground floor means participating in the local decisions that affect all parts of the community - the children, the elders, the economy, the life and the future of the community. Women's pathways vary, as women's concerns vary. The common thread is active participation.

Where are you on that ground floor?
Are you acting on your concerns?
Are you part of a local organization - a PTA, a student group, a seniors' group, a neighborhood group, an issue group?
How do you weigh in on local political decisions?
What do others in your community know about your concerns; how do they feel about these issues, and how do you know?
Is it time for you to run for a local office - a school board, a commission, or a city council?
Is it time for you to offer support to a woman candidate who is making the decision to run?

And, is it time for you to join WAND?