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- From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
- Subject: NATIONAL WOMEN'S AGENDA 1992
- Message-ID: <1992Aug29.021318.451@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
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- Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 02:13:18 GMT
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- /** media.issues: 201.0 **/
- ** Topic: NATIONAL WOMEN'S AGENDA 1992 **
- ** Written 9:39 am Aug 27, 1992 by newsdesk in cdp:media.issues **
- From: News Desk <newsdesk>
- Subject: NATIONAL WOMEN'S AGENDA 1992
-
-
-
- For immediate release For more information: Frieda Werden
- (816)361-7161
-
- NATIONAL WOMEN'S AGENDA 1992:
- WHAT WOMEN WANT & HOW THEY PLAN TO WIN IT
- National Women's Organizations Take Media Coverage
- of the Issues into Their Own Hands
-
- Disunity in the women's movement has been legendary - and there's a tiny
- element of truth in the legend, too. Whether the fragmentation is (as we
- now know it was in the '70s) FBI-inspired, or the common garden variety
- related to style, philosophy and class, or because creative genius
- leaders need lebensraum, or from the sheer millions of individualistic
- and multi-cultural women involved, it's a major enterprise to get a lot of
- women's organizations all backing the same goals.
-
- Women's organizations are also notoriously short of cash, so it's
- unusual that sixteen national women's organizations have put up financing
- for a public radio showcase program. The pilot effort, being released by
- satellite September 10, features an hour with Marlene Sanders as moderator,
- leading a discussion titled "National Women's Agenda 1992: What Women Want
- and How They Plan to Win It." The program will air on non-commercial radio
- stations across the country at locally-determined times before November 5.
-
- Participants include Connie Morella (R-MD) and Mary Rose Oakar (D-OH),
- who are leading members of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues,
- with other Congresswomen and political activists from national women's
- organizations.
-
- The National Women's Agenda is itself a triumph of both politics and
- diplomacy. Decided annually by the Council of Presidents of Women's
- Organizations, it lists political priorities accepted in whole or in part
- by their 80 diverse, non-partisan, national women's organizations,
- representing 15,000 chapters and 10 million grassroots members based in
- every congressional district in the country.
-
- The diplomacy around this Agenda draws on one of the women's movement's
- legendary strengths - it's not hierarchical or dogmatic. You don't have to
- subscribe to a particular plank, just be moving in the same general
- direction most of the time.
-
- Take for example the question of the right to have an abortion. Being
- the "women's issue" with the most conflict-laden visuals, it gets tons
- of coverage by major media and became synonymous with feminism in backlash
- circles. It's also proved a great issue for women's organizations to raise
- money around - and more groups are getting involved in abortion politics
- all the time. Yet some of the most active women's organizations like the
- League of Women Voters and Women's Action for New Directions take no
- position on abortion. They'd rather spend their time on actions where
- there's less controversy but as much need.
-
- So what's on that smorgasbord of political issues, the National Women's
- Agenda, in the watershed election year of 1992? And how are things going?
-
- * Civil rights, including the elimination of all institutional
- forms of discrimination as well as strengthening, expansion, and enforcement
- of civil rights laws to insure legal equality.
- There are two women's rights instruments pending action in Congress.
- The Equal Rights Amendment - first introduced in 1923 - is still with us.
- And the U.S. Senate has yet to ratify the United Nations Convention on All
- Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which to our shame has already been
- ratified by 115 other countries. The State Department has not chosen to
- push for ratification of this treaty yet, though the U.S. signed and
- helped shape it.
- There's also a Civil Rights Restoration Act on the agenda because
- the Supreme Court changed its interpretation of civil rights laws pertaining
- to women. Legislation was passed last session, but with a cap on the amount
- of damages women could recover in employment discrimination suits (an
- amendment proposed by Sen. Nancy Kassebaum - R-KS). Some women's
- organizations like the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund would like to
- see that cap come off.
- Other organizations such as the national YWCA are fighting
- discrimination mainly with grassroots attitude change.
-
- * Family and medical leave.
- A bill passed by the Congress this year was watered down to almost
- nothing - most businesses were exempted, and the leave was unpaid (other
- developed countries mostly have paid leave). Nevertheless, President Bush
- vetoed this measure, perhaps perceiving it as a threat to the family values
- that say parents must bring forth and rear children in pain and suffering,
- and that women should get husbands to support them, stay home full time,
- and take care of children, the sick, and the aged at no cost to the state.
-
- * Universal health care, including prevention services, long term
- care, and expanded research on women's health issues.
- This is a tall order, but some organizations like the Older Women's
- League and the American Nurses Association have been working on broad-
- spectrum legislation, and Congresswomen have drafted and introduced a
- collection of bills known as the Women's Health Equity Act. Part or all
- of seven of those bills were passed by Congress as part of the National
- Institutes of Health Revitalization Act. President Bush vetoed that act,
- allegedly because of a provision for fetal tissue research - but he also
- chastised the Congress for authorizing too much money for research in areas
- like breast cancer. (Breast cancer is the second most common cancer killer
- of women - right behind lung cancer - and affects one in nine U.S. women.)
-
- * Reproductive rights without regard to income, age, and marital
- status.
- Aside from abortion, you might think this was pretty non-
- controversial, but 45 Democrats and 105 Republicans voted against the Family
- Planning Reauthorization Act last April. (The bill, to renew Title X funding
- for another 7 years, included a provision to overturn the "gag rule"
- executive order that forbids people in federally funded clinics from saying
- the word "abortion" even if you ask.)
- The 150 members of Congress who voted against this measure also
- vote against a lot of other bills affecting women - which is why it's been
- impossible to override the Bush vetoes. You can find their names on the
- "Bad Guys List" published by Women's Action for New Directions. WAND and
- other groups are training and funding women to run against these folks in
- current and future elections.
-
- * Employment opportunities, including job training, pay equity, and
- an increased minimum wage.
- When the women's movement started this campaign, women were making
- 59 cents for every dollar a man made. Now supposedly women are making 73 cents
- to a man's dollar. But women still face economic barriers at every level of
- society.
- According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, over 70% of
- minimum wage workers are women. The recent law increasing minimum wage to
- $4.50 an hour was a start, but falls short of a living wage - especially
- since so many minimum wage jobs are also part-time to avoid paying benefits.
- At the other end of the scale, women still bump the Glass Ceiling
- keeping them out of upper management. The Labor Department has a new
- initiative aimed at cracking the Glass Ceiling (at least Bush appointed a
- woman to head the Department) - but the EEOC stopped caring during Clarence
- Thomas's tenure, and legislation has been mainly confined to another
- commission to study.
-
- * Economic equity in Social Security, pensions, and insurance.
- Since women are clustered in the below-$53,400 range, we're bearing
- a disproportionate amount of the Social Security-cum-Medicaid tax (which for
- the self-employed is 15.3%). The surplus in the Social Security fund
- generated by this tax dealt off the bottom is no longer in trust for us -
- it's being used for the S&L bailout. Likewise corporations are often robbing
- private pension funds blind; and pensions as a benefit are disappearing
- faster than women can become vested in them.
- Much of the insurance fight takes place at the state level, and
- women got 40 states to pass laws requiring insurance companies to cover the
- full cost of screening mammograms. However, a Federal regulation coming out
- of the Executive Branch forbids these laws to apply to Medigap insurance,
- which covers the age group most vulnerable to breast cancer.
-
- * Educational equity for women and girls.
- The American Association of University Women has been very successful
- in getting recognition for their study showing that girls are discriminated
- against in classrooms from an early age. A part of the study rarely cited
- says that African-American girls raise their hands in class more than any
- other category of students, but get called on least of all.
-
- * Elimination of violence against women.
- Reported violence against women has increased dramatically in the
- last decade - it's the main problem causing women to seek medical treatment.
- A bill in Congress would address this - but three years after winning
- unanimous bi-partisan approval from the Senate Judiciary Committe, the
- Violence Against Women Act somehow still can't get passed. It would provide
- federal grants for shelters and treatment programs, lighting for
- transportation areas, even sensitivity training for judges. One problem
- seems to be that it was drafted so that it falls under the jurisdiction of
- too many House subcommittees; and like other substantive bills affecting
- women it's in danger of being amended into wet macaroni.
-
- * Economic justice, recognizing the disproportionate impact of
- poverty, hunger, and homelessness on women and children.
- * Tax fairness and deficit reduction that encourages economic
- development without denying those in need.
- * Expansion of business and entrepreneurial opportunities for women.
- * Economic recognition, recompense, and respite for caregivers.
- These areas are some of the hardest to address, because in government
- dollars speak louder than words and them what has gets. A group of bills
- called the Economic Equity Act, endorsed by the Congressional Caucus for
- Women's Issues in the late 1980s, has had partial success. But every time
- there's a cutback in public services, women with families have to try to
- come up with more of their own energy to take up the slack.
- An interesting plank of the U.N.'s "Forward Looking Strategies for
- Women to the Year 2000," adopted in 1985, calls for women's unwaged work to
- be counted in the GNP of every country. As with environmental accounting,
- quantification of the true costs would be a good place to start.
- Defending the poor also strays into hot-button territory. Both
- major parties are campaigning on welfare reform - though the system of Aid
- to Families with Dependent Children has already been reformed and re-
- reformed. Contrary to public perception, the average AFDC family has only
- 1.9 children - below the national average - and receives assistance for
- less than two years.
-
- The Council of Presidents of Women's Organizations publishes a list
- of suggested questions to ask political candidates. Copies of the list will
- be offered through the radio program.
-
- "National Women's Agenda 1992: What Women Want and How They Plan
- to Win It" is being funded by the following organizations: American
- Association of University Women, Black Women's Agenda, Commission for
- Women's Equality of the American Jewish Congress, General Federation of
- Women's Clubs, League of Women Voters, National Women's Conference
- Committee, NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, Soroptimist International
- of the Americas, Women for Meaningful Summits, YWCA of the USA National
- Board. Also Clearinghouse on Women's Issues, the National Woman's Party,
- the National Women's Studies Association, Churchwomen United, and The
- Woman Activist, Inc.
-
- The producer of "National Women's Agenda 1992" is Frieda Werden of
- WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service, a syndicated radio
- service based in Kansas City, Missouri. Associate producers are Mal Johnson
- of Medialinx International and Martha Burk, Center for the Advancement of
- Public Policy - both based in Washington DC.
-
- For details on where the radio programs will air, consult local
- stations.
- #
- SIDEBAR:
-
- To order a cassette of NATIONAL WOMEN'S AGENDA 1992: WHAT WOMEN WANT AND
- HOW THEY PLAN TO WIN IT, write WINGS, PO Box 5307, Kansas City MO 64131.
- Enclose check or money order for $12.
-
- To order a copy of "Women Ask...! Questions for the Candidates," send a
- self-addressed, stamped envelope to Medialinx International,
- 2020 Pennsylvania Ave NW, #267, Washington DC 20006.
-
- To order the Congressional "Bad Guys List," contact WAND, 691
- Massachusetts Ave., Arlington MA 02174.
-
-
- ** End of text from cdp:media.issues **
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-