The 30 Percent Solution
September 23, 2008
by MadamaB
|NOTE: This post was originally published last week at Partizane, The Confluence, and MadamaB’s own blog. We’re delighted to re-publish it here, and to welcome MadamaB as a contributor.
The New Agenda is non-partisan and, unlike MadamaB, we do not endorse any candidate. We do, however, fully endorse the “30% solution.” Increasing women’s representation in government is one of our key goals, for reasons that this post makes clear.
- You Said It, Sister!
When I read Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney’s book, “Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, I felt as if I had been sleep-walking through the past twenty years of my life. (I hope that soon I will have the long-promised interview with the Congresswoman for your reading pleasure, but she is obviously quite busy on her book tour!) Through a devastating, methodical collection of facts and figures, the Congresswoman builds an airtight case for her premise: American women have NOT come a long way, baby.
Sexual harrassment suits are still routinely filed at places that are designated by female-led organizations as woman-friendly. Women still make 77 cents to every male dollar for doing the same job. Although many other countries, including the not-so-forward-thinking Pakistan and India, have had female heads of state, we Americans are still not quite able to bring ourselves to elect a female president, although many qualified women have tried and failed. Our business community has little to no support for women who want to participate in the workforce; no places for breastfeeding, no help for those who need daycare, and maternity leave for most is a thing of the past, having been replaced by “disability pay” – as if having a child were a disability! And as for a woman’s right to control her own body, although 6 years of Republican control over Congress, the Executive Branch and the Supreme Court has not led to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, certain factions within the Republican Party never seem to stop trying to chip away at reproductive choice. Just recently, HHS Secretary Leavitt put forth a proposal erroneously declaring some forms of birth control as abortifacients, thus opening the door to more “conscientious refusals” by anti-choice health professionals to prescribe them. Finally, the ERA has been dead in the water since it failed to pass in the 1970’s, the last time that a demonstrated, concentrated push for womens’ rights occurred.
Maloney’s excellent book offers practical, real-world solutions for many of these problems; among them, lobbying for specific legislation and networking with women in business to get more females into the top slots in Fortune 500 companies. But when all is said and done, the overwhelming thing we all must do is to elect more women to local, state and federal government. Why? Because of the 30% Solution.
I had never heard of this statistic before reading this book (told you I was asleep), but apparently, it is a well-recognized fact that no significant progress is ever made on womens’ issues in any country unless the federal government is made up of at least 30% women. Our federal government is currently made up of 17% women, which explains why we have had such a difficult time moving forward. Womens’ voices are simply too few to be heard, despite their frequent screaming. A case in point: That HHS proposal mentioned above is being hotly and loudly contested by only two women: Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray. 28 of their Senatorial colleagues have signed onto their petition (note that supposedly fervent feminist Joe Biden is NOT on that list, although Barack Obama has signed it), but that is the extent of their advocacy. Why isn’t the Democratic Party screaming and yelling about this terrible blow against womens’ rights, as this blog suggests?
If 30% of the Senate and House were women, you can bet your increasingly-less-valuable paycheck that both parties would be feeling a lot more responsible to that constituency. But as it is now, the Democrats have gotten fat and lazy, assuming that we will hand them our votes no matter what they do, resting on their decades-old laurels and doing little or nothing to stop this horrendous attack on our reproductive freedoms.
As I was reading this book, I noted the number of times the Congresswoman would be stymied by Republican resistance and Democratic indifference when trying to get important legislation into Committee. (The book was written before Democrats took over Congress.) Yet I also noted something interesting: When Ms. Maloney desperately needed bi-partisan support, it was nearly always a Republican woman who would give it to her - and not necessarily a “moderate” like Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, either. Was it possible that the 30% Solution could actually be party-blind?
This year, and every year, I believe the answer is yes. The Democrats have utterly failed to demonstrate their commitment to womens’ rights by refusing to nominate the woman who was the clear winner of the primaries this year, favoring an illegitimate, unqualified and unelectable man instead. And indeed, they have been completely uninterested, with the exception of certain female legislators and leaders within the Party, in protecting and advancing womens’ rights by passing the ERA.
And to those of you that come here to berate me and other PUMAs, and can’t seem to acknowledge the historic nature of this election to women, you are missing a fundamental dynamic of the primary season. The main reason McCain picked Palin was to satisfy his conservative base, but he was also extremely aware of the pissed-off faction of the Democratic Party that has finally seen the impenetrably sexist nature of the Party we thought was our friend and advocate. And notably, the Republican Party is over the moon about Palin, whereas the supposed “feminists” and “left” bloggers had no problem attacking Hillary for her cleavage, body, wardrobe, allegiance to her husband, and a myriad of other Scary Vagina-based idiocies.
McCain and the Republicans are willing to elect a woman to the Executive Branch for the first time in the history of our country. They are advancing the 30% Solution. Obama and the Democrats are not, and are not. Do you get it now, Obamans?
It is time to make the Democratic Party take women seriously, for the first time since Mondale put Geraldine Ferraro on the Presidential ticket. It is time to acknowledge that, as Hillary said, Womens’ rights are human rights. And it is time to cast your vote for a woman this Election Day. I am casting my vote for two women, McKinney/Clemente, unless McCain comes close enough to win New York, in which case I will vote McCain/Palin at the top. And after this election, I am only casting my vote for women, unless I have no alternative.
It’s a numbers game, and thanks to the Democratic Party’s unconscionable rejection of Hillary Clinton this year, I have just become a single-issue voter. If the Democratic Party wants to earn my support by actually taking concrete action on behalf of women in the future, then let them. If they want to support women in the primaries, let them. If they want to use their increased Congressional power to get the ERA passed, let them. If they want to legislate Roe v. Wade on top of the established law of the land, as Hillary has proposed, let them. And if they want to put Hillary forward as the nominee in 2012, instead of taking every possible action to stop her from winning (including taking her two strongest states out of contention, changing the rules to overweight red-state caucuses to the detriment of large blue and swing states, awarding her delegates to her opponent, and intimidating and threatening her delegates into not voting for her at the Convention), then let them.
Otherwise, they will continue to be a Party divided on racial and sexual lines; a Party that thinks nothing of an African-American candidate who gains the support of 93% of AA’s by race-baiting, but is fauxraged at women who self-identified with Hillary and now Sarah Palin; a Party destroyed from within by the most divisive and destructive candidate in recent memory.
It’s up to you, Democrats. You can re-commit yourselves to social justice and gender equality, or you can continue on your path towards becoming the New Plutocratic Party. But be prepared to reap what you sow. Remember, pissing off your constituents, then blaming them for not voting for you, is never a good electoral strategy. Giving your constituents what they want, however, works every time.
Right, President McCain?
[...] Solution — now with 30% more cross-posting! I got permission from the divine MadamaB to re-post The 30 Percent Solution over at The New Agenda, and I’m just so giddy about the whole thing I’m going to re-post it here too. [...]
[...] guess that most regular readers of this blog will strongly disgaree with some of the assertions in this essay, I know I do, but y’all are generally either academics or folks with an academic (by which I [...]
I totally agree with this.
We need to get women into positions of power if we truly want to advance women’s issues.
I don’t understand why Obama get 96% of black votes and no one says a thing about that – but women are accused of horrendous things for voting for a woman (voting with your v, voting with your hormones). Disgusting!
Gore had 90% of the black vote, and Kerry had 94%, if the figures I’ve got are correct.
We will know we have equality when…
50% of our Governors in a 20 year period are women.
50% of our Congressmen and Senators are consistently women.
five of the Supreme Court Justices are women.
both President and VP are women.
We have a lot of work to do.
Vote Vagina!
MadamaB, FANTASTIC post.
Strategic voting seems to be the only way to move women’s rights forward at something better than a snail’s pace.
Dawn C,
But the metric that counts is how many blacks supported Obama OVER CLINTON in the primary which is the same, over 90%. We know blacks vote Democratic over 90%.
“Gore had 90% of the black vote, and Kerry had 94%, if the figures I’ve got are correct.”
Against a *republican* opponent, not a democratic one. 96% of blacks voted for Obama against a *Democrat*. This wasn’t an issue-based vote, as in the case of Gore and Kerry. This was black men and black women voting for a black man because he was black (well, half-black). And I don’t have anything against that. Representation is very important, equally, if not more than issues. (Duh, that *is* the point of this article, isn’t it?) It is only when it comes to women that people constantly try to play down the importance of representation, because that might actually bring results, you know. And we can’t have that.
Whoa. I don’t get it. How does voting for Palin (because she’s a woman) advance causes like reproductive rights? She only believes in choice if the choice is to have the baby. Even if the woman is raped. or the victim of incest. and this furthers the feminist agenda how?
madC,
The New Agenda does not have reproductive rights on its platform. Feel free to read FAQ for an explanation.
Also, to be clear, we are non-partisan and are NOT endorsing a candidate in this election.
Feminism isn’t about abortion alone or even primarily.
donna darko, Kali,
You’re absolutely right, of course. And as someone said on another site—it’s not like we haven’t been choosing candidates on the basis of their gender for hundreds of years.
I just found this site and have never done this before, but its time to speak out. I didn’t support Hillary although I think she is brilliant, capable and lightyears better than most, but not Obama. I felt from the beginning that he did represent change and\ that welfare reform under the Clinton’s was just one example of how a more DLC leaning party would affect lower income women. I feel the Arkansas connections, Tyson, Walmart, (Hillary was on the Board) and many other factors made me leary of her. I was a Kucinich fan mostly, but thought he could never win. I wanted to break up the Wall Street, corporate democrats. As for the women in leadership, they failed to stop the war, or speak against it or ask questions. I am in Nancy Pelosi’s district and feel let down by both Dianne and Nancy. It may be harder for them as women, but they haven’t proven to me that they were any different than the men in power. Sorry. Can transexuals quality as women and therby be assured female support? What do we stand for is the question. Where is the child care and womens agenda now. We all need to add our voices to the important issues of the day. As for Palin, please look at what her visiting minister has to say. I was a teen parent, now 65 and I don’t think its ok for her to choose wheter my daughter gets a morning after pill should she be raped. I do love that she is a wonder woman though. I didn’t want to leave my children to work, but I had to and child care was only one of the support services i needed then and didn’t have. Lets work for peace and justice for all. Girls and boys. Gays too.
People of color too.
Lynne,
Thank you for writing on our site.
To answer your question, we do have on our list of goals (see #4) the notion of child care (Measures must be taken to create better paying jobs and pathways to jobs for women, including job training opportunities, educational opportunities, and child care programs.). We agree with you that this is an important issue.
Agree on your other goals too. We can only take so much on at a time but there are many wonderful organizations that are fighting for gay rights and for people of color.
What a wonderful article. It has certainly given me much to think about. I know there are very emotionally fraught opposing views on abortion. I hope that perhaps this is an issue women can agree to disagree for the moment and work on the vast common ground we share. Everything from equal pay to equal opportunities and stronger legislation to protect women from domestic abuse and stalking. In that vein, I urge all women to be careful in the language we use to criticize each other. By all means, feel free to disagree but please treat each other with respect. And just as importantly, demand others use respect when discussing women candidates. Thank you New Agenda for taking the lead.
I was talking politics with a friend and mentioned this 30% solution, for women’s issues but also for general progressive issues. He said “I wish people would just stop playing selfish, divisive identity politics. The progressive men in Congress have a great record and are doing everything that needs to be done for women’s issues.”
I didn’t have a good response for him but it felt very demoralizing.
First of all – what an assinine comment on his part.
Any “progressive” poltician understands full well that women should have representation in the government that reflects their percentage of society. That is the definition of progressive. The 30% story, as well as the UN Study that Dawn wrote about indicate that when women are in office, women’s issues get attention and are dealt with. It is a national embarrassment that our country ranked 69th in women for politics.
Perhaps your friend should ask himself why he doesn’t feel a woman can do just as good a job (if not better) than a male politician? Insecurity?
I am sooo mad!!! I am not a young gal like most of you… 69 yrs okay! ( I do not like to really say my age…but there you are!!) I saw an article about us older people and bashing us as ill due to not supporting Obama! Sorry, I have been out there for the last 15 years as a poll worker. I was there driving other lady friends to the polls cause the family had only one car and the husband took it to work. We put up signs for Johnson, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Clinton, Kerry, and Gore! I worked hard at the phones for every election and for Sen Clinton for over a year. I saw her win Ohio…even when others tried to cheat her out of it!!! Now that I am not supporting Oba,a I am called sick with a Frontal Lobe Deases
Look at this!!! It makes me sick!! Where is everyone on this mean speech against us women who maybe do not work anymore????
http://www.chicagotribune.com/.....8304.story
Here’s a response for your friend, phio: That’s easy enough for an overrepresented identity to say . And I’m sorry, but progressive men in Washington are in no way doing everything they can to for women’s issues. 22 of those progressives are responsible for 40-something Chief Justice Roberts, Chief Justice! There’s plenty more they’ve chipped away at or bartered away for nothing more than earmarks. They do not care about women’s issues because they don’t have to DEAL with women’s issues. This logic is applicable to a number of so-called identities, including such un-divisive (how I hate to use that word) identities as the middle class.
[...] “no significant progress is ever made on womens’ issues in any country unless the federal go…, anything less than 30% women in cabinet ought to be cause to find Obama’s government hostile [...]
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