[Vision2020] Twenty and Counting

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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December 7, 2012
Twenty and Counting By GAIL
COLLINS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/gailcollins/index.html>

You may have heard that there are going to be 20 women in the Senate next
year. I’ve been trying to figure out what that means.

Well, it means one-fifth. Whoop-di-do.

Still, up to now there have only been 39 women senators in all of American
history. In 2001, the entire female caucus published a book about their
experiences called “Nine and Counting.”

So I say, look on the bright side. In the House, 78 women were just
elected. True, that’s still under 20 percent. Nevertheless, when it comes
to the proportion of women in the lower chamber of its national
legislature, next year the United States is almost certainly going to soar
past the United Arab Emirates and possibly even Indonesia.

Feel free to blame the Republicans. After the elections, the House minority
leader, Nancy Pelosi, pointed out that next session most of the Democratic
members will be something other than white men. The Democrats named
Representative Nita Lowey of New York the ranking member on the
Appropriations Committee, the chamber’s historic Alpha Dog Central.
Meanwhile, over on the Republican side, Speaker John Boehner announced a
list of new committee chairs that was entirely, um, pale male. After the
ensuing outcry, he stuck Representative Candice Miller of Michigan in a
vacant top post on the House Administration Committee, a panel she had
never served on.

“In her new post, Candice will provide the leadership needed to keep
operating costs down, save taxpayer dollars, and help lawmakers use new
technology to better engage with their constituents,” said Boehner.

Having any committee chairmanship is better than not having one. But I
believe I speak on behalf of many American women when I say: oh good grief.

But let’s cheerfully return to the fact that there are going to be more
women in Congress. What does it mean? These days, the answers are mainly
about interpersonal relations more than any particular issue. “It’s not
that they’re going to agree on everything,” said Debbie Walsh, director of
the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. “I think in some
ways, it will be about: Will they talk to each other and work with each
other on some things and at least be able to communicate with each other?”

She’s right, and while sociability is a pretty low bar, this is the
Washington in which everyone complains that bipartisan dinner parties are a
thing of the past. The Senate women most definitely dine together.
Regularly, in the Capitol, in a room named after the late Strom Thurmond,
an infamous pincher of ladies’ bottoms.

“I know, the irony,” said Olympia Snowe, Republican from Maine.

But about the issues. There are plenty of veterans who remember the days
when women banded together in bipartisan battles on behalf of their sex.
Lowey pointed to a fight to get the National Institutes of Health to study
women as well as men when it did clinical trials. (“Even the lab rats were
male.”)

Now, not so much. Barely at all, as a matter of fact. The House women’s
caucus did hold some hearings on the question of pay parity, but it never
took a position on what to do to reduce the wage gap between male and
female workers, since the Democratic and Republican co-chairs don’t agree
on actual bill proposals.

One of the reasons is the dwindling band of moderate, pro-choice Republican
women. Diversity is always a good thing — if you’ve got to have a Tea
Party, I’d rather not have an all-male one. But a female lawmaker who
opposes giving poor women access to family planning services is not really
playing for the team.

In the Senate, the small band of Republican women has included influential
moderates like Snowe; Susan Collins, also of Maine; and Lisa Murkowski of
Alaska, who was forced to run as a write-in when a Tea Party candidate
swiped the Republican nomination. “Any time I’ve been successful I’ve had a
woman Republican helping me on the other side of the aisle,” said Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

The other day Gillibrand proudly noted that every woman in the Senate had
supported an amendment to the defense bill she’d sponsored, despite
Republican opposition. In the current session, she said, “I think it’s the
first thing we all voted on.”

The amendment would expand treatment for the autistic children of members
of the military. Really, folks, you would not think rallying around that
one would be all that hard. But once again, we’re going to celebrate the
clearing of a bar rather than pointing out that it’s kind of low.

And all but one of the current 17 women voted in favor of ratifying the
United Nations treaty on the disabled. Although the Senate being the
Senate, the treaty failed.

 Ghostery has found the following on this page:

-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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