Equal = Equal

The 51% Minority; How Women Still Are Not Equal and What You Can Do About It
by Lis Wiehl

Women make up 51% of the American population, yet still aren't treated equally to men in areas that matter most. In this provocative new book, Lis Wiehl, one of the country's top federal prosecutors, reveals the legal and social inequalities women must face in their daily lives - and provides a "Tool Box" for dealing with a variety of issues. From boardroom to courtroom, from pregnancy to contraception, from unequal pay to domestic violence, women are more often than not handed the short end of the stick.

• A woman earns seventy-three cents for every dollar a man makes.
• The law labels pregnancy a "disability."
• Domestic violence remains the single biggest threat of injury to women in America.
• The federal government continues to increase funding for abstinence-only education, even though it's proven to put our daughters at greater risk for unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
• Health insurance plans are more likely to cover Viagra prescriptions than birth control pills.

What's worse, we're also weighed down by a myriad of troubling attitudes: The media bombard us with images of young, perfect-bodied women; acid-tongued commentators label us "feminazi" if we try to claim equal treatment; and the current chief justice of the Supreme Court has a history of opposing legislative and legal attempts to strengthen women's rights, and questions "whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

Why are powerful women viewed with consternation while powerful men instill respect? Why is it that for every ten men in an executive, decision-making role in this country, there is only one woman in that same role? Why do our federal courts continue to be stacked with male judges even though women receive more than half of all law degrees? And why shouldn't a woman be president?

Enough! Women are not equal in our society or under our laws and the remedy is quite simple: Besides being the majority of the population, we also control the economy, spending 80 percent of every discretionary dollar, and given that 54 percent of voters are female, we can swing an election. With our numbers we can do something about it.

This is a critical moment: We can either take the road toward equality or allow ourselves to be driven further away from fair treatment. The 51% Minority is a clarion call to the silent majority to take a stand ... before it's too late.

Chapter 1

"I have the right to be president and mommy"

There's much speculation that we'll have a woman running for president of the United States as early as 2008. According to a Siena College Research Institute survey, 81 percent of voters across the country are ready to vote for a woman for president, 62 percent say the country is ready for a woman president, and 52 percent of voters feel that a president's gender wouldn't matter when it came to foreign affairs.

In the 86 years we've been able to vote, only one woman has been on a major party ticket: Geraldine Ferraro as running mate to Walter Mondale in 1984. "Even God herself couldn't have changed that outcome with the Reagan ticket," Ferraro says, reflecting on that election. "But I'll tell you, if a woman were president today, we wouldn't be at war in Iraq. And though the administration didn't cause Hurricane Katrina, a woman would have responded differently - the response would have been immediate, with much more empathy, and the guys who screwed up would have been fired immediately."

In her book Closing the Leadership Gap, White House Project founder Marie Wilson quotes the Rev. Patricia Kitchen: "For over 200 years, the United States has been steered by male leadership who tend to lead from a self-centered, self-preservation perspective. Women around the world are inclined to lead, their families and nations, from an other-centered perspective."

"For the most part women are much more collaborative and inclusive," Washington governor Christine Gregoire said. "Women won't just announce a decision - it's going to be done this way or that way. We have the attitude of 'Let's try to talk through the issues,' which avoids confrontation and controversy. That's my style and I've observed it in a lot of women."

"Outsiders often bring clarity of vision, as well as a sense of discovery and innovation," Anna Quindlen wrote in her "Last Word" column for Newsweek's special report on how women lead. "Women are not the only ones capable of this. But the difficulties they've encountered while seeking representation and respect may provide the steel and strength needed to embrace change. You're less wedded to the shape of the table if you haven't been permitted to sit at it."

At the table of leaders and decision makers, we remain outsiders. For every ten men in executive roles in this country there is only one woman, a number that has changed little in twenty years. As for those who sit in judgment of the cases that establish legal precedent in this country, there are 629 male federal judges, 199 female. And in the history of our country 98.25 percent of our senators have been men.

What has this male dominated leadership decided? That they'll let us know what we can and can't do. Instead of making it easier on women, the Bush administration has made decisions that have made

being a woman even harder. During this administration, child care programs have been underfunded and undermined, making such drastic cuts that only one out of seven children eligible for federal child care assistance receives help. By the Bush administration's own estimates, this change will result in 300,000 children losing child care assistance by 2009. This isn't helping children, this isn't helping women, and this isn't helping our society.

This administration's tax cuts have also affected women and children. In addition to the drastic cuts in child care programs, programs such as housing subsidies, Pell grants to help pay for college, and aid to state and local governments have been slashed in order to pay for these cuts. The average tax cut for millionaires was about $113,000 in 2003, five times the income that a typical single mother with children lives on for an entire year.

Think that's bad? According to the National Women's Law Center, it gets worse:

• The administration ended the equal pay initiative and has removed all materials on narrowing the wage gap from the Department of Labor's website. The Department of Justice has also dropped cases challenging sex discrimination in employment.

• The Department of Education has "archived" all Title IX guidance on preventing sexual harassment in schools, making it unavailable to administrators and parents trying to protect children from sexual harassment.

• The administration has placed individuals hostile to women's interests on advisory bodies, such as those responsible for domestic violence and reproductive health.

• The administration proposed cutting funding to emergency shelters, crisis hotlines, and other domestic violence services to 26 percent below previously authorized levels.

• The administration's plan to "restructure" Medicaid, changing it from an entitlement program to a block grant, will result in more women without health insurance.

• For the first time in history, states can now deny contraception and family planning services to poor women.

• The administration has backed laws criminalizing abortion, while cutting out family planning programs vital to women's health.

• Medical research is being undermined and scientific information distorted to serve an anti-abortion and anti-family- planning agenda. For example, the National Cancer Institute posted information on its website that falsely suggested there's a link between abortion and breast cancer.

Copyright © 2007 by Lis Wiehl

About the Author

Lis Wiehl is one of the nation's most prominent trial lawyers and highly regarded commentators. The author of Winning Every Time, she is also the legal analyst on the Fox News Channel and Bill O'Reilly's co-host and sparring partner on Radio Factor. A graduate of Harvard Law, Wiehl has never lost a case. She lives with her husband and two children in Westchester County, New York.