United We Stand

By Marcia Greenberger, Co-President, National Women’s Law Center

For me, working to achieve “A Woman’s Nation” means being an advocate for progress and possibilities. It means believing in the promise of fairness and equality, knowing that women bear great family responsibilities but also boast great talents and skills to contribute to the workplace and to other spheres—including government and national policy. It means advancing the proposition that our families, our communities, our country and our world will be better if stereotypes and artificial limits based on gender are set aside—so that our daughters and our sons can realize their full potential.

When I first started a Washington-based women’s rights project in 1972, there were hardly any laws on the books protecting women against discrimination—and no real constitutional protection. That project became the National Women’s Law Center. We at the Center have been part of major battles, fighting alongside other terrific allies—both male and female—to change that sorry state. Over the years, women have broken through countless glass ceilings, whether on the playing field, in the corner CEO’s office, or in outer space.

Sonia Sotomayor’s recent confirmation to the Supreme Court underscores that we are still celebrating firsts. And the battle to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which just restored equal pay protections to where they had been for decades after a devastating 5-4 Supreme Court decision, shows that even our hard-won gains are not secure. In today’s world, it is clearer than ever that our country can’t succeed if women don’t succeed.

But women face enormous hurdles. That women still earn only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men is only the tip of the iceberg. One in four girls drops out of high school. And when they do they earn an average $9,100 less each year than male dropouts. One in eight women lives in poverty. More than 17 million women have no health insurance. Federal child-care assistance is provided to only one in seven eligible children. Nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended.

These statistics are even worse for women of color. African-American women earn only 69 cents and Latinas only 59 cents for every dollar earned by men. So my colleagues at the National Women’s Law Center and I have a plate filled with urgent priorities to help women and men succeed and prosper in the 21st century:

• Pass quality, affordable, and comprehensive health care reform that doesn’t marginalize women’s needs, including their reproductive health needs.
• Improve fairness on the job, including better equal pay protections that go beyond the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and do more than restore the law by passing measures like the Paycheck Fairness Act.
• Adopt better family leave, medical leave and other family-friendly laws that both women and men need to meet their work and family responsibilities.
• Enact, fund and implement comprehensive reforms to ensure safe, healthy and affordable childcare that promotes early learning.
• Restore strong Title IX enforcement of equal educational opportunity in the classrooms and on the playing fields across the nation.
• Implement programs around the country to reduce high school dropouts.
• Create a fair tax system that raises adequate revenues to meet these basic needs and priorities.

These commonsense objectives show so clearly why a woman’s nation is a nation for us all and why it strengthens us all. Women and men must therefore fight together to make sure it is achieved.