SWEEPING GENDER BALANCE into US and ALL GOVERNMENTS
GLOBAL WAKE UP CALL TO 'GENDER ISOLATIONIST' US
AWAKENS US TO FOLLOW SCANDINAVIA, FRANCE, EU PARLIAMENT, SOUTH AFRICA -
TO GENDER PARITE AND GENDER CRITICAL MASS STANDARDS FOR US
To Contact US Officeholders listed below, visit:
US House of Representatives
US Senate
US State and Local
Government on the Net
We often hear that the US is one of the most powerful nations and governments in the world. But what does 'the world' mean by 'power'? Does it mean financial and military dominance by the most dominant of some men, or does it mean the fully human, moral, informed, wise, and ethical power of a whole and represented people, women and men together?
The US is currently in grave danger of its loss of the latter, moral kind of power. A primary reason for it is that US officialdom is virtually devoid of intelligent female representation and leadership, compared to European and many other nations.
In contrast to the women of (France since its new Gender Parity law and Elections), Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, the Phillipines, South Africa, likely soon India, all of Europe via the European Union Parliament, and scores of other nations, where women are represented at parity to men or at least significantly high percentages above over 1/3,(often called the gender critical mass - for a real women's voice and human balance in national decisions), the US women listed below, now function either as preening but self-disempowered prima donnas, or trapped and self-caged bird tokens in a token level of "representation" - at 13% female among 87% male national officeholders. These women were once pioneers, but have been dragged downwards, for the moment, by their own unnecessary toleration of the numerical weight of the male roosters around them in a male-preferential political process. It's time the world - in and outside of the US - focused on helping disempowered US women reempower themselves, and attain numbers that will let the best of American women fly higher, with men, in their presence in their nation's decision-making.
Despite a 97% literate US population that is around 50% female, much of whom of whom are now college educated homemakers and parents and grandparents, and have reached levels of 50% in major professions such as medicine and law in addition to ongoingly high numbers in other major professions such as education, nursing, social work, small business, personnel and volunteer coordination, and many other important areas of expertise important to good government, the financially corrupted, dominant male-run US political system is neither attracting or representing this ready pool of women. It is instead, attracting only a trickling number of often oligarchally-connected women, acceptable to dominant male political bosses, and willing to stomach, and play by the self-perpetuating fundraising rules, of the unfair US political game as it remains - corporate-dominant-male-dominated and gender unbalanced.
Under the pressure of residually misogynist politics, these women allowed themselves to put the cart before the horse; they focussed their energies on issues that are symptoms of gender imbalance in office - such as the abortion issue, health care issues, and crime issues, without attending to the root cause of all these issues - the lack of enough women in decision-making and national prioritizing.Isolated on a mostly male Capitol Hill too long, these few women are now increasingly masculinized and regressive in their political views, betraying the promise they once stood for. Because they have not reached the numerical percentage critical mass for too long, these 13% tokens have less and less real voice, but are letting themselves be turned into female dominators and isolators of their countrywomen - not yet finding the courage to tell American women the facts and details about how far and dangerously they have fallen behind so many other nations in women's representation.
But these women are not people of ill will. They have just become momentarily disempowered and misempowered, and need international as well as national attention to face their situation and do what is needed to change it quickly and painlessly rather than "gradually".
As a comparison to the US, you can read the 1996 courageous and joint Manifesto of prominent and official French women that came about as women officials united across party lines, that has already achieved legally required gender parite, 50-50 gender representation, in their local and national government, now adopting the levels already in place for several decades in Scandinavia. Search the Web, and you can easily find a plethora of websites many other nations where women and men have achieved at least nearly or above 30-37% gender minimums in government. Women and decent men in Europe are now focussing on lacks of gender balance at the EU Convention, and instead of being globally assisted by US women, so far, their efforts are not receiving the support of supposed allies on this side of the Atlantic, largely because US token female politicos are failing to inform American women, even though repercussions for family and work life in the US and around the world could be profound. Until now, because you can help change that, and help Americans talk and learn more about gender balance around the world more easily by doing GOOD.
In Europe, South Africa, India, the Phillipines, and many other nations women insist upon, invite and gain the partnership of men who WANT a fair and above critical mass percentage of women in balanced government, because wise men in all these nations have come to know, just as women do, that not enough women in government means corruption, disenfranchisement, violence, alienation, and human stagnation. Governments of mostly male gender install the most dominating of men, who dominate other men as exploitively as they do women, fail to protect family and work life against such exploitation, and create problems for the international community.
Unlike the official women and many supportive men of India, who under Sonia Gandhi's leadership has held weak-long sit-ins in the Lok Sabha to achieve a minimal gender balance under pending legislation, the US token women have never held a sit-in the US Congress yet. A small 15-minute protest by some House women to bring attention to the US ignored UN CEDAW agreement regarding women, was not attended by even one of the token women Senators, nor any men. The US numbers on women in national government ranks the US behind about 50 countries, which are ahead of the US in gender balance.
You can't find a pro-gender-critical mass official multiparty site in the US shared by US women in officialdom, because this small 13% group of US Women with official title are, for the moment, behaving like either frightened or selfish tokens, and have even made no overtures to women in third parties and in other realms of leadership, such as authors, university Presidents, doctors, nurses, and so on, to assist with parity. Right now, they are alternately whining about or imitating the already publicly disapproved model$ of dominator-men in their individualistic and narcissistic approach to getting into office. But, global attention can lift them out of these doldrums and bring about gender balance not only in the US, but worldwide, all at once.
At the moment, the US women are already quite late for the important Millennial date of equality. compared to the French who passed their Gender Parite law in 1999 and began to enjoy its benefits in 2001. The US numbers are worse than even England, once the parent nation, itself far behind Europe. In recent moments, some of the few US Women tokens in national office, are going even further in the wrong direction; once elected because they embodied the promise of gender cooperation and equality, they are now oddly silent about parite, defensive about their own lack of success, and deliberately not informing constituents and media audiences about women sharing more power with men, worldwide.
But being late doesn't put these women out of the running toward more gender balanced government. In fact, a recent international Universal Declaration that was in part inspired by US women of the 1840's Declaration of Sentiments, includes the concepts that can help US women and the US as a nation get them get out of the tokenist corner and societal doldrums they've painted themselves into. Until then, many people worldwide will be more likely to see the members of the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and the NAACP combined as the real us government, and the current officials just a corrupt group of impostors, be they female or male.
Not only the US, but the entire world cannot afford these women so losing their geopolitical moral compass. These women "tsk, tsk" about women's oppression in Moslem and third world countries, but in fact, women in these nations have taken more courageous steps toward representation of their sisters, than have these women thus far. It's time for the world of women and men who care about women and each other as equals, to address the gender problem in US officialdom, starting with these gender isolationist - and should we say it, lately complacent and prima donna-like token women, who have been complacently coopting themselves morally instead of leading parite in their own nation as well as the world, for too long. Deep down, these women want to do better, They are in a geopolitical "dip"; and national and international focus on the problem will likely lift them out of it.
It's not that they can't be redeemed, to redeem themselves and the male officials that surround them. They internally long for that, despite the political pressure of domintant male-run US corporations upon them. They can indeed be redeemed and assisted toward gender balanced, good government, with your national/netional international/internetional support and push, wherever you live, to overcome the intense seeming-world-unto-itself of US party-pressure Capitol moleHills that, day after day at a token level, can seem like mountains, in their way.
The whole world can face the situation clearly. Women and good men who respect the role of women in government will now pay attention to the balance of gender in government, holding women "leaders" responsible for leadership if they want any national or international respect. If we fail to do this together, nationally and internationally, the unstable world situation will deteriorate further.
Now is the time to insist that these women lead on the critical 37% standard (75% of population 50-50) of gender balance, and to confront just as forthrightly, the most prominent/dominating men of all American political parties. Unlike France's Jospin echoed by Chirac, and unlike the many Viking-strong yet peaceful men of the Nordic countries such as Finland's Pentii Arajarvi, these American men have been dominating and pandering to women as cooptable enablers and easily disenfranchisable voters but not partners. Where are the American Arajarvis and Jospins, even in the US third parties holding these dominators feet to the fire? Even Green Party Candidate Ralph Nader and his female runningmate La Duke, a French name, seem to have taken no interest in France's parite; could it be that they like so many Americans did not know about it because the American media does not mention it? In any case, it is clear that national and international pressure and connection must both be brought to bear.
The women of the US officialdom need swift, sharp and strong encouragement from the women (and decent men) of their own and every nation, to stop just sitting there and DO SOMETHING TOGETHER, across all party lines. as French women did across party lines in their own nation, to bring gender parity legislation and Constitutional Amendment to their nation already, in the way that women, supported by wisest men, in other nations have. The failure of both male and female to do so by now was already a gaping tear in the American gender fabric that invited misogynist terrorism from less literate nations who nevertheless sense that the US has been strangely hypocritical about empowering women, and its women strangely divided from each other. If the US doesn't wake up, it is conceivable that even these poorer or more "traditional" nations may wake up first, and point the finger at US hypocrisy. Tunisia, for example, already has a higher percentage of women high court judges than does the US
And even before that, these US "leaders", female and male, need to honest enough with themselves to say what much of their own people have been saying for years - that the system they sit in currently may be a $elected officialdom, but it is not a true representative system of political activity. They must come to admit and in fact, happily embrace a new and better reality of all the people's making, occurring worldwide - that attention to a living critical mass gender parity is the essential and only key to a modern and real government's redemption and respect.
Whenever possible, include a conjoint international contact; i.e. a three way call, or internationally signed or cc'd email, from a friend or contact in another nation. You yourself who know that only with gender fairness can any nation lead the world in the right direction. Tell the US Congressional token woman that you will also find ways to email internet-reading women constituents in her district or state and inform them how little she has done compared to other women in other nations, thus far, and will on the other hand, inform them quickly if she exerts leadership toward balance and parite.
Telephone (US Country Code 1) 202-224-3121 (House) or 202-225-3121
(Senate)
Use Website Access to Their Official Websites, including
fax and email information:
US
House of Representatives
US Senate
Or, if you prefer, start with state and local officials who are being inadequately informed by their parties and US media, on gender balance issues, via State and Local Government on the Net
Current Women in the US Officialdom Senate All Tolerating their own Tokenism, at 13%)
D = Democratic Party (once were more liberal but have moved to right under dominant male party boss, US corporate, and misguided prima donna male-mimicking female party pressure, currently not that liberal by European and international standards) They used to have most female support, but are now losing it.
R = Republican Party (Conservative; fewer women than Democrats)
(Voting in US is not Proportional; so smaller parties are excluded and have no seats. However, international activists may wish to push Winona La Duke and other women, and men, of the Green Party to be more active on the issue.)
Kay Bailey Hutchinson - Texas, R.
Barbara Boxer - California, D.
Mary Cantwell, - Washington, D.
Jean Carnahan - Missouri, D.
Hillary Clinton - New York, D.
Susan Collins - Maine, R.
Dianne Feinstein - Californi, D.
Mary Landrieu - Louisiana, D.
Blanche Lincoln - Arkansas, D.
Barbara Mikulski - Maryland, D.
Patty Murray - Washington, D.
Olympia Snowe - Maine, R.
Deborah Stabenow - Michigan, D.
Current Women in House of Representatives (Tokens at 13%)
Women in the House of Representatives include a number who had been struggling to bring attention to the matter, with little support from the Senate women thus far.quite a number who will welcome your support. These include:
Maxine Waters California D,
Patsy Mink - Hawaii D,
Barbara Lee, - California, D.
Zoe Lofgren - California, D,
Anna Eshoo - California D.
Rosa De Lauro - Connecticut, D.
...and many other women, whose aides and staff may in fact, know less about what is happening about gender representation in Europe and the rest of the world, compared to the US, than you do. Email the entire US government now. It has been standing in the way of the world in a new century, with its avoidance and slowness on this issue.
Put righteous pressure on Rep. Nancy Pelosi - California, D. called Minority Whip but thus far terribly avoidant of talking about parity and coopted; Quanita Millender- MacDonald, California, D, allegedly Chair of a Woman's Caucus that has been silent and isolationist in not sitting-in or taking daring action to inform the American people about gender critical mass and parity, despite daily opportunities to speak about it. and New York women such as Carolyn McCarthy, Carolyn Maloney (a former women's caucus leader who has not been speaking about the gender critical mass despite the fact that it is the underlying reason why New York became a target rather than a preventer of terror), and other New York Reps like Nita Lowe, and many others. There are fewer Republican women in the House, but they also have been silent on gender balance.
You can also reach the Male Officials of House and Senate (Dominators All by Tolerating at 87% in both houses, and of only one color in the $enate) via the same website and phone number. Start with more "Liberal" or Reform oriented officeholders like Senators Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Kennedy and Kerry of Massachusetts, John McCain and Russell Feingold, and especially men of color in the House who have supported affirmative concepts, know the dangers of dominating white men in groups, and will want to assist in a 75% level of presence in population standard, such as John Conyers, Jesse Jackson Jr, John Lewis, and others.
Whatever nation you are from, tell all these men that the current 87% male gender level makes their offices into offices of domination but not true and human representative government, and you cannot respect them as individuals if they continue to tolerate it while European, South African, Indian and men of so many nations are doing the opposite, in part because they understand that governments without enough women also mistreat and exploit most men.
It is not too late for all these people to redeem their nation's anachronistic, dangerous and hypocritical gender imbalance and we wish them well in doing so. There is a power greater than politics as usual. It is the Power of Love. As women and men who care about each other and about all our children, we all have that Power. Keep that in mind, and dare to use it, and communicate on behalf of both genders, their children, and the Power of Love that connects and unites us all. The date of Earth Day is 4/22/2002, as if the calendar itself was reminding us that only when women and men share their power in decision-making as 2 equal genders linking their overlapping talents and world views, is the power of people of the Earth to do good and live infinitely well multiplied.
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