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    Smoke & Mirrors: The Truth About the Political Status of U.S. Women
    Smoke & Mirrors: The Truth About the Political Status of U.S. Women
    Smoke & Mirrors: The Truth About the Political Status of U.S. Women
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    Smoke & Mirrors: The Truth About the Political Status of U.S. Women

    By Paula Xanthopoulou

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    About this ebook

    [This book can be used by women’s groups, candidates, political entities, educators, think tanks, and others for discussion and debate.]

    A provocative exposition of the political status of women in the United States as relates to the lack of seats/power in Congress, where important legislation is passed that affects our lives every day. Includes corroborative vignettes from the author’s personal experience and action items aimed at change in our lifetimes.
    244 years after independence from the United Kingdom, U.S. women hold a measly 23.78% of all Congressional seats - too far below the 30% benchmark set by the United Nations. Most shockingly, 12 states (24% of all states!) do not send even one woman to Washington.

    The U.S. is currently 83rd in the world (#93 counting ties!) for electing women to national legislative bodies, and many countries of all sizes and political systems have gone ahead of us by using some kind of candidate quota system. Global results and studies clearly show that we are stuck if we continue business as usual. The numbers do not lie.

    Many political leaders (men and women) and the Democratic Party have long given “lip service” to equal representation, but have taken pitifully few concrete/quantifiable steps to make it happen -- most often using a bogus party rule as a convenient excuse. Have women’s groups helped or hindered? Much more is required, and research shows that focusing on “open seats” is a way to accelerate the election of women to Congress.

    It’s time to stop denying that everything is all right by adopting new strategies and holding our political leaders accountable. Time for women to stop allowing Choice (abortion rights) to be a deal breaker in terms of achieving “critical mass” in Congress and working together on many other issues important to women and their families. Time for affirmative action in U.S. electoral politics until women reach the 40-60% “parity zone.” Time for “Every OPEN SEAT a Woman’s Seat!”

    We can achieve the U.N. benchmark of 30 percent women in political office by 2020, the 100th Anniversary of women finally getting the right to vote -- but that requires immediate action. Will we continue to deny the political reality or demand change?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPaula Xanthopoulou
    Release dateMay 20, 2011
    ISBN9781458089823
    Smoke & Mirrors: The Truth About the Political Status of U.S. Women
    Author

    Paula Xanthopoulou

    UPDATE: While Paula Xanthopoulou continues to be an advocate for the creation of a real power base for women through the election of many more women, especially to Congress -- she now lives 6 months a year in her father's hometown of Naousa, Northern Greece. She has memorialized research for filling out her Greek Family Tree at dispatches fromgreece.com, which now also includes her first-hand reports from Greece at a critical and often misrepresented juncture in Greek history. Additional writings are in progress, stay tuned!Paula Xanthopoulou was born and educated in Stockton, California, attending the University of the Pacific where she majored in International Relations and won the Thomas O. Boren Award (Outstanding Senior in Journalism). She spent ten years as a teacher and administrator at the American Farm School in Thessaloniki, Greece -- followed by consulting and working for non-profit organizations when she returned to the U.S. and then a 6-year stint managing opera singers for her own company (Lyric Arts Group) in New York City.Paula was very active politically in New York, and has been involved in a myriad of community and political efforts since moving to Miami in 1994. She headed the Miami Shores Brockway Memorial Library Building Fund, worked with SAVE Dade, and served for nine years on the Miami-Dade County Commission for Women. She also served two terms as president of the National Women's Political Caucus of Florida (2001-2005), and on NWPC’s National Board. During that time, Paula worked on the Janet Reno for Florida Governor campaign and later served as Deputy Campaign Manager on the Carol Moseley Braun for President campaign based in Chicago.In 2002 she was a Miami-Dade “In the Company of Women” honoree for her work and was honored with the NWPC/FL 2005 “Elaine Gordon Leadership Award.” In 2007, her essay “Equal Representation: Common Denominator, Common Cause,” was published in Women Moving Forward, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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      Book preview

      Smoke & Mirrors - Paula Xanthopoulou

      SMOKE & MIRRORS –

      The Truth About the Political

      Status of U.S. Women

      Paula Xanthopoulou

      Copyright 2011 Paula Xanthopoulou

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords License Statement

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      Prologue

      Chapter 1 - Cutting to the Chase

      235 Years and Counting…

      Chapter 2 - More to the Point

      Chapter 3 - By the Numbers

      Chapter 4 - Globally Speaking

      Women Elected Political Leaders World-Wide

      Chapter 5 - Divide & Conquer

      Chapter 6 - Got Results?

      Chapter 7 - On the Florida Front

      Chapter 8 - Did Somebody Mention EMILY's List?

      Chapter 9 - More Cautionary Tales…

      Chapter 10 - Through the Looking Glass: No More Red or Blue States

      Chapter 11 - Every Open Seat A Woman’s Seat

      Chapter 12 - Call to Action!

      Epilogue

      Appendixes

      Endnotes

      About the Author

      Preface

      Watching events unfold in the Middle East and listening to often uninformed or sophomoric commentary regarding how difficult it is to develop a real democracy gives me pause. Who on earth are we to be handing out so much advice (and self-congratulation) when we have so much more work to do here at home?

      There is, for example, a nearly pathological lack of equal representation for women in the United States Congress, where political power counts most. And many countries are far ahead of us on this score.

      Much more is required if we are serious about righting a wrong so important to more than half of this country’s population. Much more.

      My viewpoints/ideas on these related issues -- including the development/promotion of an open seat initiative -- have resonated with many over the years. Some have said, You should write a book. Thus my decision to put my writings/experiences together and out for wider consumption at a time when we are going nowhere fast.

      Many, many thanks to those good friends and associates who helped prepare this manuscript by giving me feedback on all aspects.

      Some people will be aware of my previous work. Some will be engaged in this conversation for the first time. Hopefully you will have an open mind and a resolute desire for action and results -- whether you agree with everything I have to say or not.

      What follows is not an exhaustive history around the election of women here and abroad, or how the Democratic Party works, or the role of all women’s organizations, or all electoral systems, or anything else. Numerous footnotes and references have, however, been provided for those who want to delve further into any of that.

      What follows is a short, accessible exposition of where we find ourselves and why -- bolstered by facts and personal experience on the ground and suggested actions for creating change in our lifetimes.

      Political party references are made primarily to the Democratic Party because I was a loyal member for nearly 40 years. Based on what I had heard, I not only worked hard for Democrats, but actually expected action to accelerate the election of women. Seeing nothing along those lines, I went NPA (No Party Affiliation) on December 20, 2006 -- and more women and men are doing the same.

      You can shed a political party (as well as loyalty oaths/other political constraints) without giving up your values.

      The truth about the political status of women in the United States in 2011 is not for the faint of heart -- or for those who cannot or will not see the Big Picture and seek common ground because they are so wrapped up in their own agendas.

      Let’s recall the Women’s Strike for Equality, a nationwide demonstration for women’s rights that took place on August 26, 1970, on the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage.¹ The event took various forms in more than 90 cities across the United States. Tens of thousands of women marched down New York’s Fifth Avenue. The purpose was to show that 50 years after a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote, equality had not been achieved.

      No equal rights under the Constitution then, no equal rights now. Do we have to wait until 2020 to finally admit that our glass is much more than half empty?

      Or do we stop being good girls and up the ante?

      Prologue

      The year 2020 will mark the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

      But have we as a country even come close to realizing the dreams of suffragist Alice Paul and others who fought so valiantly for the right to vote and then stood for equal rights? Have women used the vote to their political advantage? Or have others used women’s votes largely for their own gain?

      The bitter truth is that while women make up more than 50% of the U.S. population, we continue to be grossly under-represented in Congress¹ -- and, by the way, still no equal rights for women guaranteed under the Constitution. This 235 years after independence from the British Empire.

      Women occupy 16.6% of the combined seats in the House and Senate. The 2010 mid-term elections did not advance U.S. women on the national level; in fact, women slid backwards for the first time since 1979.² The United States is currently ranked 69th in the world (tied with Turkmenistan) for electing women according to the International Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU),³ but is actually 87th on the list if you count the ties.

      Women in 20 states (40 % of all states!) currently have no representatives in Congress, something our forefathers and perhaps current Tea Party faithful would call taxation without representation. Women -- despite their many talents, achievements, contributions, and responsibilities -- have painfully little voice in making policy (including taxation) that affects our lives each and every day.

      Shame on us!

      Clearly there are reasons for all this, some of them rather unbecoming. It’s high time to stop pretending that everything is fine the way it is, look at the facts, define those forces keeping women down in our seriously flawed political system, and call the various culprits (women and men) to task.

      Time for concerted, concrete action to end this disgraceful chapter in U.S history once-and-for-all.

      I realize that, unless women organize, support each other, and force change, nothing basic is going to happen. Not even with the best of men. And I wonder: Are women -- including me-- willing

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