Women’s Progress -- A Lot But a Little
By Phil Tajitsu Nash

The Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History, established to “consider how best to...celebrate the roles and accomplishments of women,” held its first meeting this summer at the Canandaigua County Courthouse in Rochester, N.Y., where Susan B. Anthony was tried and convicted for voting in 1872.

Fast forward more than 100 years later. Women are being wooed by both the Republican and Democratic parties. Republicans have announced a WomenCare Outreach Program “to provide a forum through which Republican ideas can be showcased in order to increase the numbers of women and minorities voting for Republican candidates.”

In the wake of Republican Elizabeth Dole’s exit out of the presidential race, I decided to take the pulse of women in politics here in Washington and nationwide and how Asian Americans fit into that picture. While there are a lot of things that bode well for the future, some statistics are cause for alarm.

In research published in the Nov. 10 issue of The Hill Online, Emi Ireland and I found that only 14 percent of the 829 announced candidates for Congress in the 2000 election are women. They make up 66 of the 357 announced Democratic candidates, 40 of the 379 announced Republican candidates and eight of the 93 announced independent candidates. (Announced, in this case, meant that there candidacy was declared on the widely-recognized www.politics1.com Web site.)

Congressional races are just behind the presidential and senatorial races in terms of nationwide importance. Because they are contested in Congressional Districts (CDs) nationwide, congressional election results are a good barometer of how well women and Asian Americans are being represented. Unfortunately, more than 30 years after the beginning of the modern women’s movement, women of all ethnicities account for only 14 percent of the candidates for these high offices, proving that entrenched hierarchies, behaviors and expectations are still barriers to equality.

Nevertheless, great strides have also been made. Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sandra Day O’Connor hold positions on the Supreme Court. Four women -- Attorney General Janet Reno, Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala) hold top positions among the 14 Cabinet-level positions. Though none so far have included API women or men, Asian American women have held top appointive positions in most of the executive departments and have worked for the White House. One, Democrat Patsy Mink of Hawaii, is in Congress.

Last weekend, the Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum drew several hundred female activists from around the country. The women, including at least five Asian Americans were given training in fundraising, media relations and grassroots organizing. Some speakers described how the Internet and other new technologies could help female candidates, an important issue given that female candidates are not as likely as men to have campaign Web sites (21 percent of men versus 17 percent of women) and only 4 percent have the ability to raise funds online.

Independents have also reached out to women. Jesse Ventura won partly because he had as his running mate Mae Schunk, a retired teacher who has taken her campaign promises seriously. Reducing class sizes in Minnesota’s public schools was among the key promises on which Ventura and Schunk won the Minnesota statehouse a year ago.

As a new generation of women prepare themselves for a world where they will not have to accept only 14 percent of the seats in our national legislature, organizations such as the National Organization for Women, the American Association of University Women and the National Women’s Political Caucus are leading the way. Hopefully, Asian Pacific American women can play a major role in the transition.

Phil Tajitsu Nash is a lawyer, professor and Web site entrepreneur. His Web site is at www.campaignadvantage.com.