{"id":282449,"date":"2010-02-05T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rhrealitycheck.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/29\/motherhood-politics-hijacked-healthcare-debate"},"modified":"2010-02-05T12:01:40","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T17:01:40","slug":"motherhood-politics-hijacked-healthcare-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/282449","title":{"rendered":"‘Motherhood Politics’ Hijacked Healthcare Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tWendy Norris of RH Reality Check<\/em> conducted an interview with Marie Wilson, the founder and president of The White House Project<\/a> and former president of the Ms. Foundation.\u00a0 We’ll post the White House Project’s Denver panel
\n\tdiscussion on leadership with women in business, academia, media and faith as
\n\tsoon as it becomes available.\u00a0\n\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nMarie
\nWilson is calling a spade a spade. As she sees it, the overheated debate over
\nabortion is being used as a convenient foil for healthcare reform in order to
\navoid a much more controversial cultural issue — the role of women in
\ncontemporary American society.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat unspoken and still radioactive debate 77
\nyears after the Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1923
\ncontinues to fuel traditional notions of a woman’s place in the boardroom and
\nthe bedroom.\n<\/p>\n

\nWilson, the founder and president of nonpartisan The White House Project<\/a>, was
\nin Denver, Colo., recently to discuss the organization’s new comprehensive
\nstudy, Benchmarking
\nWomen’s Leadership<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut to achieve the critical mass of women in
\npositions of authority, we need to move beyond the artificial restrictions of
\ngender stereotypes to a nation that fully benefits from the talents of its best
\nand brightest in the executive suite, at the lectern and in the pulpit.\n<\/p>\n

\nRH Reality Check sat down with Wilson to talk
\nabout the challenges of nurturing women’s leadership in the wake of the
\ndivisive Congressional healthcare reform debate.\n<\/p>\n

\nRHRC:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>The
\nconcept of healthcare reform has been so mutilated by politicians, religious
\ninterests and the media that it’s not even recognizable to the American public.
\nEssentially, it’s become a debate about abortion over any other issue. But what
\nstrikes me is that we really haven’t heard from women in leadership positions
\nother than the pro-choice caucus. How can we bring in more women’s voices to
\nbroaden the dialogue around healthcare reform?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nMW:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Part
\nof why we haven’t heard from more women is for years — and it’s not an accident
\n— choice was chosen as the issue to unravel. It was chosen because of the
\nconcern that Americans don’t address [gender roles], which is what Kristin
\nLuker wrote about years ago, in Abortion
\nand the Politics of Motherhood.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nInstead
\nof looking at the areas of most importance to all of us on healthcare, the
\nconversation is hijacked by this central concern about whether women are going
\nto continue to choose to be mothers. In my experience, political men don’t
\nunderstand this. They really think it is about unborn life. That is not the
\ntruth. This is really about the role of women in America. We’re not seen as
\nimportant enough people to have had the right wing revolve around us. But we
\nare.\n<\/p>\n

\nI studied family therapy for awhile and the most
\nimportant time you spend with a family if you want to change that system is in
\nidentifying the problem correctly.\n<\/p>\n

\nNinety percent of healthcare is provided by women
\nin the home. So, perhaps, the experts on this issue should actually talk to the
\nAmerican public about pre-existing conditions and whether we should have a
\nuniversal payer system because we’re the ones doing it. We need to tell [those
\nhijacking the real issue] to step aside.\n<\/p>\n

\nRHRC:<\/strong>\u00a0Who do
\nyou think is an authentic voice to deliver that kind of message because
\nAmericans are not getting it?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nMW:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>I
\ndon’t think it’s a "who" but a how many of us are willing to say
\nthis. Motherhood is sacred. How many of us are willing to get out and say this
\nis not at all about abortion. This is about whether we’re going to be mothers.
\nFor men to understand this all of us need to join in on it. Too much of the
\nrhetoric is about abortion and not enough about women and our roles in this
\ncountry. And we better get off of it or we’re not going to have a country left.\n<\/p>\n

\nRHRC:<\/strong>\u00a0While
\nthe debate was completely diverted to abortion we’re not talking about equity
\nin the workplace, academic opportunities, business leadership and all the other
\ncultural expectations that are still crystallizing around the concept of
\nmotherhood. But we fail to recognize that women have juggled multiple roles all
\nday, everyday.<\/em><\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nMW:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Most of the women in this country have never had an
\nopportunity to do anything but juggle. They just don’t have good places to be
\nmothers and fathers as long as we avert the real issue — the social-cultural
\nideal of women as wife and mother. Going back to Tocqueville’s visit to America
\nwhere he said the American people owe their great strides to women but I’ve
\nnever seen women so confined to private life. And it still exists.\n<\/p>\n

\nLet’s get this thing identified rightly so we can
\nmove on. Nobody calls that spade. It’s not an issue I think women are willing
\nto deliver.\n<\/p>\n

\nShow me a woman without guilt and I’ll show you a
\nman. Guilt has never helped us in the area of race. Guilt has never helped us
\nin the area of women and childbearing. We’ve got to get over our guilt so we
\ncan get the policies for our children and our nation right.\n<\/p>\n

\nRHRC:<\/strong>\u00a0What
\nis the biggest take away from The White House Project’s Benchmarking Women’s
\nLeadership<\/a>\u00a0report in terms of moving the nation forward from a policy
\nand political perspective?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nMarie Wilson:<\/strong>\u00a0I think
\nthe biggest take away is how much we really need to focus on holding companies
\nand communities accountable. And holding ourselves accountable for how we
\ninvest our money, how we buy things. The problem for me, at least, is we need
\nto have enough women in. [The report found that a critical mass of women in
\nleadership by achieving board\/executive compositions of] 33 percent
\nmakes it normal and allows change to happen. But in order for us to get those
\nwomen in we have to have support from men and we have to have women to join.\n<\/p>\n

\nThose are not small issues. The take away is that
\nwe know what to do but it takes the political will to do it.\n<\/p>\n

\nRHRC:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Now
\nthat the report is complete, what’s the one industry or two that you really
\nwant to dig into a little further? Is there something that stood out that makes
\nyou say I want to know more about this?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nMW:\u00a0<\/strong>Because of the economic crisis, I continue to think
\ngetting more women into leadership in business and finance is crucial.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe have to get global companies that are leaders,
\neven in their weakened state, to take this on. If we don’t get more women into
\nthese businesses to change what profit is and what bottom lines are we won’t
\nchange what happens in international security and all the other sectors.\n<\/p>\n

\nI think politics, business and media are the three
\n[sectors] where we have to keep digging in.\n<\/p>\n

\nRHRC:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>American
\nsociety — primarily politics, business and the media — have always considered
\n"women’s issues" as a ghettoized topic. Now with the economy in
\ntatters these issues are more important than ever. How do we turn those tables
\nand get people to take healthcare, family leave, education and economic equity
\nmore seriously?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nMW:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Obama
\nis being criticized around healthcare reform because he didn’t make it an
\neconomic issue. Frankly, women have always known it was an economic issue
\nbecause we have borne the brunt of healthcare. So part of what happens when a
\nsector becomes important — whether women have been the leaders in it or the
\npeople who have most cared about it, like education, health and the environment
\n— the things that are now coming up are the things that have been "women’s
\nissues" for years.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd now they are the economic issues. Women have
\nto continue to say we’re the experts. You’re seeing it in these Pew Surveys
\nthat are coming out on how they trust women as much or more than men on some of
\nthese issues. Economic security is one that women have had to take on for
\nyears. We just have to own them.\n<\/p>\n

\nRHRC:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>So
\nwhy does the president appear to be retreating from the bold leadership many
\nAmericans expected of him?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nMW:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>I
\nreally feel part of this issue is his attempts to bridge this really divisive
\npartisan gap. That has been what’s both inspiring and his downfall.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhat you want to do in any course of action is
\nchoose the action with the most promising outcomes. I think what action he
\ncommitted to and chose was one of being hands off and not going in and muscling
\n[legislation] through. And giving both parties the chance actually do this
\ntogether. I’m afraid betting on the most interesting and positive outcomes cost
\nhim. I really do. But it was a good try.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen you have people on one side saying "Ah,
\nthis will kill our president. This will ruin our president" and people on
\nthe other side saying "Well, I’m not voting for this I won’t get
\nelected" you have lost the whole meaning of what it means to be a public
\nservant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wendy Norris of RH Reality Check conducted an interview with Marie Wilson, the founder and president of The White House Project and former president of the Ms. Foundation.\u00a0 We’ll post the White House Project’s Denver panel discussion on leadership with women in business, academia, media and faith as soon as it becomes available.\u00a0 Marie Wilson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}