Yesterday, I had the opportunity to talk to Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, the Representative for New York's 14th Congressional District (Manhattan's East Side and Astoria and Long Island City in Queens). She is currently promoting her new book, Rumors of our Progress have been Greatly Exaggerated, Why Women's Lives Aren't Getting Any Easier and How We Can Make Real Progress for Ourselves and Our Daughters.
Congresswoman Maloney has been serving in the House of Representatives since 1993, during which time she has served on a variety of committees, including the Committee on Financial Services, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Joint Economic Committee, the Democratic Task Force on Homeland Security, and the House Caucus on Women's Issues.
I have excerpted portions of my interview, after the jump.
KADY: Thank you so much for speaking with the MOMocrats about your new book, Rumors of our Progress have been Greatly Exaggerated. First off, I know that you have been active in women’s, children’s and family issues during your time in Congress. Can you tell our readers what made you decide to write this book? And why now?
MALONEY: I wrote this book because during my time in Congress and particularly during the Bush presidency, in many areas, I’ve seen progress slow down, stop or even be reversed. I did a Harris poll that I released when the book was published, and a majority of women agreed with the premise that society’s perception of how much progress women have made is greater than the progress that we actually have. And the purpose of the book is to act as a wake up call as to what is actually happening, inspire women to do something about it, and, very importantly, give them an action guide which, in many cases, points readers to initiatives being done by other organizations and ways they can get more information, strategies they can use to help them in their careers. I’m concerned that some women will look at how far Hillary has come in this race – she has made progress being the first woman to get 18 million votes and raise $190 million dollars – but for every Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi and Meg Whitman and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who have broken through that glass or marble ceiling, there are millions of women who are still glued to the basement floor and not enough people are speaking up for them. And so my book speaks up for them.
KADY: Speaking of Hillary Clinton, you are a strong supporter of Senator Clinton’s. At the time of publication, the nominee had not yet been determined. Can you give us your thoughts on how the nominations process has played out, especially given some of the points you’ve made in your book about the glass ceiling?
MALONEY: I would say that 2008 may go down in history as the year in which we finally came face to face with the level of misogyny in American society. I think that for many of us, it was awe inspiring to see Hillary Clinton take the stage as a major party candidate and do so well. I think all of us are standing a little higher, and taller, not only in our own country but around the world. We certainly understand that not every candidate wins. So her loss was not so troubling in itself, but what was of such concern to me and many others was that Hillary was frequently vilified by opinion molders, in language we hoped was no longer permissible. We were told by some pundits that she was, quote, castrating, that her voice grated, that when she spoke, men heard, “take out the garbage.” And what many of us realized was that if they are saying that about her, what must they be saying about all the other women in America.
So I think the media’s sexism was on display, in full force, in the primaries. Tucker Carlson, who is not known to be timid, and this is his quote, “when she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my leg.” Does he say this about all the girls?
And all of this fear and hatred was met with relative silence. Where were the cries of outrage? I was with her in New Hampshire when these guys ran in with signs saying “iron my shirt.” The level of animosity was so strong that it was almost unbelievable.
I think this was a wake-up call for all of us. You saw a woman wining debates, gaining votes, running a campaign with great intelligence and grace. Yet at the same time you saw this undercurrent of sexism, misogyny and downright anti-woman language.
I just thought, in contrast, someone should write a book about it! And very importantly, [for such book to point] out an action guide for people to get involved and make a difference.
Now there was great hope, great inspiration, but at the same time, you saw in vivid contrast, the contrast, the walls, and the discrimination faced by women.
KADY: You mentioned earlier that you believe that the women’s progress in society has reversed. Do you actually believe that we had once reached greater equality and have subsequently seen some of those gains reversed, or do you think that we’ve simply stalled out, made a stop at this point we are at now?
MALONEY: I think there has been an effort to roll back gains that we already had. I keep a scorecard on choice, and well over 170 anti-choice votes have passed the House of Representatives. They haven’t passed Congress, but they have passed the House of Representatives. There have been efforts to even curtail access to birth control. With some pharmacists deciding which prescriptions they are going to fill.
I have a bill in to stop that [the Access to Birth Control Act]. If you have a prescription, it has to be filled.
I think on Title IX, there were efforts to roll it back: first, with a vote in Congress, then before the courts, and finally, they rolled it back with an executive order that said an university could send out a questionnaire, just to the girls, not the boys, and if they don’t fill it out saying they want to have sports, then you can curtail equivalent treatment for sports [that they are entitled to]. That’s a roll-back.
There have been numerous roll-back. I point them out in my book.
I would say that the wage gap continues to persist, and under George Bush, it’s hard to change the wage gap because it’s hard to get him to change his mind. [Even though] we’ve been 77 cents to the dollar for well over 20 years.
The wage gap has pretty much stalled out. The wage gap is so ingrained in our society that it came into play in 9-11. 9-11 victims were compensated by the government based on estimated life earnings, and they were building in the wage gap. A man making $35,000 a year would have gotten $175,000 more than a woman making the same salary! I was successful in stopping that but it speaks volume of the attitude.
My GAO study showed that despite the perception of progress over the course of 20 years, the pay disparity between men and women managers actually rose. The average income in retirement from social security benefits and savings is nearly twice for men as for women. And while we tell our daughters they can do anything, they still don't have equal rights under the Constitution.
I just came out with a very important study done for the Joint Economic Committee. And it showed that although we’ve worked very hard to try to get equality of treatment in wages and in jobs, what we’ve actually achieved is equality in job loss.
I wanted to look at the impact of the economic downturn on women. What we found was really groundbreaking. That the myth that women wanted to leave the workforce to stay home with children was not true. The truth is that women were leaving the workforce because they were being downsized.
Women are losing jobs at the same pace as men, and since women makeup a third of a family’s salary, any discrimination against women is a discrimination against the family.
KADY: A central tenant of the Obama campaign is the idea of a new kind of politics, moving beyond partisanship. However, it seems that in the case of many of the topics you touch upon in your book, party lines mask a deeper and more fundamental disagreement between Americans over what exactly is a woman's role, or what women's rights are. Given this, do you think that a strategy of bipartisanship can work for these issues?
MALONEY: Absolutely. And I think that much legislation is bipartisanship. I just passed a bill, the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, which was a bipartisan effort, and it provides federal employees with four weeks of paid parental leave. I have bills in to expand [the Family and Medical Leave Act] to include visits with doctors, with teachers. We rank 169th in the world in terms of work family balance and aid to families with new children. A lot of people can't believe it, but we're tied with Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea. The first bill to pass in years, to balance work and family, was one of my bills, the Paid Leave for Federal Employees. Congressman Stark has one, which I'm helping him with, that would expand it to everyone in the economy.
We need to work together.
Meeting the standards of being a good mother, a good employee and good-looking get more impossible every day.
Several of the issues in this book are women's issues that go unnoticed, such as regressive taxation, health care, there are 48 million Americans without health care and that doesn't include those who are under-insured, and I think health care is very much a women's issue because women, especially single mothers, use it more than men. Women are responsible for the health care of their children.
The median person most likely to declare bankruptcy is a 42 year old woman with a child, children, and some college education. I think this speaks volumes too. The biggest predictor of poverty in old age is being a mother.
My study showed that when men become fathers, they get a raise and promotion. I call it the "Mom-bomb," that when women become mothers, they often get fired, demoted, or side-tracked.
[There is also] violence against women. Three women a day are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends. And yet in many places, there are desperate shortages of battered women shelter. In Washington state, battered women shelters turn away nearly six times more battered women and their children than they can accommodate. Sexual assault is also terrible. A woman is sexually assaulted in this country every 2 ¼ minutes. And an estimated 60% of all sexual assault victims are too afraid or embarrassed to report attacks because they often get vilified for doing it. And then 15 out of 16 [reported] cases, the perpetrator never spends a day behind bars. That's why I passed the Debbie Smith Act, that processes the backlog of DNA and has been called the most important piece of anti-rape legislation ever.
KADY: Now you have been a longtime advocate for a single-payer health-care system in the United States, which was not specifically endorsed by any of the candidates in the Democratic primary. In the future, will you continue to fight for a single-payer system?
MALONEY: I absolutely will, though I think that Senator Obama's proposal is an improvement. And I think we all should get behind him and support him an help him get elected.
If you want to have some fun, I was just on the Colbert Report: I have a whole series of bills on breastfeeding – women get fired on the job for breastfeeding and he made fun of that! I think you should link that on your blog. [Here you go Congresswoman…]
MALONEY: Let me tell you… I'm optimistic about the future. I think the power of women working together is one thing that can never be exaggerated. As Margaret Meade once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world." Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
And I didn't want to just present problems… I wanted to inspire people, for a call to arms and to offer a practical guide to addressing [the problems]. In the book, there are numerous inspiring stories of women who have overcome long odds, personal hardships and tragedies, and became activists in their communities, their congregations, workplaces and in politics. Domestic violence and rape survivors like Debbie Smith, women exposed to sex discrimination and sexual harassment, an under-insured woman in South Carolina who vowed not to go bankrupt after her cancer surgery and worked out a payment plan that required her to pay the hospital until she is 112 years old. I hope people will read the book because it mentions numerous women's organizations and presents an action guide at the end of each chapter. It points them to websites, and recommends specific initiatives. It lists many organizations, and I hope your blog will encourage women to go out and support [these organizations].
KADY: You are currently a member of the Committee on Financial Services and the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, which oversee, among other things, the activities of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the SEC. What are your views on their recent efforts to manage the American economy? Specifically, I am referring to the activist roles that these agencies have played in dealing with Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the recent restrictions on naked short selling. Given that these agencies have greatly expanded their powers in a short amount of time, how permanent do you expect these powers to be?
MALONEY: I support the Federal Reserve's actions. I think they were legitimate, necessary and they helped shore up the economy. I've also just come out with a Credit Card Bill of Rights, out of the committee last weekend, I hope to pass it on the floor. Senator Obama has also come out with a Credit Card Bill of Rights and talked about the need for consumer protection.
I think we should move forward and enact [this legislation]. But right now, I have to get off the phone, maybe I can call you tomorrow and do credit cards.
KADY: I would love that. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us, Congresswoman.
We will be discussing Congresswoman Maloney's book on a future podcast on BlogTalk Radio. Stay tuned for more information about this and other upcoming podcasts.
Kady always tries to sneak in something economic over at Loaded Dice.
Finally had a chance to savor your interview with the congresswoman--she's wonderful! I look forward to reading and discussing her book. Her commitment to women's issues really comes across in your conversation. We need to elect about 25 more of her.
Posted by: cynematic | August 07, 2008 at 06:50 PM