Faye Wattleton
President, Center for the Advancement of Women

Rhetoric frames action. President Barack Obama has corrected Bill Clinton’s framework to define White House reproductive policy. This explicitly opens the conversation for the common ground that so many have longingly envisioned and which, in the past, anti-choice advocates have assiduously avoided.

A day after the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Obama lifted the International Gag Rule, an executive order with the force of law first imposed by Ronald Reagan. It extended the prohibition of U.S. funds for assistance to family-planning groups that, with their own resources, provide abortion counseling, referral or direct services. Thirteen percent of maternal deaths worldwide are due to complications due to unsafe abortion procedures, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Restoring funding for international family-planning groups was only the beginning of a broader conversation on family planning.

The new President’s aspirational message, preceding his reversal, assumes that “… we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make.” This common sense call re-framed the widely accepted Clinton mantra to keep abortion “safe, legal and rare,” Mr. Obama rightfully called for policies that go to the heart of the issue, shifting the focus to where society can unite and work for the day when unintended pregnancies are rare, through accurate health information and affordable contraception, and abortions remain safe and legal.

The President’s statement removes the judgmental paradigm that has framed abortion policies of the Bush years and, more importantly, says women should not face the circumstances of an unwanted pregnancy. Oddly, White House and congressional Democrats’ abandoned their attempts to include expanded Medicaid coverage of contraceptives in the economic stimulus package. The measure, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, would have saved $100 billion per year in increased government support services resulting from unintended pregnancies.

Also included in the president’s opening statement was the recognition that Roe v. Wade protects “women’s health and reproductive freedom,” reminding Americans of recognizing the centrality of protecting women’s health. Given the Supreme Court’s 2007 Gonzalez v. Carhart ruling, which will allows states to ignore a woman’s health in restricting abortion, he’s setting the framework for debate that will certainly factor in when filling Court vacancies during his term.

Reproductive control is vital to a woman’s ability to forge a dignified and economically secure life. This potential can only be realized in a workplace that guarantees equal opportunity. On this issue, Mr. Obama will send another strong message by making the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, approved by Congress Tuesday, the first bill signed by his administration. A president who begins his term securing reproductive control and fair employment for women is a president who advances another step toward achieving true equality.

Editor's note: You can read more blogs from Faye Wattleton here.

Editor's Note: This is a joint mother/daughter blog: Faye Wattleton is an AC360° contributor and President of the Center for the Advancement of Women; Felicia Gordon is Faye's daughter.

Too perfect to be dismissed
Faye Wattleton | Bio
President, Center for the Advancement of Women

The 30-year campaign by occupants in the White House, a re-structured Federal judiciary and Congressional hostility has eroded women’s fundamental Constitutional protections, most notably Roe v. Wade. After the 1976 presidential campaign, the take-over of the Republican Party by a confluence of unlikely partners, known as the religious right, led to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and delivery of two future presidencies. Recently, analysts have pronounced this constituency to be in a state of disarray, if not all but dead; it seems that all it needed was a jump-start in a candidate who stirred the passions for their “100-year war” against affirmative action, equal pay for equal work, reproductive rights and gay rights, and for abstinence-only sexuality education.

Last year, the 5-4 Court, in Gonzalez v. Carhart, disregarded a woman’s health in allowing prohibition of a type of abortion procedure in the second trimester, which may be the best option to preserving a woman’s future fertility. In another decision, the Court ruled that Lilly Ledbetter, the only female supervisor at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant, could not seek justice, under Title VII, for 19 years of discrimination. In Long Island Home Care v. Coke, home care workers, 90 percent of whom are women, were declared unworthy of minimum wages and overtime compensation.

Shrewdly, John McCain has offered a gift too perfect to be dismissed: a poster child for the issues that religious conservatives hold dear. The announcement of Gov. Sarah Palin’s selection as the Republican vice presidential nominee, a long-term member of the Assembly of God Church, swept Sen. Barack Obama from the headlines, less than 24 hours after the fireworks faded into the Rocky Mountain skies. Some concluded that it was a bold grab for disaffected supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton. Down in Colorado Springs. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said it best, “… Sarah Palin is God’s answer.” History tells us it’s hard to counter the power of the revisionist religious pulpit, which will be politically active from now until Election Day, in support of the McCain-Palin ticket. There will be some women who don’t care to be called feminist, who will cross-over.

A larger prize was at stake; one that has been reliably successful in election after election.

The Sarah Palin Show
Felicia Gordon

Since the election’s focus has taken an unexpected turn to children, I thought it a perfect opportunity to invade my mom’s blog and offer my own two cents.

Soon after Gov. Sarah Palin came on the scene, I knew that her nomination was not about capturing disenchanted “Hillary” supporters. I knew it because, almost as quickly as I knew her name, my favorite celebrity gossip blogs had begun to post pictures and dirt that rivaled any popular celebrity in entertainment value. I have no doubt that the McCain campaign knows what Britney Spears and TV networks have known for a long time: Americans relish the comfort afforded by viewing the train wreckage of those whom we are supposed to idolize – the more beautiful, the more powerful, the better. When Sen. John McCain commented that his campaign had thoroughly vetted the former beauty queen’s past and that he was “grateful” for the results, he meant just that.

You don’t know who Heidi Montag is? Sen. McCain does. When told of reality TV’s reigning ice queen’s endorsement, he responded, “I’m honored to have Heidi’s support, and I want to assure her that I never miss an episode of ‘The Hills,’ especially since the new season started.”

Call it “low brow,” call it cynical, call it what you want: Americans are just as fascinated by the Sarah Palin show as they have been by the Britney Spears show for years now. As Lynn Spears gets ready to release her book, “Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World,” in which she purportedly discusses her daughter’s sexual promiscuity at 14, that daughter drew millions of viewers to the same music awards show on which she humiliated herself just one year prior. As rumors of an alleged Palin extramarital affair swirled on the Internet, her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention attracted over 40 million viewers, eight million more than that of democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama. Just as Americans digested the Enquirer’s latest report that Jamie Lynn Spears’ baby’s father never plans to marry her, they scoured the internet for Gov. Palin’s future son-in-law’s Myspace page declaration that he’s “a f—kin’ redneck” and the YouTube video of a young black man threatening legal action if the Palin family does no allow him to raise Bristol Palin’s baby whom he claims to have fathered.

Whether fascination with the first reality show starring a vice presidential candidate will translate into votes for the Republican Party is still up for debate. Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin may make us feel temporarily entertained and comforted with respect to our own families’ issues, but the reality is that having a child as an unwed teenager is hardly ideal. Statistics show that teen mothers are more likely to deliver prematurely and to have low birth weight babies; more than 75 percent of unwed teenage mothers are on welfare within five years of the birth of their first child; only about one teenage mother in four ever completes high school; the sons of teenage mothers are 13 percent more likely to end up in prison; and the daughters of teen mothers are 22 percent more likely to become teen mothers themselves.

While I think the Republican Party’s vice presidential nomination is brilliant in many respects, I still believe that we should aim for more than the comfort engendered by the shortcomings of those in the spotlight. We should be awed and inspired by our country’s leaders. We should want the president and the vice president of the United States to be better than us because we should want better for ourselves. We should hope that the only reality we want to see them produce is a better version than our own.

Faye Wattleton
AC360° Contributor
President, Center for the Advancement of Women

What if, throughout her campaign for the party’s nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton had made speeches like the one she gave last night at the Democratic National Convention? It’s possible that she’d be the candidate accepting the party’s nomination tomorrow at Invesco Field. What type of presidency would she have led, had she become the first woman president of the United States? We’ll have to leave that question unanswered, at least for now.

The expectations that were placed on Sen. Clinton to mend the great divide that emerged from the Democratic primaries were both unprecedented and unrealistic. Yet, she delivered beyond our imagination last night. She repeatedly endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. She covered all of the points the party could have wished for. She asked the delegates –and all Democrats watching at home– to re-assess the values and motivations that brought them to Denver and will now determine their chances for putting a Democrat in the White House.

In the same way she rose gracefully from the Lewinsky affair and from a defeated campaign to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system, Sen. Clinton emerged last night as a polished diamond. She surfaced as an unalloyed leader out of the adversities and the unaddressed sexism endured during her campaign and, for that matter, during her entire political career. Her journey is emblematic of the way American women overcome the challenges posed by a society where full-equality is yet to be attained.

Sen. Clinton raised the bar to the “what if, and every decision the Obama campaign makes from now on will be measured against it. Regardless of whether she united the party last night, Sen. Obama will have to show voters how their lives will be better if they vote, in unity, for him. How he chooses to translate the rhetoric of change into the policy of change will be essential as he aims at locking the support of independents and die-hard Clinton supporters, especially the women in the 25 percent who now plan to support Sen. John McCain.

The ball is in Sen. Obama’s court.

Faye Wattleton
AC360° Contributor
President, Center for the Advancement of Women

Last week my daughter Felicia and I attended the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans. As usual, Chris Rock brought his profound comedic talent to sharply insightful social commentary. “It’s going to be hard for a sister to be first lady … because a black woman can’t play the back role of a relationship,” he said.

Mr. Rock alluded to the common racial stereotype that burdens African-American women: by virtue of our well-documented historical role as the strength of the family, we’re characterized as domineering and aggressive. The latest cruelty, extreme even for political satire, was cast in a cartoon of a kinky-haired, armed and dangerous Michelle Obama, on the cover of The New Yorker.

Mrs. Obama, a Princeton- and Harvard-educated health care executive who may become the nation’s first African-American First Lady, has shown nothing in her character to justify an insult of this magnitude. While all women are denigrated by the New Yorker’s cover, the attack on Mrs. Obama resonates even more deeply with African-American women.

Even in such ascendancy, the candidate’s wife can’t escape the place African-American women continue to occupy whether in the media or in the doctor’s office; at the bottom of the image totem pole; a spot not even the most accomplished among us can avoid. African-American women face wage disparities reflective of the race and gender gap, earning 15 percent lower than white women and 10 percent lower than African-American men. We’re the recipients of 54 percent of the nation’s subprime loans. AIDS is the leading cause of death among black women between the ages of 25 and 44, and the rate of unintended pregnancies is twice that of our white counterparts. Yet, one in five African-American women doesn’t have medical insurance.

The New Yorker attempted to explain the cover as exposing the issues of scare politics in this year’s presidential election and only an example of the magazine’s legendary satire. This rationale fails to measure the impact of the visual absorption of a magazine that will be on display at most news stands and supermarket checkout counters throughout the country for those who don’t get the point and accept the messages consciously or subconsciously at face value. No explanation of the intent behind the denigrating cartoon will prevent the damage caused by reinforcing stereotypes that African-American women’s “intimidating presence” is to be feared, rather than being given the credit for playing a crucial role, through strength, fortitude and nurturing to advance the aspirations of our race.

We will survive racist satire. For those who thought the debate over the intersection of race and gender, in this year’s election, was over with Sen. Barack Obama’s call for a post-racist society and Sen. Hillary Clinton’s demise, the news is that Michelle Obama is her proxy. The atmosphere is turning over the cover of our ugliest social tensions: women and race.

Faye Wattleton
President, Center for the Advancement of Women

There is a lengthy legacy of politician striking the wrong tone on the role of African-American men in the family. There tends to be more you-shoulds and not enough I-wills. The question remains whether politicians have the will to change the paradigm by which black men are viewed (or not) and judged. Save the unnecessary vulgar references to presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson’s “off-the-mike” comments Wednesday weren’t so off-the-mark.

Rather than attacking only the personal responsibility of African-American fathers, it is essential to continue to address the systemic changes needed to eliminate the conditions sustaining the epidemic of absentee fathers, which isn’t exclusively a “black” phenomenon.

Mr. Obama has written and spoken extensively about growing up without a father, which gave him a personal perspective of the impact of a fatherless household. As he acknowledged during his Father’s Day speech in the forum of the predominantly African-American Apostolic Church of God, growing up in Hawaii, with supportive grandparents and scholarships to some of the best schools isn’t quite the same as being a black child in a single-parent household in today’s world.

In the wealthiest nation of the world, black children are the sons and daughters of fathers who attended substandard public schools that didn’t prepare them for a global frontier. Yes, it’s good that children read books, but the future of the information age is in the multi-faceted media, which our children must navigate if they’re to successfully compete in a multi-national world. African-American fathers face subtle and not so subtle workplace discrimination because of their race, leading to a substantial income inequity. Their families experience an alarming disparity in access to equitable healthcare leading to higher incidence of chronic disease and shorter life spans. African-American families live in every day more disintegrated neighborhoods, where young black men are victims of racial profiling and everyone is subject to shocking incarceration disparities.

Mr. Obama doesn’t have to be born again in a poor African-American family to experience this plight that, at every socio economic level, is the experience of most slave descendents. Instead, use of the presidential pulpit is a powerful platform to set forth his vision for a presidency that will help black parents become educated, stay healthy, secure fair employment and live free of a criminal justice that continues to target and incarcerate a disproportionate number of African-American males. He should specify how his policies will enfranchise fathers as active participants in raising their children for the 21st Century.

“Talking down” to black folks isn’t new.Mr. Obama has the opportunity to use his unique position as the first African-American presidential nominee, to reflect a vision that is relevant and powerful for African-American families, regardless of his composition.

Michelle Obama on 'The View' yesterday.

Faye Wattleton
President, Center for the Advancement of Women

The dissection of the mainstream media’s role in the downfall of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is not yet exhausted. The power of the print, electronic and cyber press to reflect society’s values and reinforce or influence change is indisputable. While the media washing cites isolated incidents of gender bias and overblown reactions, the debate revealed an often unspoken truth: sexism is not dead. In fact, it is broadly tolerated, beyond the candidates, crushing in various ways the lives of more than half of the electorate. Each of us must take responsibility for making sexism as unacceptable as racism.

Mrs. Clinton’s run for the Democratic nomination taught us that today’s sexism is cast at the individual, not at a system that’s capable of supporting a woman conduct a credible and competitive campaign for the presidency. She emerged from the fabric of our society’s sexist stereotypes as a lightning rod aspiring to the highest male bastion of arguably the most powerful political position in the world. However, her ascent was laced with shockingly open and often unspoken intolerance and hatred, not unlike the challenges women encounter in their daily lives. Gender bias is often insidiously subtle, sitting on the fence between humor and questionable behavior, and pernicious to the advancement of our country.

The conversation becomes more complicated by the intersection of gender and race, as the laser is now especially focused on the novelty of Michelle Obama as the first African-American aspirant for First Lady of the United States. In the absence of defining positions articulated by senators Barack Obama and John McCain on issues important to women, the focus is easily turned to their wives.

Women are a central part of the electoral process. We are 54 percent of the electorate; now, 57 percent of registered Democrats. Candidates must address our concerns in specificity and with seriousness and respect. This must not be relegated to surrogates and committees. Mr. Obama carries a heavier burden, given the resentment generated by the treatment of Mrs. Clinton during the latter stages of her campaign and exit. Charges of sexism could become as explosive as the Jeremiah Wright controversy. A nationally televised speech denouncing sexism in America and outlining how each candidate’s presidency would improve women’s lives would be a modest, yet powerful, start.

The photo of Miley Cyrus in the June 2008 issue of Vanity Fair taken by Annie Leibovitz that has everyone talking. (Annie Leibovitz exclusively for Vanity Fair)

Faye Wattleton
President, Center for the Advancement of Women

The Miley Cyrus debate was bare in more than one way. Arguing over whether the 15-year-old’s Vanity Fair photo spread constitutes a blight on wholesomeness or a publicity stunt competed with Rev. Wright as last week’s hot topic.

Celebrity pundits vented their shock on the airwaves, and in newsprint and blogs, while “experts” offered parents tips on how to discuss the consequences of bad decisions, in this case resulting from Miley’s nude back. 

Missing from the commotion was the glaring opportunity to confront the double standard for girls’ sexuality with a healthy discussion about responsible sexual development among our adolescents.

Britney Spears caused a similar controversy with even more revealing photos during her early teen years. Americans reacted in collective horror when Brandi Chastain, in exuberant victory after scoring the winning goal against China in the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, removed her shirt to reveal her sports bra to a worldwide Olympic audience.

Today, with the U.S. continuing to lead developed countries in the incidence of teen pregnancy and one out of four teenagers infected with a sexually transmitted disease, the evidence is clear that the public dialogue about sexuality continues to be dominated by pop culture. The time has long passed to change the equation.

There is an important sexual dimension to wholesomeness that’s being left unaddressed by parents, educators and the media. Human integrity isn’t about casting moral judgments; it’s about knowledge as the foundation for the exercise of personal responsibility. At the beginning of the 21st Century, we should finally leave behind the hypocritical morality of the Victorians to face up to the incontrovertible reality that sexual development is inherent to human life. Yes, even Miley Cyrus is a sexual being.

The Bush Administration and Congress have bowed to political pressure from the right wing to advance taxpayer support for abstinence-only “sex education.” The problem is that that is not responsible education about a fundamental element of development – sexuality. We delude ourselves into believing that just saying “no” will dampen sexual precociousness. And then along comes a naked adolescent backside and we slide backward into sanctimonious rebukes, instead of seizing the opportunity for a teachable moment. Our children deserve better.

Sexual development starts before birth and stays with us to the grave. It requires educated parents and a supportive community. When talking to children about sexuality:

Remember parents are their children’s primary sexuality educators. Start in early childhood and give as much age-appropriate information as possible.

• You don’t have to know it all. In today’s Internet age, parents can find answers to most questions.
• Use media characterizations to highlight the positive aspects of sexuality and talk about the risks of sexual activity.
• Share your own stories. Children need to know that their parents are sexual beings.
• If you’ve avoided ongoing discussions, it’s never too early or too late to start. Let your children know how to access education and health resources in your community.
• Experience is not a reliable teacher. Seize the teachable moment. Knowledge is the power for responsible decisions; our children’s future is at stake.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are statistically tied in Gallup's national tracking poll.

Faye Wattleton
President, Center for the Advancement of Women

Presidential politics is a rough game, intensified by the instantaneousness of the information age. Not for the faint-hearted. Thus, it’s hard to understand why Sen. Barack Obama didn’t unequivocally disavow Rev. Jeremiah Wright a month ago,leaving ambiguous the lines along which this minister influenced his perspective on race in America.

Mr. Obama had the perfect opportunity to make a clean break with the incendiary “black liberation” theologian, when he gave his widely-televised speech at Constitution Hall on the state of race relations. Instead, he chose to explain him and even grant him kinship as a cantankerous “uncle.”

Mr. Obama finally renounced his pastor, after the commotion triggered by Rev. Wright’s bizarre and stereotype-reinforcing minstrel performance. Sen. Obama’s belated outrage will likely generate public skepticism and add credence to the reverend’s characterization that he says, “what he has to say as a politician.”

Perplexingly, Mr. Obama missed another opportunity. While he emphatically declared that Rev. Wright’s messages are “antithetical to our campaign,” Americans are still awaiting to know what his presidency will be about on the issues of our daily lives, if he wins the nomination.

Sens. Obama and Clinton have failed to harness the distractions of their surrogates, allowing them to fill in the gaps on sensitive social issues they're not addressing.

In Ms. Clinton’s case - most prominently, strategist Mark Penn and her husband. Instead of a constructive, beyond-the-slogans debate about race, gender and class and how their presidencies will to lead to greater unity - which Americans want to hear - valuable campaign time is given to damage control, undermining their credibility and stoking the fires of cynicism about all politicians. 
 
All Americans and the future direction of our nation are shortchanged. Especially shortchanged are the issues about which women want answers –  pay equality, domestic violence, affordable healthcare, educational opportunities, reproductive rights - not on their websites, but spoken as plainly and directly as they do when they defend threats to their political ambitions.

Faye Wattleton, President, Center for the Advancement of Women

Faye Wattleton
President, Center for the Advancement of Women
www.advancewomen.org

Running for president of the United States isn’t the same as running for Sunday School principal. As the stakes are the highest for the most powerful position on the planet, the contest will only grow hotter in intensity. This is, after all, the run for the presidency, the closest thing we have to royalty. The presidential candidates are crying foul with every attack ad that’s launched on them. Complaining about one another’s ads is a waste of valuable air time in an electorate with a short attention span and awaiting clarity on vital issues.

Frankly, the tone at this point has been relatively civilized. Willie Horton and Swift boat ads, which were patent distortions of the candidates’ actions, have not yet appeared on the campaigns. Many fear the current attacks will weaken the Democratic Party’s chances of winning the general election. They may be right, not because of the ads, but because of the vagueness of the candidate’s positions.

The exhilarating phase of the campaign is coming to an end, and the scrutiny is tightening on the candidate’s character and ability to lead a nation with many challenges. If the candidates and their surrogates are genuinely concerned about how attack ads might be distracting voters, they should stop complaining and use them as a backdrop to give Americans more substantial issues to think about. Rather than disparaging, dismissing or brushing off their attacker, the candidates should explain their positions on specific issues. Failure to do so is an injustice of the democratic process.

Faye Wattleton, President, Center for the Advancement of Women

Mark Penn’s resignation as chief strategist for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was a long time coming. A meeting with the Colombian government to discuss a free trade pact by the head of a major PR firm is, in and of itself, not sufficient to warrant the resignation of the campaign chief.  The simple reality is that Mark Penn has led Ms. Clinton’s campaign with a losing strategy.

Perhaps the primary omission is the candidate’s attack mode and her failure to mobilize and excite half the electorate – women. Week after week, in spite of the fact that Sen. Barack Obama did not speak to women either, Ms. Clinton's polls have been in free fall. While blacks and new entrants to the world of politics, young people, were excited by the rhetoric and yes, even the racial controversy in Mr. Obama’s candidacy, Ms. Clinton can’t seem to find her stride.

 - Faye Wattleton, 360° Contributor/President of the Center for the Advancement of Women
www.advancewomen.org

Comments to the 360° blog are moderated. What does that mean?

Faye Wattleton, President, Center for the Advancement of Women

While political sex scandals are nothing new, the media's scrutiny of their impact on politicians' spouses is a relatively new topic of conversation.

As far back as we know, men in power have engaged in extra-marital affairs.  It wasn't until then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, perhaps due to her elevated profile on universal health care reform, endured the public humiliation of standing beside her husband, before a phalanx of cameras on live national television, did the public begin unrestrained discussion and debate about the behavior of the victims, especially that of the politician's wife. "Stepford Wife" was a label often uttered by the disdainful; others defended her stoicism.

Perhaps the cacophony signals a change in the perception of the women behind the men in powerful roles, reflecting the changing world for women in all spheres of life – from the traditionally polite and smiling wife ("for better or for worse") to a powerful partner with her own individual image. From someone who is attractive in photo opportunities to advisor and power behind policy decisions, sometimes publicly, presumably more often, privately.

The women in these roles are now likely to be highly educated and holding professional positions in their own right. Even so, probably none can know the demands of living under the public spotlight and being thrust into a higher standard of accountability, until they have actually lived it.

With women running for higher office and holding powerful leadership positions in corporate America, the pressure not to play dutiful wife will come from some quarters.  Some will see themselves in similar circumstances and will identify with the women who embodied the old-fashion virtues of sucking it up to keep the family together, seeing their husbands' philandering as "not a reason to walk away from long-term marriage," as Cindy Adams stated on her New York Post column yesterday. According to the Center for the Advancement of Women's research on women and religion, 44 percent of women support the idea that divorce should be more difficult to obtain, further illustrating women's stance on this issue.

- Faye Wattleton, 360° Contributor/President of the Center for the Advancement of Women
www.advancewomen.org

It’s ironic that at this historical point in women’s political advancement, the governing powers of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign - Mark Penn, Terry McAuliffe, Howard Wolfson and her husband - have managed to do the impossible. They’ve turned the first credible and well-funded run for the presidency by a woman into something that looks and feels exactly like everything Americans have come to detest. The strategy has resulted in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign becoming just another partisan attack dog.

Faye Wattleton, President, Center for the Advancement of Women

In focus group research, by the Center for the Advancement of Women, some women said they wouldn’t support Mrs. Clinton because they viewed her as calculating and manipulative for her personal political ambitions. Other women told us that they wouldn’t vote for a woman for president because she is a woman. If she didn’t put forth an agenda that would make life better for women, her candidacy would be judged as any other.

It’s hard to understand why Mrs. Clinton has allowed her campaign generals to squander the opportunity to mobilize women by focusing on everyday issues that we care about, instead of resorting to complaining, ridiculing and attacking her primary opponent. They’ve given women, who should have been a solid supporting constituency but never were, good reasons to close the gender gap by finding inspiration on Sen. Barack Obama’s vague promises of unity and change. 

Women would expect Mrs. Clinton, the first woman to make it this far in the presidential race, to know better. From her personal journey, she could and should address women in a way that reflects a visceral understanding of the continuing struggle for equality and fair treatment and how her presidency will truly make a difference for women.  She still can turn her campaign toward addressing inequality and oppression. Lilly Ledbetter could become her campaign’s symbolic poster girl for the need for change to achieve true equality for women. Connecting to women is connecting with America. At this point, she has nothing to lose.

If the men behind the woman understood this reality for their candidate she certainly hasn’t reflected it. I simply can’t believe that she doesn’t know better. It’s not too late: the delegate spread between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama is slim, two delegate-rich primaries lay ahead, and the undecided super delegates could still give her their vote.  Even if her dream is denied, the power of her delegate base can force Mr. Obama to make concrete commitments to improve the lives of American women during his presidency.

- Faye Wattleton, 360° Contributor/President of the Center for the Advancement of Women

www.advancewomen.org