Women and The Loop

Jump to a section:

Making a Difference
What's Missing?
Growing up Clueless
The Loop: How it Works
The Power lies before the Primaries.The trouble with Independents.
Picture the Loop: Oh, No!! Money and Time!
How can a leader show that she has followers?

Yes, there is a loop, and many of us, women, are loopless.It is not that we have knowingly opted out of the loop or abdicated our place in it. Research shows that we are not aware of the loop and, therefore, not actively concerned about it. The loop is political know how. If we were in the loop, we would know and actually use the decision-making tools of the community, state, and nation to make life better for what we care about most.

Making a Difference

We know that when life happens unexpectedly, as, of course, it does every day, we women cope. Whether married or not, we cope with the children, the school, the elderly, the doctor and dentist appointments, repairs to the car and the house, the pets, plans for the weekend and vacation, and 80% of all purchases. We take what comes and we cope. Homespun observation shows that there is a ten-minute gap between the times the last child leaves home and your mother-in-law falls down the stairs.

There is pressure on men to be sure. In the mythology of growing up, every man is expected to make a successful living and pay for the basic needs of his family. His rank among other men in American society has a lot to do with his ability to pay. But, although over 70% of all women also now work outside the home and share the responsibility for supplying financial security, the job jar of "life hasn't changed much. We are still responsible for health, for property, for education, and for safety. These are our Life Issues.

Women know two out of three ways to make a difference, in spite of and because of all the people who rely on us. We help individuals in our families and in the neighborhood. And we know that when we team up, we can make even a greater difference, as we do when we volunteer at schools, libraries, sports teams, churches and synagogues, and homeless shelters.

return to top

What's Missing?

For each of the responsibilities we hold, there is potential support in the society at large, that we often ignore. Take health care, education, a healthy environment, and work rules. We pay taxes to help provide them. We elect representatives to decide why and where the support should go.

Since we take daily responsibility to help individuals, and we are the best at knowing how to organize as volunteers outside the political system, why have we failed to organize and mobilize our wishes in public policy?

We are individually so busy and so responsible that we have overlooked a major resource available to anyone smart enough to recognize and access it. It is POWER. We are smart enough. Why don't we do what it takes to get it, use it, and manage it?

return to top

Growing up Clueless

Female allergy to power starts early. Research shows girls at about eleven years old begin to back off pushing their ideas forward. They begin to turn statements about what they believe into a question or preface it with "Maybe you might disagree, but what I was thinking about" By high school, girls often leave the organizing of the school government to the boys. Seldom does anyone say to a girl, "you are a natural for political office".

Young adult women are the daughters of the generation that learned about politics with the Vietnam War and Watergate. The mothers who grew up in the 60's were turned off, yes, disgusted, with macho boys in government. Many of us, therefore, have not taken our daughters to march in protest, to stuff envelopes for a candidate, or even to vote. Many, many women ages 18-25 are not even registered to vote, don't know a candidate, and aren't even thinking about getting the experience needed to run for office.

Older women still have the holdover from early training. It is not "feminine to be pushy. Girls should not be aggressive. Many older women feel safer relying on male doctors, male financial advisors, and men in government who can protect us in time of war. We hear, "I'm not political". This is from educated women living in a democracy where only the majority gets to rule.

return to top

The Loop: How it Works

Many of us have walked or drifted away from the difference we can make together. We're busy, we're tired, and we help people all the time. And we don't want to fight.

However, no one just hands over power to someone else. Even if some of us are nervous about personal power, we did learn "how a bill becomes a law. But we have not paid attention to how a need becomes a bill. And that's where WomenMatter comes in.

We don't need to give up the ways we already help others. Those ways are our Life Issues. We just need to strengthen what we already do and inform ourselves about what's going on, and then give early support to organizations and candidates, particularly women, who will represent us when the rules are made and the tax dollars are spent.

WomenMatter makes it easy to get the information we need to decide what we think and believe. Womenmatter makes it easy to be in the loop where the power lives.

return to top

The Power lies before the Primaries. The trouble with Independents.

The power lies in being heard within a political party before an election, when the party decides what it will stand for and whom it will support for public office. "But I vote for the person, not for the party. This is where our textbooks failed us.

We live in a democracy where the majority rules. We operate through a representative government organized by political parties.

Creating a majority is not easy, because Americans are so different from each other. The nation is more than a continent wide so there are many competing ways to make a living. What's more, in a nation whose growth is built on immigration, with so many ethnic, racial, and religious groups, no one is by itself a majority. Within fifteen years of the adoption of our Constitution (which never mentioned political parties), Americans had to reach across differences and make promises to each other. You vote for what is good for me and I'll vote for what is good for you. Our democracy, represented in the legislatures, operates by political parties.

Each of us can think independently. But if we wait to be heard after the political parties have made their choices, we have lost power. Which party most often believes as I do? Within the party, which individual will represent what I believe in? Where do my beliefs have a chance of becoming the majority point of view?

Take any Life Issue you already care about. Health care, schooling, jobs, clean air, fair elections, fair courts, women's rights. WomenMatter tracks nine of them for you and with you. You can click on and keep up.

return to top

Picture the Loop: Oh, No!! Money and Time!

Just as we have to work together to manage the office, run the prom, help the PTA, build a house for the poor, so we need to join a group that believes as we do and pool our efforts. Numbers count. Each person who signs up with a like-minded group tells the candidates and the parties that they should pay attention. Or lose.

"But I hate special interests and sleaze ball politicians who take money. WomenMatter believes that women agree on what is important. Life Issues. We are a special interest. Or at least we can be a powerful special interest to make a political difference.

Before the primaries there are groups who talk, write, advertise, mail, phone, and create TV events to influence the political parties. These activities work. They take time and money. Once each of us knows what the facts are and what she believes should be done, we each need to become a supporter. There are millions of us. We don't need to be rich or go to fancy benefits. We just need to send some money through memberships and appeals to those groups and outspoken advocates with influence that agrees with us. We need to let our candidates know what we think. For that we either have to turn out in person and tell them or send money to let them know that we care.

Does sending $5 to a candidate just make a rotten system last longer? Is my money any different from the big givers who corrupt the system by asking for favors in return? Is my small donation even going to be noticed in the drive to pay for TV time? Why don't we have tax paid campaigns (public financing) where everyone gets the same amount of money?

return to top

How can a leader show that she has followers?

The only way to choose a leader in a democracy is to count followers. Followers have to speak up and be heard. Sometimes they need to show up and be seen. To be noticed any candidate has to buy posters, fliers, print, TV, and radio ads, and rent meeting space. Even with public financing, the early stages of any venture cost money.

There are millions of us. Together we can mastermind the loop.

It is a loop, but it doesn't have to be closed to anyone smart enough to get in. WomenMatter hopes that more women will run for office. But for all of us with our limited time and money, there are people already in groups who will speak out for us on radio, TV, and in print. They will also tell us when our voices need to be heard in writing or in person, and they will give us choices about where to send whatever money we can, where and when it will make the most difference.

Lobbyists and women's groups and parties are the loop. Information, time, and money are what make the loop work. Yes we should register to vote. Yes we should vote. But we can also take power and make the system work for us, by staying informed and putting our money and our mouths where our Life Issues have always been.

WomenMatter will take our concerns seriously and point out the facts that all of us need to understand. We are anti-sound bites and we are not connected to any party. There are daily updates about the Life Issues.

From this website we can register to vote and contact our representatives.

We can connect to groups that agree with whatever position we each choose, as long as those groups believe as we do in equality for women and our right to make decisions.

return to top