A Facade of Progress

By Deborah Jacobs, Vice President, Advocacy and Policy

The strategic selection of former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, as well as South Carolina businesswoman Darla Moore, as the first women invited to join the Augusta National Golf Club demonstrates once again that public pressure can force change (in this case made necessary by the absence of common sense and human decency), but it also delivers an unsavory message from the apparently begrudging Augusta National board members: As men, we decide whether, when and which women can participate.

In April, Augusta National failed to invite the woman most entitled to an Augusta National membership, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, to join despite the facts that IBM has sponsored the Masters many times over and that its past four CEOs received memberships. The outrage over Rometty's unjust exclusion reached all the way to the White House, from which President Obama encouraged Augusta National to end to its near-century of sex discrimination.

The inclusion of Rice and Moore – some 10 years since the first Augusta National protests initiated by the National Council of Women's Organizations – represents an important step forward. But let's not kid ourselves about how big this step is. (The New York Times astutely called it “gender tokenism.”) If Augusta National had any interest in ending discrimination, Rometty would have been the first choice among potential female members. Instead, its actions serve as a reminder of the desperate thrashing for control of people reluctantly giving up power.

Consider the timing and selection choices. Instead of inviting Rometty at the right time – during the Masters in April – Augusta National refused her. Then, instead of perhaps waiting a few weeks to save face and then inviting Rometty, August National took no action. And now, as it finally yields to the pressure of protest and the modern realities of American society, Augusta National wants to remind Rometty, and us, that it will continue to exclude women whether we've earned our place, or not.

Photo Credit: Jun Acullador

The Power of Three: On Supreme Court, Addition of Kagan Could Make a World of Difference

On Slate, Dahlia Lithwick has posted a thought-provoking piece on the impact that adding a third woman's voice could have on the US Supreme Court.

It's long been held among social scientists that three is the "magic number" when it comes to ensuring that previously marginalized voices (in this case, women) are actually heard at decision-making tables. A single woman on any governing body holds too little power relative to the rest of the group to be taken seriously; two women are often set in opposition to each other and left to duke it out while the rest of the group continues on its merry way. But when three women are included at the table, the entire dynamic tends to change -- in large part, research has found, because this is the point at which the question of whether women actually deserve to be at the table begins to fade. There is, it turns out, real power in numbers.

How that power will display itself in the highest court in the land now that there are three women on the bench will be closely monitored, no doubt, by groups on the right as well as their more liberal counterparts. Lithwick doesn't pretend to know precisely how the addition of Kagan will play out judicially, or whether she will tend to agree or disagree with her sisters Ginsburg and Sotomayor on the court. But like us, Lithwick believes that the addition of another woman to the Supreme Court is decidedly a "good thing" -- because if nothing else, it provides the court with another unique perspective on the realities of women's lives. She writes,

For centuries, the Supreme Court has been zealously opining on whether or not women are fit to practice law, or tend bar, work a 10-hour day, support their families, use birth control, or terminate their pregnancies. For most of that time, women influenced that debate only if they were lucky enough to be married to a justice. The presence, for the first time, of three women on the Supreme Court may not reshape constitutional law in any profound way. It may not even change the court all that much. But as the justices continue to decide the cases that affect the ways in which women in America are educated, hired, compensated, and afforded control over their bodies, it can only be a good thing to have three voices at the table with actual experience in the field.

Amen to all that.

Envisioning Equality: Celebrating the 90th Anniversary of Women's Suffrage

Ninety years ago today, American society experienced a long overdue shift in the status quo. On August 26, 1920, after decades of struggle, the United States finally afforded women the right to vote.

The women responsible for this triumph walked no easy road to victory. Jane Addams, Abigail Adams, Lucy Burns and Alice Paul. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ida B. Wells. Frances E.W. Harper, Sojourner Truth and Margaret Fuller. Lucy Stone. Lucretia Mott. Susan B. Anthony. Their names may be more or less familiar, but we too often forget how much these women sacrificed, over more than a century, to make possible every advantage today's women now enjoy.

Personal losses were common: some of these women alienated spouses, friends and loved ones as a result of their commitment to seeing women treated as full citizens. Others were shot at. Attacked by mobs. Locked in jail and threatened with death. There was no shortage of creativity when it came to devising ways to try to scare these women out of the streets and back into the kitchen.

And yet, despite all this, they pressed on. They rallied at Seneca Falls in 1848, and hosted a National Women's Rights Convention in 1850. They built formal organizations and associations to further the cause. They advocated in the streets, and organized in the statehouses until one hot day in August 1920, their movement had gained so much steam that 36 states ratified an amendment giving women the right to vote, ensuring that suffrage would be the right of every American woman.

It was a remarkable thing these women did, over so much time, and with so much opposition. They literally changed the world for those of us who live in it now. On this day, the 90th anniversary of their triumph, we pause to honor all they did, and all they gave, on our behalf.

Bringing true honor to these extraordinary women requires us to do more than just nod our heads in remembrance of the good fight they fought. It requires a commitment from those of us who treasure a democracy of full equity and inclusion to continue their work of ensuring that all Americans have equal access to the freedoms and opportunities our Constitution promises.

The grantees of the Ms. Foundation are the embodiment of that fighting spirit. From the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, to the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative; from National Advocates for Pregnant Women to Green for All to the National Women's Law Center -- every one of our grantees works each day to build a more just democracy and help make equality, finally, the law of the land.

Their work is, in so many ways, a direct extension of the groundbreaking work the suffragists did to begin to level the proverbial playing field, and we applaud them for their courage and determination in the face of so the many challenges that continue to block the path to full equality.

Happily, our grantees are not alone in their efforts. The movement to build women's collective power runs broad and deep, and is made up of thousands of social justice organizations driving change.

Among them is a group called Vision 2020, which has launched a decade-long national project dedicated to pick up where the suffragists left off. Their goal is to see gender equality achieved no later August 26, 2020 -- the centennial celebration of the 19th Amendment. The group's first public event takes place on October 21-22, 2010, when a congress of national delegates, representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia, will meet at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to launch an action agenda to move America toward equality by this important date.

It's hard to imagine that the suffragists wouldn't be exceedingly proud. On this important day in women's history, be sure to make your own commitment to honoring their legacy: pledge to support a new generation of women's leadership working to ensure equality for all.

Image: Postcard, c 1913, Library of Congress.