In the preface of “The Shriver Report,” Maria Shriver’s report on women, John D. Podesta, President and CEO of Center for American Progress, makes important points, starting with basics:
Women becoming primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners changed everything.But, even though we were all witness to this phenomenon’s slow emergence over many years, these changes seem somehow to have snuck up on us. As a result, our policy landscape remains stuck in an idealized past, where the typical family was composed of a married-for-life couple with a full-time breadwinner and full-time homemaker who raised the children herself.
Government policies and laws continue to rely on an outdated model of the American family. And, despite the existence of innovative practices in corporate America, most employers fail to acknowledge or accommodate the daily juggling act their workers perform, they are oblivious to the fact that their employees are now more likely to be women, and they ignore the fact that men now share in domestic duties.
Then Maria Shriver delves deeper.
The statistics don’t lie, as they are modern women’s reality, which Shriver proves in her report:
Quite simply, as women go to work, everything changes. Yet, we, as a nation, have not yet digested what this all means and what changes are still to be made. But change we must, especially as the current recession amplifies and accelerates these trends throughout our economy and society. The Great Recession led to massive job losses, especially within male-dominated industries. Since the recession began in December 2007, men have accounted for three out of every four jobs lost (73.6 percent)4 and now 2 million wives are supporting their families while their unemployed husbands seek work.5 Women now, for the first time, make up half (49.9 percent as of July 2009) of all workers on U.S. payrolls. This is a dramatic change from just over a generation ago: In 1969, women made up only a third of the workforce (35.3 percent).6
With the backing of the Shriver name, American Progress took on Mrs. Shriver’s charge, with the subject matter vitally important.
I’ve been writing, talking and speaking out on the cataclysmic shifts in the lives of women most of my adult life. A revolution that started with Betty Friedan, but exploded when the Pill was made available and women got control over our lives. Long before Roe v. Wade came Griswold, the seminal legal decision for women in Supreme Court history.
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965),[1] was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the “right to marital privacy”. – Wikipedia
Growing up within the modern feminist movement, my views on privacy and women’s rights are embedded in my politics and are revealed in everything I do, particularly foreign policy.
Nicholas Kristof’s “Half the Sky movement” is about this very thing, which he founded along with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn.
It has been proven over and over again that without women being empowered in developing nations the country they’re in cannot achieve stability. Kristof has compiled a list of groups that help women in developing countries, two of which TM.com sponsors by offering a free banner on the homepage of this site. It’s a way you can easily get involved and make a difference for women in developing nations.
One of my favorite groups is Afghan Institute of Learning, but there are many more.
As we debate our policy in Afghanistan, it’s critical to look beyond simply keeping women from being brutalized. Our imperative now is to promote their health and educational vitality so Afghan women and girls can become a force in Afghanistan. The only chance this country (or any other) has for moving beyond the war cycle, with our own policy deeply in need of a more progressive and enlightened approach than simply reverting to the “withdrawal of troops” syndrome, which is hopelessly mired in Vietnam thinking. We must realize that security can come without escalation if a broader eye is cast upon how funding is allotted and delivered to the people of nations we must support in order for the national security of our own country to remain secure and the American people safe.
Maria Shriver’s report is as timely as it is important. It’s thrilling to have a well known and recognizable woman, a superstar in many circles, out front and speaking out through a serious study on women in America, because it raises the attention on the debate people like me have been trying to spur on in the shadows for a very long time.
Nothing is as important to America than understanding the expanded role of women. It is this very realization of women’s expanding role that is rippling through the world and why our continued effort in Afghanistan is critically important. Not only to Afghan girls and women, but to American national security, as well as the security of the region and the world community.
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