So much great stuff happened last week!  The role of women and the work of mothers was front and center in the Senate Budget Committee hearing "Expanding Economic Opportunity for Women and Families".  Chair Sen. Patty Murray noted the absolute necessity of affordable high quality child care so that parents could hold jobs.  She pointed out that the lack of paid leave and paid sick days restricted women's ability to manage their dual roles of providing financially while caring for their families.  More changes must be made to the tax code to protect mothers returning to work, and to strengthen Social Security, as women expand the economy and bring home a larger share of the household income.  Nonetheless, women still end up with fewer resources at the end of their lives, because our policies don't match today's dual earner families. 

Heather Boushey, Senior Economist at Center for American Progress

Sen. Murray's remarks cover practically every federal issue impacting women and mothers and start at minute 38 in this video.  Heather Boushey, an economist specializing in women's and mother's economic status, also makes plain how much women contribute, and how poorly they are treated, by our current laws and public institutions.  Her testimony begins at minute 50.   The whole briefing conveyed the message that the  nation can only succeed insofar as barriers to women's full participation are removed, and the full valuation of all their activity, paid and unpaid, is realized.  In just a few minutes of videotape, how we arrived at the unnecessary burdens that federal policy places on the female half of the population, and how we can move beyond them, are made clear.  It's like a mini-course in government's connection to the frustrating circumstances of your life.  Listen in!

Thrilling news from the land of 10,000 lakes - the Women's Economic Security Act was passed by the state legislature and has been signed by the Governor!  It's a tour de force of pro-maternal policies.  There are provisions promoting pay equity, breastfeeding at work, protecting pregnant workers, and expanding parental leave.  A similar bill is pending in the state of New York, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's American Opportunity Act addresses these issues, and more, on the federal level.  But Minnesota was first, and now can serve as a model and resource for others to make policy serve mothers and families.

Pre-K Practically a Political Issue

The Strong Start for America's Children Act is a bill to expand access to high quality pre-school and make child care better and more affordable for low- and middle-income families.  It has emerged from the Senate Education Committee with a favorable vote, something of a surprise.  Republicans have shown no enthusiasm for it, so it is unlikely to go any further.  However, it could, if we wish to make it so, become a major issue in the midterm elections this year, and even, possibly, the next presidential election in 2016. 

Still, the Senate early-education expansion bill is worth watching, if only because of the political potency of early-childhood education. States all around the country are expanding in this area, and the congressional midterm elections are right around the corner. Plus, the issue-and even some version of the legislation-could become part of the debate in the presidential election. (Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who nearly won the Democratic nomination back in 2008, has been giving a series of speeches on early-childhood education.) 

They are playing into our hands, ladies.  We'd be fools to let these chances pass us by.

NPR has been running its own great series about women too - mothers of young children in Congress, women as voters, women as candidates, women  in office as collaborators in policy-making, and the critical importance of unmarried female voters in determining election results.  It's called She Votes - and you can listen to as much or as little as you want.  Start with this one, about how laws are made around diaper changes and carpool pickups.

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