Valley Women's Club | Women’s Issues Committee

Women’s Issues Committee

Summer 2008

Community Television of Santa Cruz County is broadcasting coverage of UCSC's annual Expanding Your Horizons Conference for girls in grades 8 to 12
(See below for scheduled air times.)

Participants in the conference, held on Saturday, May 16, spent the day on Science Hill with women faculty, graduate students, and professionals whose careers involve science, technology, engineering, or math. They took part in hands-on workshops and learned about career opportunities by talking with women scientists, engineers, and health care providers. The EYH Program at UCSC aims to encourage young women from diverse backgrounds to enroll in science and math courses in high school by nurturing their interest in how science and math influence the world around.

Coverage of the conference features the opening address by Theresa Kane Musser, vice president of development operations at Rigel Pharmaceuticals, as well as several workshops. The scheduled air times on Community Television (Comcast 25/Charter 71) are:

Tuesday, June 16, 2:30 p.m.
Wednesday, June 17, 10 a.m. and 9 p.m.
Thursday, June 18, 4:30 p.m.
Friday, June 19, 11 p.m.
Sunday, June 21, 7 p.m.
Wednesday, June 24, 6:30 p.m.

2008 Update
Status of Women and Girls in Santa Cruz County Report
Sheila De Lany, Women’s Issues Chair

The findings from the Women’s Commission’s SOWAG Task Force research on the status of women and girls in Santa Cruz County are eye opening. There are a few tidbits of good news (like the reduction in the percentage of women homeless), and much that is disturbing (like the median income percentage increase of only 7% compared 22% for men).

Note: The purpose of the Santa Cruz County Status of Women and Girls Report (SOWAG) is to develop a body of reliable data on women and girls, and to use that data to recommend programs, policies, and practices that advance women’s rights at the County level. The report focuses on six areas: economic justice, violence against women, political participation, healthcare, criminal justice, and education. You can find the complete report on the web here.

Here are some findings from the Women’s Commission’s SOWAG Task Force research on the status of women and girls in Santa Cruz County in the areas of Economic Justice, Criminal Justice, Homelessness and Political Participation.

Economic Justice

Women spend a larger portion of their take home pay on housing as compared to men.
Only 6% of homes were affordable to families making the median income. 75% of women made less than the median income.
Approximately 17,000 children of working parents between the ages of 0 and 14 are likely to be in the care of informal care providers, such as family, friends or neighbors or on their own as “latchkey” children.
During the last seven years, the percentage of women in the Santa Cruz County homeless population decreased from 43% to 30%.
2/3 of homeless adults with children are women.
Women’s average earnings in Santa Cruz County are 45% less than men’s.
Greater wage disparities exist with higher levels of educational attainment.
Women tend to be over-represented in industries and occupations with significantly lower compensation.
Between 2000 and 2006, men’s median income increased 22% while women’s only increased 7%.

Criminal Justice

Most women offenders are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes.
Methamphetamine (meth) use is a major contributor.
Meth use among women is particularly attractive creating a false sense of well being and weight loss.
Women in Santa Cruz County have a recidivism rate of 50% - 10% higher than the state average.
Lack of treatment options, affordable housing, transportation, employment opportunities and childcare are barriers to reintegration of incarcerated women into society.
Family reunification is hampered by a lack of policies and services aimed at parenting and life skills.
Lack of data makes designing programs and policies to address needs of incarcerated women extremely difficult.

Homelessness

Between 2000 and 2007, the percentage of women in the Santa Cruz County homeless population declined from 43% to 30%.
The number of women in the homeless population declined from approximately 1300 in 2005 to under 850 in 2007.
Of the homeless adults with children, over 2/3 have consistently been women, and three times as many women as men have their children with them.
Domestic violence is cited as a cause of homelessness by nearly ½ of homeless women nationwide. Only 6% of all homeless people in Santa Cruz County listed this as a cause for their homelessness in 2007, but the data was not disaggregated by gender. Of those citing this cause, it was cited more often than job loss or unemployment.

Political Participation

This is an exceptional year for all those who are interested in gender equity, the participation of women in American political life, and in women in elected and appointed office. The increased numbers of people registering and voting in Presidential caucuses and primaries point to a much greater sense of inclusion and identification with the candidates than we have ever seen before!
Here are some of the numbers:

At the national level, there are 435 members of Congress:

81, or only 15.1% are women
One-fourth of those are women of color
There are also 315 State wide elective executive positions nationally:

Women hold 79, or 25.1% of those positions
Of the 79, only 5 - 6.3% - are women of color
In California, there are 8 elected Executive positions–

NONE – 0% are held by women
9 of the 33 State Department Heads or 27% are women
6 of the 15 top advisors, or 40% are women
So, of the 56 total executive positions in the State women hold only 15 - 27%
In 2006, there were 7382 State Legislators nationwide:

1685, or 22.8% are women
331, or 19.6% of those are women of color
California has 120 State Legislators in total:

37, or 30.8% are women
12 of our 40 Senators – 30% - are women
25 of our Assembly Members – 31.35% - are women
Women Democrats are 25% of the Assembly total
Women Republicans are 7.6%
Of the 6 members of the State’s highest Court, 2 of the 6 Justices - one-third - are women.

Combining all branches, totaling 182, there are only 54 women – or 30% - at the highest levels of decision making in our State.

California’s picture is better than the national; Santa Cruz’s is better than the State.

In the 2000 Census, Santa Cruz County had 128, 023 women
Since 2006, 19 of the 55 elected officials in the Santa Cruz County are women – 34.55%
And 13 of the County’s 26 appointed officials are women – 50%

While California’s numbers are better than the national average, and Santa Cruz’s better than the State’s - they still mean that at all levels, and in all branches of government, women are not represented.

AND - just so we keep our eyes on the real picture – and so we don’t kid ourselves that one-third is the same as one-half:

According to the 2000 Census there were more than 143 million women in the United States.

There were 138 million – 5 million fewer – men.

Yet in 2006, there were 1845 women in total elected to Congress, Statewide executive positions, and State Legislatures –

At the same time, there were 6287 men elected to the same positions – more than 4 times the number of women.

That’s a total of 8132 significant decision-making positions.

If you are as curious as I am about numbers, you’ll do what I did – add them up and see what happens if the numbers were in actual proportion to the population:

There would be:
3985 men AND 4147 women

Making the decisions about our lives, our health, our environment, our children, and our future.

Please check out the entire report and be ready to support policies and legislation to improve these statistics for the women of our community.

Political Participation — and Women in Office

Observations by Sheila DeLany

Here is a selection of the local numbers (see the website for an expanded picture):

Combining all branches, totaling 182, there are only 54 women – or 30% - at the highest levels of decision making in our State.

California’s picture is better than the national; Santa Cruz’s is better than the State.

In the 2000 Census, Santa Cruz County had 128,023 women
Since 2006, 19 of the 55 elected officials in the Santa Cruz County are women – 34.55%
And 13 of the County’s 26 appointed officials are women – 50%.

AND - just so we keep our eyes on the real picture – and so we don’t kid ourselves that one-third is the same as one-half:

According to the 2000 Census there were more than 143 million women in the United States. There were 138 million – 5 million fewer – men.

Yet in 2006, there were 1,845 women in total elected to Congress, Statewide executive positions, and State Legislatures –

At the same time, there were 6,287 men elected to the same positions – more than 4 times the number of women.

That’s a total of 8,132 significant decision-making positions.

If you are as curious as I am about numbers, you’ll do what I did – add them up and see what happens if the numbers were in actual proportion to the population:

There would be: 3985 men AND 4147 women.

Making the decisions about our lives, our health, our environment, our children, and our future.

It’s time to change the ratio.

Signifibits...

"Expanding Your Horizons” a huge success bringing new life goals to young women.
"Breaking Cycles, Rebuilding Lives,” a Santa Clara County study of the lives of female inmates.
NOW Conference, July, Washington DC, offers extraordinary speakers: Barbara Hillary, the first African-American woman to reach the North Pole; Patricia Ireland, NOW’s longest serving president; Carol Jenkins, the president of the Women’s Media Center; Lilly Ledbetter, who took her employer to court over unequal pay; Dr. Yakin Ertürk, of Ankara, Turkey, the United Nations Human Rights Commission Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women; Irshad Manji, director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University; and Nancy Redd, the 26-year-old author of Body Drama.

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