Wagner: The debate over women’s issues are often done by men

senate race into chaos with incendiary comments about rape and abortion.
augusta national
announces it will open its doors to female members. is there a
better day
for us to talk about
women
and the american political landscape? it’s monday,
august 20th
and this is “now.” joining me on set today, new york senator
kirsten gillibrand
,
sally quinn
of the ”
washington post
,” salon.com editor at large,
joan walsh
, author of the book “what’s the matter with
white people
, why we long for a
golden age
that never was” and from dallas, texas, senator
kay bailey hutchison
. great to see all of you ladies. two years ago, the
house of representatives
saw an historic setback when the number of congresswomen dropped for the first time in three decades. there are currently just 73
women
in the house representing 16.8% of the
lower chamber
and it’s not much better in the
upper chamber
, where
female senators
are 17% of the
senate
. at the state level, 88% of governors are men. of the 100 largest cities in
america
, 92% of mayors are male. four states, mississippi, iowa, delaware and vermont, have never sent a woman to the
u.s. congress
, either the house or the
senate
. the
united states
is far from a leader for the
rest of the world
when it comes to female representation. the latest report from the
interparliamentary union
finds the u.s. ranked 79th in terms of female participation in national parliaments. among the nations with higher percentages of elected
women
are rwanda, afghanistan, china and cuba as well as 22 of the 27 eu nations. but what better illustration of just how male dominated the debate has become than comments made yesterday by
missouri
congressman and current
u.s. senate
candidate,
todd akin
, asked about whether he supported abortion in cases of rape, he said –

it seems to me first of all, from what i understand from doctors, that’s really rare. if it’s a legitimate rape, the
female body
has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

akin’s opponent,
claire mccaskill
, called the comments ignorant and offensive and shows akin doesn’t understand what a rape victim goes through.

this statement is kind of a window in his mind. for most missourians, i hope this is a gut check moment and they realize this is not somebody we want speaking for us and our values on the floor of the
united states senate
.

today,
mitt romney
gave a strong condemnation of akin’s words, telling the
national review online
quote, congressman akin’s comments on rape are insulting and frankly wrong. i have an entirely different view. what he said is without merit and he should correct it. a lot happening today in the area of
women
‘s concerns. senator gillibrand, i guess the first question is, were
todd akin
‘s comments representative of the political dialogue that is too male-focused?

i think it is. clearly, if we had 51% of
women
in congress, we would not be debating whether something is a legitimate rape, whether we should be having contraception and whether employers should make that decision. we would be debating the economy, jobs,
national security
, things that really matter. so i really believe what our generation needs is a nationwide
call to action
to make sure more
women
‘s voices are heard. we need
women
voting in this election. we need
women
holding these elected leaders accountable for what they’ve said, for what they’ve done, for what they believe in, and we need a transformative
call to action
that can actually change what this dialogue’s about and what our national priorities are.

senator
hutchison
, i want to go to you because you are also serving in the
senate
. are you surprised at this debate over abortion and
women
‘s issues continues to be such a talking point despite the fact that everybody has acknowledged that the economy and sort of the great debate on social issues and american fiscal policy is really what the country is hungry for?

yes, i do think that the issues that should be the focus of this election are jobs and how we can create jobs, how we can get this debt down in a responsible way. i hope we can get back to that. i don’t think anyone believes that congressman akin was giving the views of any other person but himself. it was just outrageous and he knows that, and i certainly don’t think he represents a party in any way. i do think more
women
in congress, more
women
in the
senate
would be very important for us to have as a goal, and i think there has to be an acceptance that
women
will be judged by their views on the issues that affect people’s lives and i think that is what we need to base our decisions on, and i think more
women
bringing their views to the table and their experiences to the table are very important.

i have to say, senator
hutchison
, the
romney
team responded very forcefully on this and there have been other opportunities where they have not perhaps responded as strongly. you are saying that congressman ash akin is not representative of the party. do you think this has ramifications for the race against
claire mccaskill
?

i would assume so because i would assume that the people in
missouri
feel the same way that governor
romney
and i feel, that these comments were wrong, but i don’t know. i don’t know what the situation is in
missouri
. i think jobs ought to be the issue. i think obama care ought to be the issue. i think how we get down the
national debt
should be the issue that people look at, and i think how he handles those — what he said, he’s got a lot of apologizing to do and i hope he does it and i hope that he gets right on the issues that matter in
missouri
.

i want to open this up to you guys as well. what’s amazing about these debates on
women
‘s issues is that very often, the folks debating them are men.

right.

and the question is how do
women
not only take back the debate but move it on to things that people actually care about, and when we talk about
women
and higher office, what we see is a trend downward. we’re talking about congress may reach a 30-year low in terms of female representation. there was a study done last year asking
women
, prominent
women in law
, business, education and politics whether they were interested in running for higher office. in
2001
, 23% of men were asked the question — sorry, 23% of men said they were interested. 18% of
women
said they were interested in running for higher office. in
2011
, that number had dropped, 14% of
women
were interested in running for higher office. i guess, you know, let’s unpack that. is that — you look at what’s happening on the
women
‘s health stage of sort of the debate around
women
‘s health, you look at how
women
in
public office
are treated, you look at the difficulties in terms of campaigning. is it a surprise that
women
, less
women
are inclined to throw their hat in the ring?

can we go back to
todd akin
for a minute?

yes.

we don’t want to waste this opportunity. i agree with
kirsten
and with kay but i also think that this guy is so
over the top
that he’s not representative of most people, although he is representative of a
small group
of republicans who believe absolutely, most of them are smart enough not to say what he’s saying in public.

can i just interject one thing? there was a bill in congress called redefining rape that
paul ryan
supported.

exactly.

it went in this direction. some rapes are real rapes and some are not, so he is not isolated. i don’t link him to senator
hutchison
but
todd akin
sadly is not isolated and if he becomes the person who topples
claire mccaskill
, that is a national tragedy and that will get
women
out into the
voting booth
and i hope it gets
women
out into running for office.

the other thing is, it’s put the
romney
people in a real bind, because they are anti-abortion, and what
todd akin
said actually represents most people who are anti-abortion, which is abortion is murder and it doesn’t matter how the woman got pregnant. if you murder the fetus, you’re murdering a
human being
. so when they say well, we’re in favor of it for rape or incest, they’re basically saying we’re sort of in favor of murder but sort of not. so they’re really caught up in a bind on this one.

again, senator,
paul ryan
in
2011
was one of the congresspeople that supported a narrow definition of
forcible rape
, that is absolutely worth mentioning. but again, this dialogue that we’re having over rape, over personhood, over defending
planned parenthood
seems largely to be conducted by men. i wonder when you are inside the
senate
, you’re watching this go on, what is the discussion among the
women
who are representatives as far as why this legislation is being pushed forward?

what it represents is the lack of
women
‘s voices in our democracy on the level that it should be. to have only 17%
women
in congress, to only have six
women
governors, to have a panel on birth control, the first one held in the house to not have one woman being part of that testimony, it shows that
women
‘s voices really aren’t being heard. if we could have a
rosie the riveter
for our generation that created the
call to action
, asking
women
to vote, to be heard, be advocates on the issues they care about and hopefully more
women
running, truly, if we had 51% of
women
in congress we wouldn’t be debating these issues. we would be talking about the real issues.
kay bailey hutchison
is on today, she’s written a bill called the infrastructure bill, with
john kerry
. it is a common sense nonpartisan idea about how to create jobs in
america
. to unleash the private sector’s ability to be the investor, the direct
equity investor
in long term infrastructure projects of national significance. what a great idea. if we had more
women
, we would be doing things like
small businesses
, made in
america
, where we have
small business
u.s. based manufacturing, they would be rewarded.

senator
hutchison
, it’s like we have a democratic senator praising a republican senator on live television. it doesn’t happen very often. are
women
more bipartisan than men?

well, i think
kirsten
has been such an advocate for the infrastructure bank and i so appreciate that, and i think it’s well known that the
women
senators meet for dinner about once a month and we do have a good relationship. we do allow that we have different views on the issues and we represent different states and that’s very important, but we don’t try to tell people from a different state and a different party that they should vote on controversial issues in some way. we sort of rise above the politics and in that way, we are able to come together when we are unanimous on something and we have a huge voice, and sometimes that’s on
women
‘s health issues and issues of what’s covered by insurance, and those kind of things, where we’ve been very effective. but i would also like to go back, alex, to your original question about why
women
don’t run, and one of the issues i think is the tenor of politics and looking at the
presidential race
, looking at some of the things that are done in these local
senate
races, it turns
women
off and they think why would i want to get into a
destruction derby
when i have a nice life, i’ve worked hard, i’m in business or i’m a mom and i’m a civic activist, whatever, they don’t maybe want to get into this sort of nastiness of politics. i think that should be part of the factors considered here.

can i just add to that? i think you’re exactly right. the reality is, particularly with this independent money, this secret money, it’s flowing into these campaigns in the tens of millions of dollars. what it’s doing, most of that money is spent on negative ads. so if all of the voters hearing, all the
young women
are hearing negative ads pounding these opponents they won’t want to run for office. they will say i’m not going to put myself or my kids through that. so you’re reducing the number of talented, bright people, particularly
women
, who want to serve and that has to change.

campaign finance reform
has to be done next session,
kirsten
, because these pacs that have no accountability and you don’t know who is contributing to them, is absolutely a part of this problem.

yes. pacs are no doubt part of the
destruction derby
, as you call it, senator
hutchison
. we’ll be talking a little more about the
destruction derby
and also after the campaign, what happens when
women
become legislators. we will discuss the challenges
women
face as leaders and lawmakers, next. this