Democracy & Society
Gender, Religion, and Civic Involvement: Understanding and Promoting Women’s Public Vision
Visit the Politics, Religion, and Women’s Public Vision website
In 2004, IWPR conducted a series of interviews with leaders and participants in religious and interfaith organizations. The interviews involved in-depth discussions about activists’ values and goals, the content of their work, and their experiences with leadership development. They covered subjects such as t he value and contributions of women’s leadership, t he nature of recruitment efforts, motivations for activism, and the benefits of their experiences. Based on these interviews, IWPR is identifying successful strategies to encourage participation in civic and political life. A report on the findings from this research will be released in spring of 2005. It will include recommendations for how to encourage women to become involved in civic and political activism and how to build their leadership skills in that work.
Within the research for this project, IWPR found that religious women activists are deeply committed to a set of moral concepts that includes responsibility for the well-being of others and interconnectedness with the most disadvantaged in society:
- From a Hindu women: “There’s a connection between all human beings, and…[activism] is something that you have to do in order to feel like you can be morally sound.”
- From a Catholic: “A large part of how we deliver ourselves ties back to our faiths…dignity, respect, solidarity, we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, participation, community.”
- And from a Buddhist: “The racism and the prejudice and the deprivation… we see it here and-- so I feel like it’s something that we have to take care of.”
Based on these findings, IWPR’s next steps will involve promoting a vision for U.S. policymaking rooted in women’s public vision and values. Many political leaders recognize the need to bring moral values into public discussions of religion, morality, and politics. IWPR hopes to provide a basis for doing so that will bring a variety of women together, in part based on the research we have done.
IWPR is currently convening a Working Group on Women’s Public Vision composed of women leaders in politics, religious organizations, and feminist organizing. This group will generate concrete ways to promote women’s values and vision through specific collaborations, communications strategies, and networking opportunities. The first major meeting of the group will be held at our Eighth International Women’s Policy Research Conference in June, 2005, which will also include a series of sessions devoted to IWPR’s research and outreach work in this area.
The work of the group will be informed by IWPR’s research, which will also be supplemented by two new sets of interviews in 2005: one examining how religious women of color define economic justice, and one examining how national feminist leaders think about values, religion, and morality.
IWPR’s work in this area is funded by the Ford Foundation and the Sister Fund.
Visit the Politics, Religion, and Women’s Public Vision website
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The Status of Women in the States Project
The Status of Women in the States reports are a unique source of comprehensive information on women. Nowhere else are these data available in such an accessible, readable format for each state. The reports are designed with the assistance of State Advisory Committees to enable policymakers and citizens to track the progress women are making in their states, relative to men, to women in other states, and to women and men in the United States as a whole. Each report offers policy recommendations shaped by the research findings for that state.
IWPR publishes approximately ten additional state reports every two years. Each report is a thorough reference volume on women in the state, including basic demographic information on age, race, ethnicity, and family structure and data on labor force participation, earnings, education, poverty, business ownership, professions, voter participation, office holding, health conditions, and reproductive rights, among other topics. Every state report grades and ranks each state relative to all other states and to the states in its region on 30 fundamental indicators of women’s status in five core areas. Each state report also presents a list of organizations that provide resources on issues of importance to women in the state, as well as a summary of national resources. Fifty-one state reports are now available.
Every two years an updated national report provides an overview of how all the states are doing on each indicator. National maps offer a visual aide to monitor the status of women across the United States. Data and rankings on the 30 key indicators covering the five core areas are included for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In 2004, the national report examines trends in the key indicators since 1996, when the Institute for Women’s Policy Research began this ambitious and groundbreaking project, and highlights differences among women by race and ethnicity.
Visit The Status of Women in the States website, and find out how your state ranks!
Reinventing the Status of Women in the States Project
IWPR recently conducted a survey and focus groups with Status of Women in the States report users and advisory committee members to evaluate the effectiveness of the many components of the project and reports. IWPR will analyze the survey and focus group results and compile a report on how to best reinvent our work on the Status of Women in the States. Our survey garnered a response from approximately 150 participants with rich and detailed information on the uses and impacts of the reports.
The Status of Women in the States Project: Continuing Outreach
IWPR staff have disseminated the Status of Women in the States report findings in a number of venues, including a speeches at the recent conference of the Baltimore Association of Grantmakers, at the University of Missouri, and the University of Florida. We are also distributing of reports, tools, and other project materials at the May Women in Philanthropy conference. We will be carrying out an effort to disseminate the reports to women candidates running for office as a part of the 2006 mid-term elections. IWPR continues to speak with activists and others in various states about conducting additional state reports.
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The Journal of Women, Politics and Policy
IWPR continues to co-lead the recently launched Journal of Women, Politics and Policy, published by Haworth press. Co-editors are Heidi Hartmann and Carol Hardy-Fanta (University of Massachusetts, Boston). IWPR members receive discounted or complimentary annual subscriptions to the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy. The Journal is aimed at developing and disseminating new research on politics and policy of special interest to women. The Journal is multi-disciplinary and international in reach, and it presents articles from all social science disciplines and all regions of the world.
Contact Elisabeth Crum , IWPR Communications and Outreach Coordinator, to become an IWPR member today!
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PuLSE: Policy Listserv and Strategy Exchange
IWPR moderates online forum for discussion, information and strategy exchange among those who work on policy issues relevant to women's lives. The IWPR Policy Listserv and Strategy Exchange was designed to expand the collaboration and coalition-building initiated by the Status of Women in the States project and to create an efficient tool for sharing information on women's issues. Since its inception in July 2000, the Policy Listserv and Strategy Exchange (PuLSE) has grown steadily, attracting a wide range of participants, including advocates, academics, students, policy makers, and researchers. PuLSE has elicited dialogues on child care, paid family leave, social security, health policy, and the implications of the new presidential administration for women's policy. List Administrator Jean Sinzdak coordinates posts by IWPR researchers in each of the Institute's program areas. IWPR expects PuLSE membership and participation to grow considerably and aims to make the list a premier forum for timely debate on policy issues affecting women.
Sign up for the PuLSE Listserv
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Capitol Hill Briefings on Policies Affecting Women's Status
As co-chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations' Task Force on Economic Security (with the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund), IWPR coordinates and participates in a series of monthly policy briefings for Congressional staff. The 2005 Capitol Hill Briefing Series is covering topics such as TANF reauthorization, women's health, social security, education and training, workplace issues, access to family planning, and violence and poverty. For more information, contact Erica Williams,
Study Director, at williams@iwpr.org.
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Women's Civic and Political Participation
IWPR has recently contributed to several important debates about women's participation in civic and political life in the United States. Dr. Amy Caiazza and Dr. Heidi Hartmann co-wrote a paper on women's and men's pathways to civic activism and found that women's levels of engagement related in part to two important factors not associated with men's: higher levels of perceived safety and knowing their neighbors both encouraged women's community involvement. A summary of these findings is available in "women's Community Involvement: The Effects of Money, Safety, Parenthood, and Friends," which can be accessed here. Dr. Caiazza continues to develop this analysis and will publish more work on it in the coming months.
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The Policy Importance of Women's Representation
Using data collected for the Status of Women in the States project, Dr. Amy Caiazza found that women's higher levels of representation in state elected office are associated with more women-friendly policies. A short synopsis of this reserach is available in a Briefing Paper entitled "Does Women's Representation in Elected Office Lead to Women-Friendly Policy?" available here. More detailed findings (which will be published in coming months) suggest that the relationship between electoral representation and policy is strong even when controlling for factors such as women's voter turnout, women's labor force participation, women's institutional resources, and political party dominance in a state.
IWPR has also published important findings from recent research about women's representation, including Michele Swers' work on the effects of women in Congress, published in "Transforming the Political Agenda: Gender Differences in Bill Sponsorship on Women's Issues" and Barbara Palmer and Dennis Simon's work on the factors contributing to the low number of women serving in elected office, in "The Political Glass Ceiling: Gender, Strategy, and Incumbency in US House Elections, 1978-1998".
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Women's Status and Social Capital
Using data from The Status of Women in the States in conjunction with Robert Putnam's state data on levels of social capital, Dr. Amy Caiazza and Dr. Putnam have examined the relationship between women's status and social capital. They found a strong relationship, suggesting that efforts to improve levels of social capital can also help to improve women's status--and vice versa. Their work is presented in "Women's Status and Social Capital Across the States," available online here.
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Women's International Activism
Shortly after September 11, 2001, Dr. Amy Caiazza wrote an analysis of women's experiences with and activism around violence and terrorism--as victims, participants, proponents, and opponents. Dr. Caiazza's research summary was presented at an International Center for Research on Women roundtable in November 2001. Her analysis has been distributed in many forums, including meetings of the women's caucus of the National Conference of Mayors and of Women in Philanthropy, as well as in the Nokomis Foundation's newsletter. Her report, "Why Gender Matters in Understanding September 11: Women, Militarism, and Violence," is available online.
In September 2002, Dr. Caiazza published a book called Mothers and Soldiers: Gender, Citizenship, and Civil Society in Contemporary Russia. The book studies Russian women's and men's activist movements, including feminist groups, anti-draft groups, and a pro-peace organization of mothers. Dr. Caiazza analyzes organizing around two realms of policy: motherhood and the draft. She compares and contrasts the opportunities and obstacles facing social movements work on "women's" and "men's" issues in a society in political and economic transition. The book is available through Routledge Press.
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