By Morgen D’Arc
Co-Founder, Co-Spokesperson and Former Co-Chair, National Women’s Caucus; Chair, Cumberland County Green Party; 2002 Candidate for Cumberland County Register of Deeds; National Green Party Delegate, 2002-2006 and 2007-present, Maine
First One Hundred Days Of A Green Administration
Women: Rights, Issues And Conditions. A Breakthrough Agenda
A Green administration in Washington D.C. will launch the first mandate for women that the United States has ever known. It will reflect a comprehensive Green plan that highlights constitutional equal rights and an administration tone and orientation that in seriously addressing the problems for women that stem from inequality will also positively impact the attitudes of people toward women that together will work to achieve the issues detailed in the Women’s Rights section of the Green Party Platform and other Green positions to improve conditions for women in the United States. http://gp.org/platform/2004/socjustice.html#998980
The United States, as the richest country in the world and a leading model of democracy, has never taken the opportunity it has always had to lead by example to the rest of the world for achieving equality, safety and quality of life for women. In nearly 100 years of acquiring the right to vote, women total only 15% of congress, earn only 70% of male pay, comprise the largest most severe segment of poverty in the country, are battered, raped and killed in domestic and other violence in staggering numbers including in the military and by returning soldiers. The U.S. still has a large number of women trafficked under violent and slave conditions for forced sex, which is rape.
A Green administration will prove its agenda for women by establishing a Department of Women to which significant funds are appropriated and which the department’s head officer directly reports to and advises the President. This department will represent women domestically as well as in international relations and initiatives regarding women. It will work closely with all organizations relating to women and be a tri-partisan department.
Within the first one hundred days of a Green administration, the President will announce the Department of Women and present a detailed plan for the new department along with a request for substantial funding. Action will be taken to ratify international CEDAW, the Committee to Eliminate Discrimination for all Women, of which the U.S. is the only industrial nation withholding ratification. The administration will announce intent and take immediate steps to prioritize passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) which after nearly 90 years still needs three more states to pass.
On day one and in the Inaugural Speech, the Green president will devote a significant amount of time to the Green administration initiative on women and send a message to the U.S. and to the world of change that will uplift attitudes, create a new tone for concrete progress and go down in history as the turning point for women. A Green administration will lead the world by example, a model of progress for women from the most powerful country on earth. The way it should be.