
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, August 21, 1995                   TAG: 9508220004
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WOMEN

IN 1990, the gush was on: It would be the ``Year of the Woman,'' the year female candidates could make the breakthrough toward equitable representation in the Congress and state legislatures. Didn't happen. Female candidates made strides, but it didn't happen again in 1992, also dubbed the ``Year of the Woman,'' or in 1994.

Now comes a United Nations report showing that American women, once the world's front-runners, have slipped behind women in several other countries in making progress toward equality. Representation in national legislative bodies is one of the tracks on which they haven't kept pace.

U.S. women ranked eighth on the U.N. ``gender empowerment measure,'' which assesses women's share of economic and political power. On this GEM index, they are behind women in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand and The Netherlands.

In the Nordic countries, the report notes, female representation in national parliaments is about 40-45 percent. By contrast, American women account for less than 8 percent of the membership of Congress, despite the fact that women make up a majority of voters in this country.

Number of seats held in Congress may not seem as significant as other areas where U.S. women are trailing: in their share of earned income, for example, or in their share of administrative, managerial, professional and technical jobs. But the skew in political leadership can't be dismissed as irrelevant. Earnings-and-jobs issues are linked in many ways to pubic policy. If American women have not enough say on the latter, they may find themselves losing ground on the former.

Overall, the U.N. report is not upbeat about progress women have made anywhere in the world. The Nordic countries were praised for working hard in the past two decades to advance women's rights. But the report concluded: ``In no society today do women enjoy the same opportunities as men.''

Meantime, a consensus has emerged in the international development community that the key to fighting poverty, promoting family planning and spurring economic growth in Third World nations is to focus on the educational advancement and economic opportunities of women. It wouldn't hurt in the developed nations, either.

While the report suggests that societies worldwide may be poised for a major leap in economic growth, it warns that this won't happen as long as doors to political and economic power are only partly open to women.

So enough phony-baloney Years of the Woman. More rapid progress in women's status is needed, however one measures "gender empowerment."

by CNB