Report from Santa Fe; Martha Burk

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This is going to give you more money to spend. . I mean, you cannot spend money on any jobs or men's jobs. We consider that women can do. In our workforce training, we are not doing as good a job as we wish we were and seeing some of those higher paying jobs are going to women.

Women are completely capable of doing most of those jobs. We are still in a mindset, I think, as a culture in general. That there are certain jobs that belong to men and certain women and usually those that we think of as belonging to women pay less. So we need to do two things. We need to get women in those better paying jobs and we need to get the employers and the other men who are doing those jobs used to the idea of working alongside a woman so that when she gets the job she's not sexually harassed or otherwise sort of hassled for being the only woman on the construction crew. I recently had to choose between a man-backhoe operator and a woman-backhoe operator and I definitely chose a woman. I was so happy to have a woman-backhoe operator digging at my septic lines. So one other thing that I'm so excited about, a way of getting more girls interested in math and science. How I know that when my daughter was little they had math and science

affairs for girls and then they mentored women scientists and I just think it's wonderful, what else can we do? Well, we need to work harder on those programs and I just have to go back for a minute to my book, What's It State for Women in 08 and Beyond because I talk about this. We have to ramp up our programs to keep girls in math and science. They drop out it around junior high. We had one very small federal program that's called the Women's Educational Equity Act, that President Bush zeroed out in two successive budgets. Why did he do it? I like to ask people to think in war dollars or war minutes. It's very easy to figure out what it cost for a program in war dollars because the war cost a half million dollars a minute. This was a six million dollar program. So we could pay for that program in 12 minutes of the war.

But the President chose to zero it out. So we can't have even small things like increasing girls in math and science unless we're willing to face reality about what we're spending our tax dollars on. And that's something that I want all women and men who care about women to think about as they go to the polls this fall. We have to decide our personal priorities and our national priorities and not be distracted by the media that they want to talk about flag burning or tort reform, something that 90% of the people never think about until they hear it on the television until it's beat to death. So that's the purpose of what we're trying to do. In your book called Your Money and Your Life, the high stakes for women of women.

How is it? High stakes for women voters in the white and beyond. You talk about the fact that women voters really do vote differently from men on, say, the top three issues, the war, the economy, and healthcare. So how do you wake up women and say, you have the power? We have the numbers. You know, this was a frustration for me that I thought we were sort of getting there when Hillary Clinton was running because women were very excited out. You have pointed out that your younger daughter didn't see the need. She was excited about Obama. I have a daughter-in-law same thing. But in general, women were starting to think like women. You know, wouldn't it be nice if we could have that child care or not be worried about losing our social security or get healthcare? Because there are 40 million people uninsured in this country. Most of them are women. And the reason is we don't have the employer provided healthcare in the same numbers as men.

Because we work part time sometimes, drop out to take care of those kids. Sometimes employers will take the women's jobs and keep them just under the hours per week required for them to get healthcare. So we know this is happening. And women vote these things in a very personal way. Men tend to take the economy. Women are all worried about, am I going to have enough grocery money next week? Men are worried about that too, but not in the same way. And if you ask them about the economy, they might answer you in terms of the stock market or drilling in the N-war. They're not going to personalize it in the same way women do. And they have to vote their own pocketbook and their own future for their daughters. So for a woman that's how many times you're making make a runny, no offense to make a runny that month. And for the man that's this abstract, the Dow dropped 200 points.

Exactly. Even if he doesn't have any stock, it's really interesting because men are just acculturated differently than women. That's part of our problem in terms of voting our own interest because we've all been taught to be caretakers. You know, vote something else. Don't vote what's important to you. Vote something that somebody else is so worried about. Right, Bernie. Exactly. But another issue that is economic in basis but is really impinge on women is food safety and then product safety. All the Chinese imports that are tainted that the children they're playing with and then the spinach outbreak, the tomato outbreak, or all that the FDA is not doing their job either. These are really important issues that affect all of us but women in particular. They are important. And one of the things of the ways that I talk about it is this appointments make a huge difference.

You know, a lot of people think, well, what difference does it make? Really, who's in the White House? Things are going to rock along. Or does it really matter if one party controls the Congress or another? What's the difference in two or three votes? It's huge because you get appointees that either care about public safety and the public good, or you get appointees that actually are in there to further say corporate interest or further deregulation where you do have more food crises. You have more tainted food because they're not enough inspectors. And that's an ideological thing that comes directly out of who is in control. So what do you want women voters to do then? I want them to educate themselves. One reason I wrote the book The Way I Did and it's a very accessible book. Women don't have time to read hundreds of pages of policy stuff. They have 10 minutes while they're waiting to pick up the kids.

So I made the book where if you want to know about child care and what's happening and not happening, you can read the child care thing. If you're waiting for a doctor and you're seeing a social security, you can read that part. You don't have to plow through hundreds of pages of deep policy to see what has happened to women, what we need to do for ourselves, and very important. At the end of every chapter, I say, here are some questions you can ask again at eight. Oh, good. Good. I want to tell people your website is www.MarthaBerkMRTHABRK.com. .org. And you have one of my favorite quotes as sort of your banner there. Tell us this quote from Emma Goldman and why you use it as implementica. Well, Emma Goldman, as you know, was a labor activist in the early 20th century and her motto was, if I can't dance, I won't come to your revolution. And I've always loved it because

I love trying to make social change but I think we should try to be happy about doing that and not be discouraged about what we don't have, but be happy about the progress we have made or the lack of progress that we've staved off, because sometimes we've flatly been in the position where we just got a hold on to what we've got. Now, I think women with this campaign and this election have a chance for a giant leap forward. So we need to celebrate that. And that's why I say, let's have a revolution, but let's dance at it. Well, I want to show our viewers your book again. Your money and your life, the high stakes for women voters in 2008 and beyond and Ms. Magazine, this is one of their choices and you are the money editor for Ms. Magazine. And I'd really like to thank you, Dr. Martha Burke, for being our guest today on report from Santa Fe. You've taught us so much. Thank you.

It's been a great pleasure. And I'm Lorraine Mills. I'd like to thank your audience for being with us today on report from Santa Fe. We'll see you next week. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by Grant Strong, the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Taos, New Mexico. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.