CPA News Releases, Advisories, and Editorials

Washington, D.C. — The Center for Policy Alternatives, the nation’s leading policy and leadership development center, will partner with Lifetime Television, the premier cable network for women, to launch Women’s Voices 2000 — the most comprehensive polling project of women of this election cycle. This project will provide the most in-depth analysis of the issues women care about and the values that underlie them. The difference in voting patterns of men and women – the “gender gap” is a matter of winning or losing elections. In 1996, the women’s vote clearly decided the fate of the Presidential election with a 16 point gender difference for Clinton. What will happen in 2000 is not so clear.

Evidence from the last three Presidential elections shows that women participate more fully in elections when issues they care about are discussed. “This poll will powerfully amplify women’s voices and shine a bright spotlight on a new set of solutions – as well as engage a new generation of voters and community leaders,” states Linda Tarr-Whelan, President of the Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA).

About Women’s Voices 2000

Women’s Voices 2000 is a comprehensive polling, research, leadership, communications and organizing initiative that was the first of its kind to ask women about their values and policy concerns. Women’s Voices is unique in that it’s led by a bi-partisan, multicultural set of public opinion experts. (Celinda Lake of Lake Snell Perry & Associates is a leading Democratic pollster; Linda Divall is a top Republican pollster of American View Point; and Linda Williams is a nationally renowned political scientist and expert on race and gender from the University of Maryland.) Women’s Voices 2000 will be comprised of a series of focus groups to be released prior to the political conventions and a national poll to be released in September 2000. The findings will look not only at the concerns of women today, but will also look at trends on issues such as equal pay, gun violence and balancing family and work, drawing upon the data from the Women’s Voices projects in 1992 and 1996. It will lift the critical issues facing our economy, families and communities into the presidential election process and policy decisions in the future.

Amplifying the voices of women — in both their unity and diversity — and combining that with the power of women leaders offers hope for new leadership for a better future for families and communities. A critical mass of women leaders is moving to the top of government (particularly in the states), corporations, and small business. Women-owned businesses now employ more Americans than the Fortune 500 worldwide. And women are almost half the U.S. workforce. Women and men bring demonstrated differences in approach on the role of government in helping to solve problems in partnership with business and the community. The consensus of women can help move solutions on issues such as family economic security.

About the Center for Policy Alternatives

CPA has a broad-based bi-partisan network of women elected leaders and grassroots advocates in all 50 states that are active partners in advancing an economic agenda that invests in the power and potential of women and their families and communities. CPA has worked for more than two decades to identify and address the concerns of American women. In CPA’s research on America’s Economic Agenda: Women’s Voices for Solutions, released in April 1998, the ideas and work of more than 100 women leaders who participated in the April 1997 Women’s Economic Leadership Summit cosponsored by CPA and the White House are reflected.

America’s Economic Agenda blueprint for policy action rests on four core principles:

1. Economic Security and Opportunity. Help families achieve stability and increased opportunity.
2. Entrepreneurship. Open doors to entrepreneurship so workers can fully participate in today’s economy on their own terms.
3. Health and Safety. Ensure affordable, quality health care and security for families.
4. Family and Work. Ease the strains Americans face in balancing family and work with policies that are flexible, accessible and affordable.

LIFETIME Television is dedicated to providing the highest quality entertainment and informational programming for women. LIFETIME is available on more than 11,000 cable systems and alternative delivery systems nationwide, serving over 75 million households. The Lifetime Movie Network is a 24-hour service launched in July, 1998. Learn more about both networks on the Lifetime Online site. LIFETIME Television and Lifetime Movie Network are part of LIFETIME Entertainment Services, a 50/50 joint venture of The Hearst Corporation and The Walt Disney Company.

Women’s Voices 2000 is made possible by the generous support of Lifetime Television, Ford Foundation, BellSouth Corporation, Ms. Foundation, Hunt Alternatives Fund, Nokomis, Brico Fund and Chambers Family Fund.

Interview opportunities: To schedule an interview with Linda Tarr-Whelan, CPA President and Ambassador to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, about Women’s Voices, the gender gap, leadership and progressive policy movement across the states, contact Kristina Wilfore at 202/387-6030 x. 141. For more information about CPA, refer to our web site at www.stateaction.org.

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