Karen Heller: Women's issues need action now

Lynn Yeakel announced yesterday the launch of Vision 2020, a national "two-day conversation about women and leadership" to be held in Philadelphia

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October. The meeting will launch a decadelong movement toward gender equality in time to celebrate the centennial of women's right to vote - 11 years from now.

So, it was an announcement of a dialogue of an ideal.

Yeakel, you may recall, is the only Pennsylvania woman in not-so-recent memory to make a serious run for higher office, challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in 1992, when he was feeling GOPish. (She also ran in the very crowded 1994 Democratic gubernatorial primary.)

The Senate race occurred during "the year of the woman," the Vision 2020 announcement notes, as if women have only one year, while guys get all the rest. This may be true, but do you have to rub it in? That year may have been a response to the unwomanly year before, when Specter was tagged to fillet and fry Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

What a difference so many years can make. Now there are no women running for governor or senator.

This ensures that Pennsylvania's all-male record, the Augusta National of politics, goes unbroken.

Meanwhile, only two women serve in the 19-member U.S. House delegation. In the state legislature, there are 10 women out of 50 senators, 27 out of 203 House representatives, a whopping 14 percent, making Pennsylvania 46th in the nation in legislative gender equality.

Then again, women opting not to spend months in Harrisburg may be a sign of intellectual superiority.

"I don't think women run because the state is very entrenched in terms of structure," Yeakel says. "We need to learn to think and act like the majority that we are. That's really one of the goals of this dialogue, addressing not only barriers that are external, but internal barriers as well."

If this isn't the year of the woman, it certainly is the week. On Thursday, the Pennsylvania Commission for Women will hold its annual all-day Governor's Conference for Women at the Convention Center, featuring financial-empowerment guru Suze Orman and a job fair. What does the governor, mired as he is in the budget, know about the nine steps to financial freedom?

Tickets are $125, though a two-tickets-for-$180 special runs through tomorrow. The meeting, which receives no government funding, last year attracted 5,000 people.

"This conference is about women really coming together, helping other women to become inspired, understanding that they can do this," says executive director Leslie Stiles. "They can start their own business. They don't have to be underserved in the workplace."

Why does Pennsylvania need a special commission on women when we're 51.3 percent of the state? "We're heightening the issues of women at risk, especially health and for the underserved," Stiles says. The governor also has advisory commissions on African American, Latino, and Asian American affairs, and rural affairs.

The women's commission, founded in 1974, has a staff of three and disseminates health kiosks, motivational books, and history brochures. Last year's budget was $327,000. The governor asked that this year's funding be reduced by 25 percent. Then the Republican-controlled Senate, which has such deep and abiding love for the Democratic governor, proposed eliminating funding for all special commissions. Stiles is hopeful a budget will be restored, though she may need that job fair herself.

We've got progress for some, but not parity. The median annual earnings of full-time female workers is 77 percent of what men make. The majority shouldn't need special commissions, job fairs, motivational speakers. I just wish there were more robust, active ways to achieve success - honestly, more manly routes that fully engage both genders in effecting change now - than so much talk, planning for the long term, and boundless good intentions.