20 Million Women, 20 Million Reasons

In one year, we have one of the most significant elections of our lifetime. When you hear the candidates on TV or see them as they stump through your hometown, do you feel like they are talking to you? In 2000 it became very clear to me that one group felt invisible in the electoral process -- women on their own.

Through my research, I found that in 2000, 22 million single women felt so invisible within the electoral process that they did not vote. This number made unmarried women the largest group of eligible non-voters in the U.S. As a women who's devoted her life to civic participation, I found this fact staggering. Twenty million more voters and their voices could have had a huge impact. In fact, unmarried women are nine percent points less likely to register and 13 percent points less likely to vote than their married sisters.

I founded Women's Voices. Women Vote in an effort to figure out how to reach unmarried women and encourage them to have their voices heard. In their day-to-day lives, surely these women knew of their individual power, but with WVWV I wanted to convince them of their individual and collective power to shape our nation. What we've found at WVWV is that they will vote if they feel people are listening and understand their lives. They will also vote when we make it easier. Since 2004 WVWV's outreach combined with it's unique approach to messaging to these women culturally, rather than politically, has helped get more and more women to the polls.

This week, WVWV is kicking-off our largest voter registration effort yet- with a goal of registering more than one million women on their own before the '08 election. Our "20 Million Reasons" PSA campaign -- featuring actors like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Christine Lahti, along side dozens of real women like single mom Candice Clark, 18-year-old magician Farrah Siegel and 87-year-old widow Tina Gainsbrough, shows unmarried women they truly have the power to decide who sits in the nation's highest office.

A lot has changed since 2000. For the first time in the U.S. history, single heads of households outnumber married heads of households, and women on their own are equal in number to married women. They represent 26 percent of the eligible voting population. If these women respond to the work of WVWV and vote -- imagine the possibilities.

Please watch our PSAs on our website. We hope that you will share these as widely as possible. We want more and more voices of women participating in the process and making sure that their concerns and interests are addressed as we go into this historic election.

Comments

[Merg]

Oop I meant GWB not GHB

[NorCalNative]

Page, I wish you the best in your efforts. All Americans would benefit from having the voices of these women heard. It is difficult for me to understand this apathy because I have always considered voting a patriotic duty.

If we are to get the full potential from the women of America, I believe the time is overripe for FREE childcare and FREE healthcare for those that need it for as long as they need it. An over-worked and over-stressed population has neither the time or inclination to become politically motivated.

[THISTLE]

Young women don't vote, another sad commentary
on what's wrong with this country.

[Phidippides]

Very good commercials. My favorite is the Single Woman Vote, but they're all good. I also like the one with all the women in the Oval Office. Where are the daughters of Lysistrata when we need them so badly? I hope your campaign helps.

[Merg]

Especially important to the younger women voters. Your reproductive freedoms are at stake here because of the possibility of Supreme court appointments. And, if you think you can't be subject to the draft when GHB starts another war and we don't have anymore volutary recruits...think again.

[traveler501]

Meanwhile, it was the lack of participation of unmarried women that helped give us the Bush Debacle. How about stepping up and being responsible! (sorry, but who doesn't feel "invisible" these days...some "hells" are worse than other...get up off your butts and vote!).

[LindaJay]

Page, thank you for the very important work you are doing. I'm a single woman, and I do vote. But I know that many others do not. It's astounding to me, because the power of this many women who have a very different view of life than the usual power elite could impel some very dramatic changes.

[desertdweller]

I am a man. However, it is not at all difficult for me to see how the outcome of the next election will bear direct impact on women in terms of affordable health care, reproductive rights, children's issues, the environment, and national security. I believe that all of the present Democratic candidates are sensitive to women's issues, and are therefore worthy of support. Let's not forget the importance of solidifying the majorities in both the house and senate to ensure that progressive legislation, near and dear to the hearts of men, women, and children, is passed.

[oldpotsmuggler]

Women’s Voices Women Vote is an organization that really needs to give some serious consideration to supporting a movement to create The Second American Constitutional Convention. It truly is imperative that we restructure government in this country if we are going to make anything close to the maximum progress in aligning our political life with our social life. As stated, one thing that keeps people from participating in our politics is the sense that there just is not any stake in it for them, but this does not apply uniquely to women. It is this reality, basically, that accounts for the fact that "none of the above" has out scored every presidential candidate (and usually the entire field of them) for my whole life.

This may seem elementary but by far the best way to give people the sense that the system has something to offer them is to give them a voice in creating a system that does offer them something. And it's not enough to say "turn out and vote" if every election presents so many of us with only the choice of picking the least bad of the two candidates.

We can clearly do better than that but we never will if we don't at least try. And the disenfranchised will never have their voices heard unless we make an effort to create a forum where that is actually one of the expressed goals taken into consideration in the design process. A Constitutional Convention is supposed to be, and can be a place for a society to come together and have an all encompassing conservation with itself. If we have a Convention that is broad based enough to allow for expression of every viewpoint in our society it seems to me to clearly follow that we will have an event that the entire country will pay attention to in ways that have never occurred before.

If you want to see people turn out to vote, let’s stir the melting pot with a big spoon and a powerful effort and then watch how many people turn out.

[frustratedinohio]

I am a single woman and I vote. In the last two elections I did feel as though I was wasting my time, but I still voted and I hoped that things would change. Single women have been so neglected though I can see why they don't bother and they really don't have much time either. Hopefully, 2008 will change that. Single women, all women, have a reason to vote--to vote for a woman. Hillary can clean up this mess.