It has been 99 years since the first Women’s Day was observed in February, 1909. In 1975 the United Nations proclaimed March 8 as Women’s Day. Today women in Spain are on strike, banging pots and telling men to fix their own dinners. Women in the Ukraine are holding signs that say, “We are Wonder Women.” In France the daily newspaper Libération is charging women the usual 2 euros, but men must pay 2.5 euros to highlight the disparity between men’s and women’s pay.

In 1909, about 15,000 women marched in New York for the right to vote, for better pay and for a shorter workday. Women earned the right to vote the next year, and their pay and workdays have improved since that time. However, women, who are about half the workforce and earn more college and graduate degrees than men, still only earn 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. For women of color, the situation is even worse. If the amount paid to women improves at its current rate, white women will reach parity with men by 2059. Black women would have to wait until 2124 and Hispanic women until 2233.

That is the discouraging news, but there is encouraging news as well. I only have to look at the amazing women in my own family to know that we are making progress.

This is my sister Stephanie, who served as a nurse in Vietnam, and then ran her own business.

This is my niece Sharmel, who endeavored to provide food to developing countries, and now works in the State Department.

These are my granddaughters, ice skating when they were 19 and 20 years old. Almost a decade later, Joanna (on the left) is completing her Ph.D. and is a fantastic mother. Elizabeth (in the center) just opened her own restaurant in Los Angeles, and Phoebe (on the right) works in publishing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. All are accomplished women.

As I sit here in my purple shirt, one of the suffragists’ colors, I do seethe a bit at how much progress we still need to make, but I bask in the knowledge that so many women today have come so far.

(I haven’t published any political blogs before, but I found my experience this week so empowering I had to share.)

Does one vote count? Is one voice heard? It’s easy to be discouraged but heed the event that occurred this very week in the state of Washington.

LAST WEEK: THE BAD NEWS

Washington has an open-records act that requires elected officials to conduct their business on behalf of the voters publicly. (Perhaps that’s why they are called “public” officials?) For decades the legislature has maintained that they are exempt, but last September media outlets sued the Washington legislature to obtain records. A county judge ruled that the legislature did have to abide by the open-records act. Over a period of 48 hours, the legislature passed a bill exempting themselves from most of the act. In particular they voted that legislators could withhold their calendars, emails, and any harassment complaints. This was passed by 84% in the Senate and 86% in the House—without any floor debate or public hearings.

The Governor said he would decide whether to sign the bill or to just let it sit on his desk for a few days when it would automatically become law because of his inaction. He saw no point in vetoing the bill as the vote had been “veto-proof.”

THIS WEEK: THE GOOD NEWS

Newspapers across the state printed editorials on their front pages condemning the action by the legislature. My local paper, The Seattle Times, had a full-page spread with the pictures and contact information for every legislator and the governor. I contacted both of my representatives, my senator, and the governor.

The Governor’s Office received over 20,000 phone calls, letters, and emails in just a few days. The outcry was unprecedented. Apparently, the legislators must have had a similar response. (Who knows exactly, since they don’t release information about their activities?) By the end of this week many of them contacted the governor and said they thought the bill should be rethought.

The Governor vetoed the bill and the legislature did not take a second vote to override. A task force, including the media, will be established to work through another version of the bill within the next nine months. It will apply to the legislature in 2019. (Who knew public records law was so complicated?)

THE MESSAGE TO TAKE TO HEART:

Yes, 20,000 responses are a lot. Yes, it was a larger number of responses than the Governor expected, but consider this: A response of 20,000 people represents less than ½ of one percent of the voters in the State of Washington. The voice of those 20,000, however, was loud, swift, and persistent.

Take heart, women who are pushing for more change. Take heart, young voters who are becoming politically active. Organize, move forward, persist. One voice can be heard when joined with just a few others.

Tammy Duckworth will be the First Woman in the U.S. Senate to give birth while in office. Senator Duckworth is surprised at the attention she has received since announcing her pregnancy. “It is somewhat ridiculous,” she says, “that it’s 2018 and this is such big news.”

In a recent interview Senator Duckworth explainedd that there is no maternity leave policy for the Senate, so she is “working with the administration of the Senate to set some of the ground rules and develop the policy. I guess when you’re the first one, you have the opportunity to really push to set what the rules are for everyone.” She might have added that First Women often see this opportunity as an obligation, to work for the women following them.

The fact is that Senator Duckworth will receive twelve weeks paid leave, but this is only because that is the policy in her own office. All her staffers are eligible for the paid leave. Other offices in the Senate set their own leave policies, and not all are as generous.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides 12 weeks of leave for birth or adoption, but there is no mandate for employers to pay employees during the leave. For many employees this leave is unpaid. Each employer can decide how to support the benefit, and Senators are considered individual employers. Vicki Shabo, of National Partnership for Women and Families says, “Congressional staff are at the mercy of their employer and are really part of a boss lottery.”

Senator Duckworth is also a disabled veteran who served in Iraq, the First Woman double amputee in the armed services. She joins four other women serving in Congress who are combat veterans.

Duckworth will not be the First Woman to give birth while serving in Congress. Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, the First African-American Woman elected to the House of Representatives from California, gave birth in office in 1973; but it was twenty-two years before another woman gave birth while in Congress. You can count on your fingers the number of births to women serving in the entire history of the Congress.

Although the numbers are small, it may be progress for an institution that did not even provide a restroom for women Senators until the 1960’s, and then only two stalls in a converted closet. As late as 2013, it required a public outcry from the twenty women Senators before they received upgraded facilities. Perhaps paid leave for childbirth, both in the Senate and in the nation, is another opportunity for public outcry from our legislative leaders. This is not a battle Senator Duckworth should have to wage alone.

“Vivaldi’s Church” and the Ospedale della Pietà in Modern Times

The week before Christmas, a unique magic filled the concert scene in Seattle—not with Santa and holiday carols, but with women musicians and Vivaldi’s music. Thanks to Early Music Seattle, two performances of Vivaldi’s Magnificat, Laetatus Sum, and Gloria, along with two concerti, were performed by an all-women orchestra and choirs.  

Many do not realize that Antonio Vivaldi wrote his choral and instrumental pieces to be performed by women, young orphan girls, along with a few older women who remained at the orphanage for life. After years of studying Vivaldi and his works, it was a joy beyond belief, to hear a performance as he intended, with women musicians.

Vivaldi’s choral music has parts for tenors and basses and there has been some debate about how those parts were performed in the eighteenth century. Some cite historical references to girls with deep voices; others maintain the girls sang the tenor and bass parts in a woman’s natural range, one octave higher. The latter path was chosen for this concert. I had wondered whether this juxtaposition of voices might interfere with the melody. I now know it does not.

In Vivaldi’s day, the girls would have performed behind a grille, ostensibly to protect the girls’ virginity. There was no grille in the First Baptist Church, but the women were equally anonymous, in black from toe to neck. A spacious sanctuary curves toward the audience, with space for choirs in back and instrumentalists tucked neatly between railings.

Their baroque instruments added to the authenticity of the performance. There were cellos without end pins, requiring the two cellists to grasp the cellos and support them between their legs. There was a trumpet without valves and a lute whose neck was probably taller than my full height.

Just before the concert the singers, in long, black dresses, processed down the aisle. The Seattle Girls Choir and a chorus of adult women filed in silently. The conductor, Monica Huggett, bounded onto the stage. The coattails on her black suit danced and her curly, silver hair bobbed around her head like an aura.

With feet planted firmly, Huggett used her entire body to conduct, rotating knees, hips, arms, and head. Her hands were like an ocean, flowing back and forth, then striking the shore with short blows, punctuating Vivaldi’s frenetic sixteenth notes. At times she reached out her hands in a majestic curve that felt like an embrace of every musician spread out before her. Never have I seen a male conductor imbue this posture with such welcoming warmth.

In the pieces where Huggett also played the violin, much as Vivaldi might have done, she used her instrument to signal the performers. A sweep of her bow out and in again, set the tempo, and then she conducted with the violin’s neck, shrugged shoulders and her bobbing head.

The instrumentalists were superb, especially Debra Nagy, the oboe soloist. The singing voices were precise with clear enunciation and beautiful intonation, in particular the pure sound of the younger girls in the Seattle Girls Choir, whose voices floated toward us as a single voice. It was easy to imagine them as angels, beneath the lighted Christmas trees, garlands, and wreaths.

Before the concert I spoke with Gus Denhard, the talented baroque musician and successful executive director of Early Music Seattle.

“It was a wonderful process,” he told me. “It was amazing to watch their preparation. It was so. . .” And after a slight pause, “Collaborative.”

“Oh,” I said, “You mean the way women work.”

“Exactly,” he said.

The collaborative spirit extended beyond the Seattle performance across state and international lines, as the project was supported by Early Music Vancouver, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Early Music Seattle, and Early Music Society of the Islands (Victoria).

In Seattle a standing ovation seems to be an expression of appreciation for musical effort, rather than a recognition of excellence, as Seattle audiences bounce to their feet after almost every performance. For this performance, however, I was delighted to stand and applaud these talented women who stoked a fire into dead history and set a blaze of sound throughout the church.

The quality of the performance was not due to gender, but demonstrated that gender does not determine musical skill. In a decidedly female moment, after one concerto, the two soloists Nagy and Huggett, leaned in and kissed each other’s cheeks. I wish I could have kissed them all.