On tonight’s program we feature 36th Congressional district candidates Marcy Winograd, Debra Bowen, and Janice Hahn, three progressive women who face off on May 17 in a special election to replace Jane Harman for a discussion/ debate of the issues and we promise they will get a chance to discuss their views beyond the talking points. This election will be the first in California’s new all-party primary: if no candidate wins a majority of votes outright, the top two vote getters advance to a special general election on July 12.
Stephanie Coontz joins us to discuss her new book, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s. It couldn’t come at a more appropriate time – last Friday a shutdown of the government was barely averted and it came down to funding of Planned Parenthood. We may have come a long way, but the White House’s comprehensive statistical report just released on “Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being” – the first assessment since 1963 – shows that women still earn less on average than men and are more likely to live in poverty, are at much greater risk of sexual assault and violence at the hands of an intimate partner. There is no one who could better address the new attack on women than Stephanie Coontz, whose many books have chronicled and analyzed the ongoing fight for equality.
Read More for info on tonight's guests:
1. Marcy Winograd is the co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Progressive Democrats of America. In her 2010 bid to unseat Jane Harman in the 36th congressional district, Marcy Winograd mobilized 41% of the vote with her Jobs, not Wars platform.
2. Debra Bowen: Now in her second term as California’s 30th Secretary of State, Debra previously served six years in the State Assembly (1992-1998) and eight years in the State Senate (1998-2006). A longtime privacy rights and government transparency advocate, Debra was the first California legislator in 1995 to voluntarily put her campaign finance reports online.
3. Janice Hahn is a member of the Los Angeles City Council representing the 15th district. Hahn was elected in 2001 and re-elected in 2005 and 2009. She is currently serving a third and final term in the Los Angeles City Council. The 15th District encompasses the Los Angeles communities of Watts, Wilmington, Harbor Gateway, Harbor City, Athens on the Hill, and San Pedro.
4. Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and is Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families, which she chaired from 2001-04. She edited American Families: A Multicultural Reader (Routledge, 2008). They include Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage (2005), The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (1992 and 2000), The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America's Changing Families (1997), and The Social Origins of Private Life: A History of American Families. Her writings have been translated into French, Arabic, Spanish, Russian, Czech, German, Norwegian, Turkish, Greek, Chinese, Ukrainian, and Japanese.
