As promised, here is the talk I gave at the retreat I attended last weekend. Please help spread the word! Thanks.
Oklahoma has been ranked the
third worst state for women in the nation. Alarmed by reports on the
low status of women in Oklahoma, three years ago concerned women -- along with women's groups and women-serving organizations across Oklahoma -- came together to launch the
Oklahoma Women's Coalition.
The Coalition is a 501c3 focused on improving the potential for women and girls in Oklahoma through education and advocacy. We have working committees on
aging, education, girls, health, incarceration, violence, and work and family issues. We've hosted forums on domestic violence, incarceration, aging, and legislation impacting women and girls.
We are a community partner on the "5320"
Shape Your Future state health initiative and last May we co-hosted a statewide conference on incarceration that produced a
State Action Plan for bringing the rate of incarceration of women to the national average by 2020. To help implement the Action Plan, we helped found and are members of
Count the Costs -- a nonpartisan, statewide effort to promote evidence-based strategies that lower the incarceration rate of non-violent offenders in Oklahoma.
Each spring, we read every bill in the Oklahoma Legislature and assign those that impact women or girls to one of our seven working committees. They vet the bills and recommend to our Advocacy Committee and
Board of Directors bills the Coalition might support.
We are a mainstream, moderate group. Our 25-member board is intentionally half Republican, half Democrat and we count among our initial supporters statewide political leaders including Dana Murphy, Susan Winchester, Jari Askins and Governor Mary Fallin. We support issues and legislation we believe both Republicans and Democrats can embrace. For that reason, we do not take a position on bills dealing with abortion or other highly controversial issues.
In the past two years we have supported bills, funding strategies and administrative policy changes that deal with domestic violence, women's health, incarceration, bullying, health education, and job discrimination practices. This year we are supporting four bills but our top priority now is passing House Speaker Kris Steele's corrections reform effort --
HB 2131.
As part of our educational efforts, we asked Governor Mary Fallin to declared April 12, 2011 "Women and Girls Day in Oklahoma" (you can
view her proclamation by clicking here). That day over 140 Coalition supporters lobbied our legislators in support of HB 2131 during our
3rd annual Advocacy Day at the State Capitol.
Not a lot of bills get introduced that specifically target Oklahoma women. This may be related to the fact that Oklahoma ranks 49th in the number of women serving in the state Legislature. That is why, on April 11, 2011, the Coalition and
INTEGRIS Health hosted a "Leading Ladies Reception" to honor Oklahoma women in elective and appointive office and encourage women to run for public office (
learn more and see photos by clicking here). We hope in years to come that the Coalition will be in a position to suggest to legislators programs and initiatives the Legislature might consider that positively impact women. In other words, we look forward to moving from being largely reactive to more pro-active on women's issues.
For example, we are working on a project to help low-income single-mothers in Oklahoma improve their economic status. In Oklahoma, one out of four families with children under the age of 18 is headed by a single-mother. Nearly half (45 percent) of those single-mother headed households are living below the federal poverty line. One in four children in Oklahoma (217,874) live in a female-headed household and half of those children (111,514) live below the poverty line. So raising single-mothers out of poverty would have a very positive impact on our state. The Coalition is part of a team including the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education and University of Oklahoma faculty charged with bringing to the
Women's Foundation of Oklahoma this June recommendations for programs they can fund that will increase the number of low-income single-mothers attending and graduating from college.
While present rankings and statistics on the status of Oklahoma's women and girls is troubling, we believe prospects for improvement are good. I hope you will consider
becoming a supporting member of the Oklahoma Women's Coalition.
