Recognizing Women’s History Month, New Deal 2.0 tells the surprising story of how women became citizens -- and how their economic lives have evolved along with their rights. Allida Black urges action on UN Resolution 1325, which ensures equal citizenship for women across the globe.

The monumental elections of Presidents Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia), Roza Otunbayeva (Krygyzstan), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), and Prime Minister Julia Gillard (Australia) and the game-changing appointments of Dr. Michelle Bachelet as Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNWomen and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State proved that women can govern, run preeminent human rights organizations, set international policy, and place women at the center of diplomacy, development, and peace.

But the question remains -- if women can be president, why can't they be citizens? Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and in rights." Yet it took another twenty years after its signing to get the international conventions on political and civil rights and on economic, social and cultural rights -- and, in the United States, another twenty plus years for Congress to adopt legislation ensuring women's political and economic rights. It took another thirteen years for the United Nations to ratify (without the support of the United States) the Convention to End All Forms of Discrimination against Women. And in 2011, the US House of Representatives and other foreign governing bodies still toy with legislation essential to women's identities, ranging from limiting access to reproductive health services and marriage to crafting sentencing guidelines that treat girls and women as felons and charges those that have abducted and abused them with misdemeanors.

In a 1946 column, written before she joined the UN Commission on Human Rights, Eleanor Roosevelt urged women to "call on the Governments of the world to encourage women everywhere to take a more conscious part in national and international affairs, and on women to come forward and share in the work of peace and reconstruction as they did in the war and resistance." More than fifty years later, at the dawn of a new century, the UN Security Council -- pressured by a well-organized international women's lobby, Hillary Clinton, and other stateswomen and embarrassed by the rampant use of rape and genital dismemberment as tools of war -- adopted Resolution 1325. It urged "Member States to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict."

Sign up to have the Daily Digest, a witty take on the morning’s most important headlines, delivered straight to your inbox.

Now ten years later, the campaign -- indeed the struggle -- to enforce this resolution rages across the United States as much as it does across Egypt or the Congo or Afghanistan.

It is tempting to construct this resolution narrowly -- to see it as a tool of armistice rather than reconstruction, as a vehicle to protect women rather than empower them. To do so, to paraphrase Albus Dumbledore, would be to do what is easy rather than what is right.

UN1325 is on the front line in the campaign for women's citizenship. It is a battle to ensure that economic, social and cultural rights cannot be divorced from, or considered separately from, political and civil rights. It is the struggle to reclaim democracy promotion away from post-Cold War politics, self-interested development and the campaign against terror and place it at the heart of citizen participation.

Just as important, it is a campaign to ensure women's rights as citizens as much as it is a campaign to force governments to act responsibly to all its citizens. While equality and human dignity have no sex, policy designed without taking stock of gender differences often perpetuates discrimination.

As Eleanor Roosevelt would say, both citizens and governments must "recognize that the goal of full participation in the life and responsibilities of their countries and of the world community is a common objective" and one "which the women of the world should assist one another" in achieving.

Allida Black is a director of the Roosevelt Institute and founded the Eleanor Roosevelt Project.

Remembering Women’s History Month and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, New Deal 2.0 tells the surprising story of how women became citizens — and how their economic lives have evolved along with their rights. Eileen Boris explores how household workers get the shaft -- and why they are fighting back.

In time for Women's History month, the White House Council on Women and Girls has issued "Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being." This statistical survey, proclaimed as the first such report in fifty years, calls for "raising the visibility of women's lives, as well as thinking strategically about how to address these challenges." Notably missing is any mention of household workers, those who make it possible for other women to go out to their jobs by cleaning houses, cooking dinner, bathing children, and aiding the aged. These workers largely stand outside the law -- and the White House agenda. But their mobilization for respect and decent work challenges both the economic violence perpetuated in homes and conventional understandings of what is work and who deserves worker rights.

A half century ago, the President's Commission on the Status of Women offered a broader vision than today's Council. Kennedy-era labor feminists considered not only the bare facts of employment, but advocated moving domestic service from the personalistic realm of mistress and maid to the modern regime of labor law, recognizing it as a valuable occupation. The Women's Bureau, along with prominent organizations of black, Jewish, and Catholic women, relaunched the depression-era National Committee of Household Employment (NCHE) to improve working conditions in private households. NCHE promoted a voluntary "Code of Standards" with provisions for minimum wages, overtime, Social Security, sick leave, paid holidays, and a "professional" working relationship. It sought inclusion of private household workers in the New Deal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Under black activist Edith Barksdale-Sloan, the NCHE organized the Household Technicians of America as a national association of domestic workers dedicated to "winning good wages and benefits, raising consciousness and educating consumers of domestic services." In 1974, private household workers won minimum wage under FLSA, though the same amendments removed elder companions, today's home care workers, from the law. The reorganization of domestic employment and ebbing of social movements in the next decade stalled further improvements.

Now thousands of household workers are on the move again -- creating ethnic and community-based associations, demanding dignity and living wages from employers, and lobbying governments for rights as workers. During the last fifteen years, in California, Maryland, and New York, immigrant and U.S. born women of color have built upon the example of worker centers and engaged in grassroots organizing to form associations that reach housekeepers, nannies, and elder caregivers in individual homes. They enhanced worker empowerment through education, leadership training, and service provision. They engaged in street actions denouncing employers who withhold food as well as payment, who abuse bodies and curtail physical movement. Like the NCHE, they issued voluntary codes of conduct and standards for decent work. They have sought legal as well as political redress.

Sign up to have the Daily Digest, a witty take on the morning’s most important headlines, delivered straight to your inbox.

About six years ago, coalitions in California and New York City began pushing for a "Domestic Worker's Bill of Rights." In New York, the multi-ethnic Domestic Workers United and its allies, notably Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, petitioned, marched, and lobbied the legislature. Last September, Democratic Governor David Patterson signed such a framework for greater security. The pioneering New York bill guaranteed a living wage, paid sick and vacation days, and health benefits.

Though Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar measure in 2006, the California Domestic Worker Coalition -- composed of grassroots organizations like Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and Mujeres Unidas y Activas in the Bay area -- has returned with a new bill. The Domestic Work Employee Equality, Fairness, and Dignity Act of 2011 (AB 889) places household workers under the state's labor code, including worker compensation, occupational health and safety, overtime, meal and rest breaks, and pay reporting. Sensitive to cultural preferences, it calls for the availability of kitchens for personal food preparation. Additionally, the bill authorizes eight hours of uninterrupted sleep for 24-hour and live-in workers, paid sick and vacation days, termination notice, and cost of living increases. In treating domestic labor like other jobs, it resembles the "Decent Work for Domestic Workers" convention set for final approval by the International Labor Organization next June, for which the National Domestic Workers Alliance has help secure U.S. support.

Workers hired by families are using the state to transform private labors into public work. But one group of household laborers remains apart -- those paid by governments to care for needy elderly and disabled people. The California proposal explicitly excludes In Home Supportive Service workers, the type of worker whose omission from federal law the Supreme Court upheld in 2007 and the Obama administration has yet to rectify through new labor regulations. Meanwhile, Republican governors, as in Wisconsin, are eliminating collective bargaining for home care workers. An irony of current struggles might be that these public employees end up with fewer rights and poorer conditions than those who labor for individual housewives.

Eileen Boris is Hull Professor and Chair, Department of Feminist Studies, University of California Santa Barbara. With Jennifer Klein, she is the author of the forthcoming Caring for America: Home Health Workers under the Shadow of the Welfare State.

Remembering Women’s History Month and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, New Deal 2.0 tells the surprising story of how women became citizens — and how their economic lives have evolved along with their rights. Barbara Arnwine explains why we've not yet entered a "post-gender" world when it comes to women's status in the workplace.

Women's History Month is a very special time to reflect upon both the particular challenges that women continue to face in the workplace and upon the new opportunities that will arise for economic equity. It's also a time is to appreciate the struggles of the Sheroes who came before us who opened the doors of opportunity.

It is up to us to recognize the significance of being women and also the importance of being a part of a broader collective that lifts the stature of everyone - male and female. We must ask ourselves, how do we both acknowledge the persistent disparities and concerns of the past while also looking to the future for continued upward mobility for all? Gender-based issues of increasing unemployment, job silos, unequal pay, sexual harassment and the "Old Boys Network" continue to haunt the American workplace and denigrate the economic status of women. And this affects everyone.

The fact is, it's not quite time for "post-gender" thinking. Take the latest unemployment figures. While we added some 192,000 jobs in February, the overall scenario for women was not rosy. The National Women's Law Center notes that over the course of the recovery, women's overall unemployment rate increased from 7.7 percent to 8 percent, while men's dropped from 9.8 percent to 8.7 percent. Even more disheartening, between July 2009 and February 2011 unemployment rates increased for single mothers (from 12.6 percent to 13 percent) and African-American women (11.8 percent to 13 percent).

Recently, we witnessed the crisis facing public workers in Wisconsin. Governor Walker's actions are of immense importance to women and stand in direct contradiction to our continued progress. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women comprise 52 percent of state-level public sector jobs and 61 percent at the local level. The impact on state and local job cuts in the public sector will be especially devastating to women at a time when the recession has already disproportionately impacted us.

Women of color, already facing large pay gaps, are in danger of falling still further behind as bargaining rights disappear. Dr. Steven Pitts of UC Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education notes that black women in the public sector earn a median wage of $15.50 an hour, while the sector's median wage overall is $18.38 (white men make $21.24). This is not so surprising when you consider that African-American women comprise only 12.2 percent of labor unions. This data exemplifies the compelling need for workers to have the ability to bargain for equal rights in the workforce. The wage gap remains an important civil rights crisis for women. We have made gains in areas of education and employment, yet we know that we have not been fully acknowledged in the workplace when the paycheck arrives. This illustrates the distinction between the evolution of personal achievement and universal women's emancipation.

Sign up to have the Daily Digest, a witty take on the morning’s most important headlines, delivered straight to your inbox.

Barriers still confront women in many professions and prevent us from achieving true equality. While we should appreciate the success stories, such as women's increased access to law firms, there are still challenges to overcome. The retention rate, for example, tells a bleaker story about how women fare in the legal profession. The attrition rate for white female attorneys within 55 months is 77 percent, while minority female attorneys at law firms have the highest attrition rate, at 41 percent within 28 months and 81 percent within 55 months. A Diversity and the Bar report notes that women of color often feel isolated in an "old boy's network" environment. It appears that white male attorneys share a greater opportunity for advancement, perhaps because often times those in power (white males) are connected most with people like them. While it is critical that law firms fulfill their responsibility to systemically address these barriers to women's achievement, women must also assist in advancing each other.

This year marked the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day. The United Nations highlighted, as I have, that despite the gains made, much remains to be done to eliminate gender discrimination. Until these vast disparities are addressed and systematically dismantled, this country's economic viability for the future will never be fully realized. The time for a level playing field is long overdue.  As women, we must find our voices and be active in advocating for real equality in these times. And we must always look beyond the headlines to find "her" story.

Barbara Arnwine has been the executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law since 1989.