well, the problem is if you're talking about someone who is elderly or seasoned, as my mom called it, seasoned, is that's if you had to prove who you were, it's in the bible. the bible lost. not everybody has a birth certificate. so when it comes to that classism, when you look at issues like that, i have an i dd so you should have one. the reality is it's not that simple. we know we have to help those who have to get an id. we're not acquiescing. there's no way the voting rights doesn't impact all 50 states. that's means we have to get started now. now, now. and organize and get those who have to get ids to get the ids and writing to the justice departments and others to make a pushback on the unjust laws to do so. it's about our voting rights, our power, and all of you.

>> melanie, thank you. thank you. our next speaker represents the moms rising organization. actually, she is the executive director and co-founder. please welcome kristen. >> thank you. i'm honored to be here today. i'm going to start out by saying i love soccer. i love watching both my son and my daughter dribble the ball down the field. i love pulling on each of my five layers of clothing against the cold and standing on the sidelines. i absolutely 100% love soccer. but i'm not a, quote, soccer mom, end quote, as some political commentators has defined me and neither are the

tens of millions of moms across the country just like me. why, you might be wondering, do i take such issue with the soccer moms? it's because the very idea of the soccer mom, when used in the political context, brings an image of a mom who is standing on the sidelines, on the sidelines, being left out of an important game. and we modern moms are most definitely in the game. we are off the sidelines. unlike the moms of 1996, when the soccer mom moniker came -- was born, because of new modern technologies today, we're now powerfully networked. we are networked moms. watch out. let me run some numbers by you to give you an idea of what i'm talking about. of the 40 million moms in our nation with kids under age 18, 37 million of them will be

online by the end of this year. i want to give you an idea of the reach of utilizing the motherhood framework in the upcoming election. you have been sitting a while, so would everyone who is a mom please stand? briefly, do a little stretch. everyone who has at any point in their life had a mother take a moment and stand. all right, we have a movement. we're talking everyone with belly buttons. you can sit down. who are these networked moms? who's online these days? according to the u.s. census bureau in 2011, 77% of blacks, 76% of whites, and 72% of english speaking hispanics are reading their news online. what we're talking about here is a very, very, very different landscape than in 1996 when the soccer mom moniker came into the scene. internet use and access has been

skyrocketing. our power to connect to networks to create our own news has been growing. we're an increasingly powerful force that cannot be ignored. an increased internet access coupled with new communication technologies like facebook, lie twitter, lie e-mails, like blogs, allowed womens to reach hundreds, thousands, even millions of other women with a quick click of a button. this has important repercussions for the upcoming elections. it's an unbelievably fast moving tool that significantly accelerates communication, education, organizing, most importantly, and impact. what we're talking about here is that women, women whose issues have not been regularly addressed by the traditional media during elections have created our own media. frankly, we don't have to wait for reporters to come to us anymore and to cover our issues because we can go straight now to the huffington post, for example, that now has more readers that the "new york times." we are creating our own blogs, and we're writing about our own

priority issues and we're going to be doing that in the upcoming election. we can also importantly bring forward critical issues online that have way too long been ignor ignored. those issues that can also impact the outcome of elections. for example, we can use issues and bring them up like pay id sk days where 67% of women saying know where a candidate stands on sick days will determine whether or not they vote for them. getting the word out about where a candidate stands is important. let me give you a number to back up the idea that many women are reading blogs. 36 million women are now actively participating in the blogosphere, writing their own blogs over reading their own blogs. that's a significant number. that is a revolution. we women are creating, we're creating a powerful media force. and importantly, not only have we made our own media through the proliferation of highly

trafficked blogs, we have also made our own powerful net. . we're a network together. we can have a profound network be being together online. and the impact has it on leaders everywhere, on candidates, and reporters. the question here, is this changing the political landscape for the election? the answer is e most definitely. take for example, the recent case of the komen foundation pf's almost unpaying for planned parenthood. the komen brand will very likely never be the same. or take for example the recent internet furor over the absnls of women's voices at the congressional hearing on contrascontr contraceptive coverage. maybe you could have gotten away with excluding women ten years ago, but today when you can put

a photograph on the internet and have it spread from day to day and have it go viral, you can not do that anymore, never again. elected leaders and candidates need to take note. ignore networked women at your own political peril. but how does that relate to the election and what moms rising is doing? moms rising is a multicultural online and on the ground organization that is fighting to increase economic security for families, to decrease discrimination against women and mothers, and to build a nation where both businesses and families can thrive. one of the biggest hurdles remaining for the modern feminist movement is that we have to break down the maternal wall so that women can even get to the glass ceiling in the first place. it's time to break down that wall. together, we can do this. and our members are young

mothers and grandmothers. they and from every state in the nation, both rural and urban, represent racial and economic differences that are our country. it's also now a media outlet in our own right with over 650 bloggers and a blogging and social media readership reach estimated at over 3.5 million readers. forbes named us a top website for women for the second year in a row. and moms rising, we're ramping up right now our moms vote campaign. we're ramping up our voter registration, our voter education and edngagement and gt out and vote program. and we will be fully utilizing the internet to engage and enroll voters and let women know what identification they need to bring with them to the polls because -- because who changes their name more than any other? it's mothers. right?

this is important. this impacts us all. so another thing i want to bring up is that in the busy clutter and noise of modern family life, what is breaking through? what is breaking through for us to hear each other, to hear news, and to hear us organize is the words and actions of our family. and that's breaking through on social media. while sometimes we slip and say that's going to be on facebook, you're sharing what you had on breakfast, it's also a important political tool. the personal is political. that hasn't changed. how many of us skip reading the paper some day s because we're o busy but we read a bizarre link a friend posted on facebook. it's pretty much all of us, right? our challenge in this room right now is to harness that curiosity, to engage voters in the 2012 election, and now that more and more women are connected to each other, these

efforts are more and more critical. women and mothers' votes matter. we know this in the room, but we have to say it again. our votes matter. in fact, as a reminder, i want to tell everybody that in the last presidential election, both married and unmarried children helped determine who was the president by voting for obama. 51% of married women with kids voted for obama. and 74% of unmarried women with kids voted for obama. moms, that's moms. moms' votes matter. thankfully, the womens vote movement, we with the get out and vote movement, have fast moving tools to unite us and have our impact be maximized, and we're able to amp up our imp pabl pact in record time. everybody should leave and make sure you have done three things to make sure you are part of

that, get your own facebook page, your own twitter handle, and make sure you have access to a blog where you can post your ideas. and for those of you who represent organizations, i want to say that the power of strategic use of social media can engage our own constituencies and empower the women's movement in ways that were previously unheard of, in ways we're doing in her vote. we have seen first hand how by supporting other organizations we're supporting our own organization. we're truly stronger together. we can all leverage these tools together. so right now, in this room, we're calling on the power of american women for real economic and health justice for all in the 2012 election. i want to say that i want everybody here to leave the room knowing that you can be a media outlet. for the first time in history, you can be your own media outlet.

and i want everyone in this room to remember that some elections, particularly local elections, are won or lost by fewer votes than the average person has friends on facebook. every vote matters. we in this room can bring women's voices forward. we can end discrimination against women and mothers, and have an impact, a significant impact on the outcome of the 2012 election at all levels. it's not time to roll back women's rights, as some are sedging, not naming any names. it's most certainly not time to sideline women. we don't want to be on the sidelines anymore and we're not. it's time to roll forward and candidates need to take note that we are rolling forward, we're off the sidelines, and we're getting involved in the 2012 election. thank you.

>> you're hearing an awful lot about the voter mobilization plans both on the ground and online and in the courtroom. i would like to now introduce terry o'neal, president of the national organization for women, and we're actually, i think, following terry's presentation, going to be able to take a couple questions. so terry, please join me at the podium. terry o'neal. >> good afternoon, everybody. i'm just thrilled to be here. and i don't want to take up a lot of time. i think i want plenty of time for questions and answers. i do want to thank cathy and kristen, the feminist majority and moms rising are taking the lead in her vote coalition. they have done an amazing job. all of you -- yeah, thank you.

those blog carnivals that her vote is doing are really fun. i encourage all of you, go to hervote.us, get engaged. they're really neat. you'll see more of them and more things going on as well through hervote as we approach the election. the national organization for women is engaged for this entire year leading right up to the 2012 elections, in a massive voter education and mobilization project because we know we have to get the word out to women about what is at stake this year. this really is a pivotal year for women. somebody gave a statistic as to what the women's vote, melanie, i think you gave what the women's vote was in 2008, 64% of women voted in 2008 versus 57% of men. in 2010, those numbers of women

voting plummeted. that's the word that is used by belinda lake, the noted pollster, and she said plummeting is exactly the right word. when women did not get out and vote in 2010, what was the result? the tea party. the tea party. a virtually unprecedented war against women. tea party elected officials flooded into the united states. congress and into the state legislatures in many states taking over all three governing bodies, the house, the senate, and the governorship in many states. and what is the result of that? well, for one thing, we have seen the sorry and pathetic spectacle of a panel of men considering contraception and announcing to the world unashamed that contraception is not about women.

that contraception is about the religious sensitivities of some extremist religious zealot men. that's what we learned from women not voting in 2010. what else did we see? we saw a man who is so empowered that none other than david frahm, a former official in the george w. bush white house, declared that this man is the most feared man in the republican party in that man's name is rush limbaugh. and this empowered an arrogant man, spends three days, three hours every day, exkerriating a young law student who had the courage to offer testimony to the united states congress about what birth control actually means for women. one of the things i loved about watching sandra fluke give her testimony when carolyn maloney arranged to have her be able to give testimony at the congress, she was asked what is your

qualification for talking about birth control? and this is what she said. i'm a young woman who uses birth control. and that makes me an expert in my health care. you know, the thing is that when she said that, she empowered every single young woman in the country to stand up for herself and said, you know, i have a certain experience, and that does make me qualified to have a say in the national policies that this country adopted about things that affect me. it was a brilliant and amazing moment of empowerment. one of the consequences of women not voting in 2010, as i said, is the empowerment of the tea party folks. they're so powerful now that did you notice that mitt romney has

never to this day condemned rush limbaugh's attack on sandra fluke. day after day, when rush limbaugh demands to see videotapes of sandra having sex, and mitt romney says, that the word slut and prostitute aren't the words he would have chosen. somebody said what would you have said, that would have been okay? rick santorum, the number two candidate, that's where we have come tew. that's what is at stake for women in this year's election. either of those two men could become the nominee for the presidency of the united states and make no mistake, the folks who are trying to defeat president obama are exceptionally well funded and exceptionally well prepared, as melanie said, to suppress our

vote. and we have to be ready not to let that happen. i just want to throw in one thing about the other aspect of the war on women that is extremely important, today, the house is scheduled to vote, the vote may already have taken place, on what is known as the ryan budget. have you heard about that? paul ryan from wisconsin, the chair of the house budget committee, has come out with a budget for 2013 that privatizes medicare, forces people out of traditi traditional medicare into the for-profit insurance system that will cost on average $6,000 more to everyone who is on medicare. that's what their health care will cost in addition if paul ryan had his way. it cuts medicaid. and more than 50% of medicaid dollars go to support nursing homes in this country. and the vast majority of residents of nursing homes are women. and make no mistake, if those

medicaid cuts go through, possibly thousands of nursing homes around the country will be forced to shut down. social security, they budget attacks social security and calls for future cuts in social security benefits and the ryan budget calls for slashing an entire range of social programs like job training and after school programs and head start and yes, family planning clinics. all of those programs would be cut. all of these things disproportionately serve women. something we're not aware of it is that all of these programs disproporti disproportionately employ women. when you cut these programs, you are throwing women out of work. this is why the so-called recovery has been so tough on women because at the state and local level governments are cutting back and cutting back and that means women are losing their jobs. today more than half of the women are either the sole source

of income for their family or an essential source of income for their family. families cannot afford for women to lose these jobs, and that's incredibly important. the ryan budget does not make all the cuts to balance the federal budget. not even close. instead what he wants to do is take all the savings from cutting all of these programs and use those savings to increase military spending and to enhance tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest people in this country. that is what is at stake in the 2012 election. we let another year go by 2010, p and we will see even worse, and we've got to be mobilized to stop that. so two pieces of good news. first, i think it was two weeks ago the aflcio executive committee at its annual meeting or regular meeting passed a resolution in support of birth

control for women. and we were thrilled. what i was really thrilled by is there's a sentence in their statement about birth control where the executive committee and the aflcio said we know that these attacks on unions around the country and these aattacttan working families around the country had having aa disproportionate impact on families and we're not going to tand them. that's from the labor unions. they're with us and we're with them. we'll all work together. one thing i want you to do as you go back home and work to organize your communities and organize friends and get them engaged in voter education and mobilization is this. talk to the candidates. make sure the candidates know how to talk about these issues that so disproportion naturely

impact women. if the candidates are talking about women and p if you scratch the surface of almost every issue that is facing us today, p if you scratch the surface of it just a little bit, what you find is a disproportionate impact on women. get the candidates to talk about how this impacts women and you will find women say to themselves, oh, so that person actually cares about me? actually understands what's going on in my life. maybe this is someone not only to vote for but maybe someone i should volunteer for and maybe i should decide that political engagement actually matters in my life. it's not just a football game. it actually matters because the candidates are recognizing the reality of my life, and they are recognizing the struggles that i face. it can't just be up to the women to mobilize the women. we've got to get the candidates to talk about the women so that we can mobilize them. if we're working together and

have and recognizing the impact of all of this on women, we will win in 2012, and i look forward to that. thank you so much. >> i want to thank terry not only for today, but she's been doing a magnificent job on "the ed show" talking about the war on women. it's always great, a very strong voice. as people make their way, too, we have microphones set up when those votes are faine and when the debate is happening, we're only 17% of the voices that are ever heard. it's not enough. we want to say it's not enough, and we want to constantly remind

people that we are terribly underrepresented in the halls of congress and at the decision-making tables. i'd also like it to quickly say that if you want more information on some of the key issues at stake, we've got a book. unfortunately, we sold out, but you can get it on the "ms." magazine website. it's your voice and your vote. it's by martha burke and looks at all of these issues and i urge you not only to study up, because being able to debate them and talk about them to your networks but also visit the her hervotes.us website and it's a wonderful, wonderful resource on issues. health and economic rights at women at stake in this election. we want to hear what you're doing in your communities and what obstacles you're finding when it comes to your right to stro vote and how we can be a larger

coalition as we move forward the to the 2012 elections. if you'll introduce yourself, if you're with an organization and where you're from and then if you want to direct your question to any of the specific panelists, we'll take them now. >> and we find that, in fact, this is critical because it's important for economic security. >> i'm delighted to report that that is a myth. it's so much of a myth that you

can google me right now, and i wrote a big article. i can't remember what it was called, "sex, motherhood and politi politics" on the huffington post. 99% of american women have used birth control at some point in their lives. 97% of catholic women have used birth control. mothers use birth control. it's very important to note that. the average family size is under two children per family. it's important here cooked into economic justice, which you know about, but it costs over $200,000 to raise one child to age 18 not even including college. until we get family economic security policies, people are struggling to support the children that they now have with a quarter of families with young children living in poverty. so i completely agree with you that having access to both when to have children and how many is critical to the economic empowerment of all women and mothers.

>> i guess that settles that. we'll rotate microphones. >> my name is karen, and i'm with unite against the war on women. first, i'd like to thank both linda and terry on the panel for supporting what we are doing and my question is for everybody in this room. who is going to join us against this war on women's rights on april 28th in every single state in your -- in this country and d.c.? if you don't know about it, there are flyers on every table. we really thank you for your support, and if you have any questions, you can go to our website, unitewomen.org. thank you. >> or contact me. >> thank you very much. >> i know it's happening all over the country. unitewomen.org. it's to unite women against the war on women, marches and rallies across the country april 24th -- 28th, i'm sorry.

april 28th. >> i'm ducky barbay. i'm a people person. i represent people. that's all. i want to know having been in this business since right after world war ii being 90 i would like to know from you where is the american medical association? where are the obstetricians? where are the pediatricians and where are our husbands? okay? i represent the people. >> terry, please. >> you know, i just can't tell you how many e-mails and phone calls and tweets that i've received from men about the importance of birth control. one of the phone messages that i had was, you know, this man said i want to thank you so much. what n.o.w. is doing to protect women'