UCSC Political Scientist Makes List Of “women Of The 21st Century”

EDITOR’S ADVISORY

What:

UC Santa Cruz political scientist Gwendolyn Mink is one of 21 leaders identified by Women’s Enews as those who will "move and shape this century on behalf of all women."

Mink, an expert on women and poverty, is the only academic on a list that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton and the founder of the Million Mom March against gun violence.

In announcing the list, Women’s Enews said: "We wanted to identify women who will lead us, help us get our bearings, point the way. Women who will push, tug, nag, perhaps drag us, always inspire and remind us of the best that women can be on behalf of us all." Women’s Enews is a project of the Women, Policy and Media Program of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. To view the complete list, visit http://www.womensenews.org/2001women.cfm.

Who:

Mink, a professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is the author of _Hostile Environment: The Political Betrayal of Sexually Harassed Women, Welfare’s End, and The Wages of Motherhood: Inequality in the Welfare State, 1917-1942._ She is editor of the book _Whose Welfare? _and coeditor of The Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History.

In 1999, Mink convened a meeting of welfare scholars and activists to discuss how welfare reform could be made less harmful to women. The result was a publication entitled, "An Immodest Proposal: Rewarding Women’s Work to End Poverty." She is currently gearing up for the debate over President-elect George W. Bush’s nomination of Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

"Women are poor not only because they earn less income but also because they are caretakers of children and other family members," said Mink, who advocates a principle of welfare that recognizes the work that mothers of children perform for their family as well as society.

Mink is a second-generation feminist political leader; her mother, Patsy Mink, is a Democratic member of Congress who represents Hawaii.