A mother greets her daughters at their school in Tulsa on Nov. 9. (Mike Simons/AP)

The coronavirus has laid bare what was painfully clear to many families already: The caregiving system in the United States is broken, and it is women who are paying the price.

Even before the pandemic began, child-care and long-term care solutions were often unaffordable and inaccessible, and women were filling the gaps at tremendous cost to their own economic potential.

Now, with child-care centers closed, schools operating remotely and families caring for sick adults and aging parents at home, what was previously untenable has become almost impossible — especially for single mothers, essential workers and others working low-wage jobs with unpredictable hours.

Dear friends,

Even if a record number of women win next Tuesday, the U.S. will still fall short of gender parity at the national and state levels and very few states are primed to reach an “A” grade for women’s representation. 

The highlights from our 2020 Gender Parity Index include:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern accepted her landslide reelection win Saturday with a message for her country and the rest of the world: “We are living in an increasingly polarized world, a place where more and more people have lost the ability to see one another’s point of view. I hope that this election, New Zealand has shown that this is not who we are. That as a nation, we can listen and we can debate. After all, we are small to lose sight of other people’s perspective. Elections aren’t always great at bringing people together, but they also don’t need to tear one another apart.”

Ardern, the 40-year-old leader of New Zealand’s social democratic Labour Party, did not explicitly mention the highest-profile election of this fall. But it was hard not to recognize in her victory speech a nod to voters in the United States, especially when she said, “This has not been an ordinary election and it’s not an ordinary time. It’s been full of uncertainty and anxiety. And we set out to be an antidote to that.

Emmanuelle Charpentier, left, and Jennifer Doudna may have made the most important biological advance since the discovery of the structure of DNA.Credit...Miguel Riopa/Agence France-Presse

Which presidential campaign produced the first nationally televised debate? The typical answer to that question is 1960, Kennedy v. Nixon. In fact, the first televised debate occurred four years earlier, when Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson challenged incumbent Republican president Dwight Eisenhower—but those two men did not appear in the debate. Instead, on November 4, 1956, two surrogates debated the issues on network television: for the Democrats, former First Lady and party icon Eleanor Roosevelt; for the Republicans, the senior senator from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith. That’s right—the first televised presidential debate featured two women.

By 1956 Margaret Chase Smith was in her second term in the Senate and had known Eleanor Roosevelt for two decades. “I respected and admired Mrs. Roosevelt for her intelligence and active leadership,” wrote Smith in her autobiography. Smith had been a frequent visitor to the Roosevelt White House and had appeared on the First Lady’s radio program. They both published a daily newspaper column. By 1956 both women routinely appeared on lists of America’s most admired women.

Delaware was the last state to hold its regular congressional primary elections on Tuesday and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, the first and only woman to represent the state in the U.S. Congress, is expected to hold on to her House seat in November.

There are now record-breaking 298 women nominees — 204 Democrats and 94 Republicans — who will be competing in House races and 20 women nominees — 12 Democrats and 8 Republicans — who will be competing in Senate races, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

The previous record was set in 2018 when there were 234 women nominees who competed in House races.

Marisol Casado, IOC Member and Chair of the ASOIF Diversity and Gender Equality Group, opened the webinar by saying: “Today there is a wide-ranging call for greater inclusivity and equality, and we must take the opportunity this current crisis provides to rebuild and innovate our progress towards a more inclusive, gender-equal and sustainable Olympic Movement.”

“Throughout my career and in my various roles, I have seen that the best work can be done when it is done as a team. When we work together, we have access to different ways of thinking, and therefore more ideas.”

Casado pointed out that some fundamental goals have already been reached: “We have achieved gender balance in athlete participation at the Olympic Games, with a competition schedule much more balanced to ensure equal exposure for all athletes. Several sports organisations, including the IOC, have reached the minimum target of 30 per cent female representation in their governing bodies, and the IOC guidelines for gender-balanced portrayal have been widely adopted to ensure equal opportunities.”

It’s unclear where their voters would have migrated if given the chance. Cavell, a former Obama speechwriter, was among the field’s more progressive candidates and often aligned with Mermell on issues, while Zannetos was perhaps its most moderate candidate. The tech entrepreneur had even rapped Mermell and other candidates for their support of a single-payer health care system in a television ad, saying they “would eliminate private health insurance.”

Becky Walker Grossman placed third in the unwieldy primary with more than 26,000 votes, and Natalia Linos, a Brookline epidemiologist who entered the race only in May, finished fourth.

Joint Resolution of Congress, 1971 Designating August 26 of each year as Women’s Equality Day

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have been treated as second-class citizens and have not been entitled the full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, which are available to male citizens of the United States;

and WHEREAS, the women of the United States have united to assure that these rights and privileges are available to all citizens equally regardless of sex;

and WHEREAS, the women of the United States have designated August 26, the anniversary date of the certification of the Nineteenth Amendment, as symbol of the continued fight for equal rights;

and WHEREAS, the women of United States are to be commended and supported in their organizations and activities,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that August 26th of each year is designated as Women’s Equality Day, and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation annually in commemoration of that day in 1920, on which the women of America were first given the right to vote, and that day in 1970, on which a nationwide demonstration for women’s rights took place.

Mosaic Theater Company's rendition of 'The Agitators' with Marni Penning as Susan B. Anthony and Ro Boddie as Frederick Douglass - Photo by Stan Barough