Women know best-- in Congress and Scouting

..................................................................................................................................
What Congress really needs is the female touch
By Gail Collins, May 29, 2013

"... Let’s discuss how much better Congress would work if most of the members were women.  The Senate seems to be a tad less polarized since the female population rose from 17 to 20 this year. It’s also possible that there’s been more productivity since women got more power. ..."
"... So, people, who do you think has been more helpful in edging the Senate toward a pinch of progress? The women or Ted Cruz? One strives for collegiality by holding regular bipartisan dinners. One called his colleagues “squishes” for opposing a gun control filibuster.
I’m sticking with the girls. “Women seem to know how to work in a way that at least moves the process,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland ..."
..................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................
Scouts, be prepared for a celebration in the future
By Leonard Pitts, Jr.  May 29, 2013

"... For the record, the Girl Scouts have no policy limiting lesbian involvement. Indeed, according to its website, Girl Scouts of the USA has embraced diversity and inclusion from the beginning, and it doesn’t seem to have hurt that group any: it has 3.2 million members and recently celebrated its 101st anniversary. So Stemberger’s prediction that the boys are doomed for doing what the girls have done for years seems nonsensical at best. ...
..................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................
On Military Sexual Assault Issue, A New Era for An Old Committee
By Liz Halloran, May 10, 2013

Other bipartisan efforts on Capitol Hill may be collapsing around them, but a cadre of Democratic and Republican women serving on the Senate and House Armed Services committees are leveraging their historic clout to respond together to the sexual assault crisis engulfing the U.S. military.


In a Thursday gathering notable not just for its composition but for what it signaled about the direction of two of the oldest and most powerful panels in Congress, 16 legislators from both parties — just two of them men — sat in the White House with top presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett to talk about the path forward on the issue. ...
..................................................................................................................................