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This week the NBC network is teaming up with California First Lady Maria Shriver to present a week of television programming on the state of 21st Century American women. The programming will be based on a new report called The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything.” The Shriver Report reveals that for the first time in US history half of all workers are women, and that mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of families. And yet, wage parity between the sexes is a long way off. Taking a look at the consequences of this dramatic socio-economic shift the report hopes to shape new policies to address the modern American family. There is also a deep look at the need for family-friendly benefits, child care and elder care. Also highlighted is the crucial role of immigrant women in the low-paying jobs of housekeeping and childcare which enable American women to enter the workforce at their expense, and the disproportionate ill-effects of the nation’s private health insurance system on women. The Shriver Report is being heralded by the media as a major marker of women’s progress and the closure of the gender gap. But, according to investigative reporter Wendy Norris, the report’s disturbing disparities in women’s well being are being downplayed or completely ignored.

GUEST: Wendy Norris, investigative reporter based in Denver, Colorado, working on assignment for RH Reality Check, editor and founder of unbossed.com.

Read Wendy Norris’ article here: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/10/20/
media-ignores-womens-health-care-disparities-shriver-report

Read the Shriver Report here: http://www.awomansnation.com