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"Senator Barbara Boxer says that from day to day she goes back and forth between feeling optimistic and pessimistic about the fiscal cliff prognosis. So perhaps speaking out of a frustration so many of us share, she tells Glamour: &amp;quot;I will go out on a limb and say if the women were in charge, this thing would be fixed in five minutes. We know how to compromise and how to set our egos aside. It&amp;amp;#8217;s more part of our DNA.&amp;quot; When we got the California Democrat on the phone and started talking about how the Senate has grown when she first entered the chamber from six women to a record 20 after last month&amp;#x27;s elections, she interrupted to say that the historic high looks like it will rise to 21. She pointed out that the late Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii requested before his death on Monday that Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D, HI-1) be named to succeed him. That decision is up to the governor of Hawaii, but Boxer expects that now women will make up almost a third of the Democratic Senate caucus. Boxer took her seat in the Senate in 1993 after serving 10 years in the House. She currently is the Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. Although she&amp;#x27;s excited about the growing number of women, she says, &amp;quot;The one problem I see is the imbalance. We will have four Republican women and probably 17 Democratic women. We need more Republican women. We really do.&amp;quot; And there&amp;#x27;s something else the women now need, she says: &amp;quot;A bigger restroom.&amp;quot; The current two-stall restroom off the Senate floor is leading to traffic jams and Boxer says they are working on getting it expanded. &amp;quot;All we ask for is equity with the men.&amp;quot; She says they&amp;#x27;ll also need more room when they welcome the new members to the monthly bipartisan dinners of women senators started years back by Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). &amp;quot;We&amp;#x27;ll need a bigger table.&amp;quot; It&amp;amp;#8217;s a table Boxer hopes will continue to expand--and one at which she hopes you may join her one day. &amp;amp;#8220;It&amp;amp;#8217;s so important for our young girls see that their options are many including running for the highest offices in the land. That&amp;amp;#8217;s very important.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8220;It&amp;amp;#8217;s not that men are bad or women are better,&amp;amp;#8221; Boxer says. &amp;amp;#8220;That&amp;amp;#8217;s not it. It&amp;amp;#8217;s that we come to the table with different backgrounds, different experiences, and it&amp;amp;#8217;s important that we&amp;amp;#8217;re in the mix of different problems that we face and we see women face.&amp;amp;#8221; One of those problems, of course, is intimate partner violence. Reauthorization the Violence Against Women Act, however, remains mired in partisan gridlock over a push by Democrats to expand its coverage on several fronts including protection for Indian tribes and battered illegal immigrants. The Senate approved the expansion but House Republicans opposed it. Boxer joined other Democratic women senators earlier this week to call on the House leadership to pass VAWA. &amp;amp;#8220;Oh my gosh, I cannot believe it,&amp;amp;#8221; Boxer tells Glamour. &amp;amp;#8220;We&amp;amp;#8217;ve always passed the Violence Against Women Act without a problem. This year we added folks who had been left out, and the House of Representatives, the Republicans over there...This is one easy way to show us that they are changing and got the message. They still haven&amp;amp;#8217;t done that but I&amp;amp;#8217;m always ever hopeful.&amp;amp;#8221; Boxer also sounds optimistic about the new push for gun control following last week&amp;amp;#8217;s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and she introduced legislation yesterday focusing on school safety. &amp;amp;#8220;A lot of it has to do with the gun lobby, if they are sincere about wanting to change their hard line against any sensible gun law,&amp;amp;#8221; she says when asked about the chances for new legislation. &amp;amp;#8220;If they don&amp;amp;#8217;t move forward, then it depends on how much this incident touched all of my colleagues. And I have to say a lot who did not speak out before are beginning to speak out. There are 300 million weapons in America, almost one weapon for every individual and there is almost no realistic chance that that is going to be lowered so in the meantime while we put in some common sense laws such as banning high capacity clips and weapons of war. I am concentrating my efforts on supporting all of that plus doing the school safety piece which would allow for more protection of our children at school. We still have to keep our schools safe and I&amp;amp;#8217;m working on ways we can maximize safety at school so when you drop off your child you are not worried if you will ever see them again.&amp;quot; Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GettyImages"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/blogs/the-conversation/2012/12/senator-barbara-boxer-on-women>