Challenges. Changes. Courage. To our readers Establishing a dialogue with our communities is an essential duty of our newspaper. That's why starting today, we, along with our partners at KITV4, begin a nine-day series that looks at the lives, the victories and the challenges facing the women of Hawaii. Why now? We'll let the stories, and the women we interviewed, speak for themselves, from the young girls making their way through the world today, to the pioneers that made it possible for them. Read the stories, talk about them with your friends and family -- establish a dialogue. For the stories of Hawaii's women are everyone's stories. Day 1: Tapping on the Glass Ceiling

CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM Principal Betty White talks about college and career opportunities to seniors at Sacred Hearts Academy in Kaimuki. White says her students believe they can accomplish anything, but many still expect a Prince Charming to come along and handle the finances.

---

Isle gender
inequities persist
despite progress

More single moms are poor,
and women on average still
make less money than
men in comparable jobs

In 1855, "The Folio" hit Honolulu's streets. The four-page newspaper, produced anonymously, demanded equality for women and promised to incite a revolution for women's rights in Hawaii -- "not with tongue or sword, but pen."

"Now, then, the hour has come when your name can be immortal by becoming the defender, supporter, aye creator of women's rights in Hawaii!" the publication's two women authors wrote, in the spirit of East Coast feminists of the day.

"When I think of the wrongs heaped upon us, I really wonder that volcanic fires are restricted to the lonely heights of Mauna Loa," they continued, "for surely it is not unreasonable to expect that nature will avenge the indignities inflicted on women."

There were no further editions of the newspaper, believed to be the first of its kind west of the Rocky Mountains. And it would take another 25 years for a second feminist journal to be published in Honolulu, according to the Hawaiian Historical Society.

On the 150th anniversary of The Folio's publication, with a female governor leading the state for the first time, it's not hard to see how far women have come in the islands.

They are doctors, lawyers, professors and political leaders. They are beating out men in getting into college classrooms, and rising to the top echelons of companies.

Hawaii's history, after all, is full of strong women. Queen Liliuokalani, following the Hawaiian monarchy's overthrow in 1893, relinquished her title only because she knew armed resistance would mean bloodshed.

She turned to diplomacy instead, calling on Washington, D.C., to "undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim."

Patsy Mink, Hawaii's long-time U.S. representative and the nation's first Japanese-American woman in Congress, gained national praise for her co-authorship of Title IX, which outlawed gender discrimination at federally funded educational institutions. And her legislation is still working to open doors for women in academics and college sports.

But even with all the accomplishments and successes, significant challenges and inequalities persist for Hawaii women.

Working women still earn less than men -- and continue to gravitate to traditionally female-dominated fields, which tend to pay lower wages. They are more likely than men to live in poverty, especially if they have children. In the workplace, they face pregnancy discrimination and sexual harassment. And though women outnumber men on university campuses, they represent only a fraction of Hawaii's top executives and attorneys.

"Most people have gotten really complacent because in the last 20 years they've seen tons and tons of women achieve extraordinary things in terms of becoming businesswomen, politicians, leaders of the country," said Marya Gramb, executive director of the Women's Fund, a Hawaii group that raises money for programs to help women.

"If you look a little farther, you see that almost half of our single mothers are in poverty, and that most working women are employed in the lowest paying jobs. A lot of women are in trouble here. A lot of girls are in trouble. But they're not as visible as women who are doing really well."

One day, while serving as Maui's first woman mayor, now-Gov. Linda Lingle met with a group of elementary schoolchildren. It was a routine visit, with the kids asking the standard questions: How much do you make? Do you have bodyguards?

Then, an 8-year-old boy raised his hand. "Do you have to be a woman to be mayor?" he asked. She answered, with a laugh, "Only in Maui."

The story, Lingle said, illustrates her mantra for getting more women into leadership positions: "The best way to get more women in power," she said, "is to get more women in power." When women see women as leaders, they'll also become leaders.

When people see -- and come to accept -- women leaders, the newness of women as pillars of the community, as heads of state, as chief executive officers will fade away.

"There are going to be people who are never going to vote for me because I'm a woman, or who are always going to vote for me because I'm a woman," Lingle said, sipping on a soda in her Capitol office during a break between meetings. "But the majority, they're going to judge me on my actions."

When Lingle took office in 2002, many women's rights advocates wanted her to play up on the historical significance of her election. Shouldn't Hawaii's first female governor, they asked, back legislation and change to benefit women? Shouldn't she champion women's rights?

But that, Lingle said, isn't her style. "I certainly did not run on women's issues. I rarely will characterize any issue as a woman's issues. I don't characterize women as victims and ... I like to focus on women in leadership."

The Republican governor admits her approach conflicted with a group of -- mostly Democratic -- women's advocates at the state women's commission.

In 2004, she threatened to cut the commission's $95,000 budget, in what she said was not a politically motivated move. The commission's key leaders, in turn, resigned in protest.

In the end, the commission was saved. Lawmakers put it under the state Department of Human Services this year, and a new executive director was hired.

Advocates still accuse Lingle, though, of ignoring key women's issues and putting too much emphasis on women at the top. Her second annual women's conference, which ran from Tuesday to Thursday, spotlighted women in government, business and health.

It didn't address any specific concerns for women in Hawaii, even regarding well-to-do, educated women, and instead highlighted women from Hawaii, the mainland and abroad who had risen to the tops of their fields. Some argue that's shirking a perfect opportunity to bring light to serious issues facing Hawaii women today.

"The fact that she's a woman creates an expectation that she understands what women go through," said Annelle Amaral, president and founder of the Women's Coalition. "It makes the disappointment that much more profound."

Some women leaders also concede, meanwhile, that the mere fact the state has a female governor -- who ran against a female opponent, former Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono -- is powerful enough and could encourage other young women to pursue politics or other high-power positions.

GIRLS THESE DAYS, said Betty White, think they can do anything. They're headstrong and confident and smart.

"But some girls still imagine Prince Charming coming to whisk them up on a horse," said the principal at Sacred Hearts Academy in Kaimuki, who looks strangely similar -- blond hair, slate-blue eyes and all -- to the "Golden Girls" TV actress of the same name.

"We have to train them on what they have to do to become financially independent."

White, who has been at the all-girls' school for 35 years, said she's seen education change dramatically over the years. Math and science instruction is now an integral part of the school's curriculum. Girls are encouraged to pursue male-dominated fields, like engineering and astronomy.

And her students read about the women's movements of the 19th and 20th centuries as if they were ancient history. Gender bias and glass ceilings, they say, are all long gone.

"I don't think they have any idea what they're in for when they get into the workforce," said White, speaking over the chirpy din of her Kaimuki campus on a recent afternoon. "We've come a long, long way, but we're still not there."

White said she's partly to blame for her girls' innocent hubris. Almost daily, when she greets them in the morning, or talks to them in the classroom, she tells her students (from kindergarten to high school) that there are no insurmountable barriers in life, no career impossibilities.

"You continually brainwash them," she said, smiling, "and convince them they can do anything they want to do. It gives them a boost. It bolsters their self-confidence."

Of course, White also lectures Sacred Hearts girls on gender inequities.

She's memorized statistics -- on the percentage of elderly women or single mothers in poverty, for example -- and rolls them off at will whenever she wants to make a particularly strong point about self-sufficiency for women or the value of education in rising to the top.

"We have to do better," she said, "but we are also heartened by the progress we're making."

White, who knows many of her students by name and has been known to stop Sacred Hearts alumnae on the street to give them hugs, wants to see all of her graduates make it. But she fears some of them won't. After all, she knows the numbers all too well.

FROM THE OUTSIDE, Ka Hale Ho'ala Hou No Na Wahine looks like an indiscriminate walk-up -- gray and boxy, situated on a small street in Kalihi near the Institute for Human Services' women's shelter. Inside, though, there are subtle signs of incarceration -- a gate at the entranceway, a security office, conference rooms for treatment.

Here, 36 women offenders are housed in dormitory-style conditions, their apartments kept mostly bare but for approved posters taped to the walls, or small cotton rugs positioned neatly in the center of their seating areas. The facility's tenants are all serving out the tail-end of their prison sentences while working -- mostly minimum wage jobs -- and getting treatment.

The convicts represent, in many ways, the gravest situations for women in Hawaii. They were part of those statistics even before they were put behind bars.

Many, for example, are domestic violence victims. There are single mothers, some with young children. Most have little education or formal job training, and are accustomed to living in poverty.

A good percentage turned to drugs -- probably crystal methamphetamine -- for emotional support, and got caught when they were doing them, selling them or stealing for them.

"This is not an appealing type of population," said Lorraine Robinson, executive director of the women-only work furlough program. "They're unglamorous, neglected and under-appreciated."

On a recent hot summer afternoon, Jessica Pimental smoothed back her short, cropped hair and collapsed into a seat in one of the facility's several gathering areas. She'd just gotten back from her job as a parking attendant at Aloha Tower, and was worried about what she'll do once she's free.

She'll have to get another job, she said, to pay for food and rent. Maybe, she added, she'll go to the mainland to start over.

The 30-year-old, who grew up in Kaimuki, was charged in 2003 with second-degree promotion of drugs, ending a decade-long spiral of addiction to crystal meth.

She's sober now and clear-headed. She's scared -- to relapse, to fail once she's out. She's still trying to regain her family's trust.

Pimental, like so many of the hundreds of women offenders in Hawaii, turned to drugs because she could find friendship and solace in them. And she could erase the insecurities -- over her weight, her sexuality, her upbringing -- that had plagued her since high school.

"It's not a life that I want to go back to," Pimental said, resolutely.

Tonight on KITV 4 News at 10 ...

Challenges, Changes, Courage. Three words that describe the lives of many women of Hawaii. Tonight at 10, join Paula Akana for a series of inspiring biographies. Three women who have faced challenges, made important changes in their lives, and exemplify courage. Tonight on Island Television News.