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Our Mission:

To provide Pima County and the City of Tucson, an official agency, the Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission, to assist women to achieve equality of opportunity in all aspects of life in our Republic, and to take positive action to expose, eliminate, and prevent the practice of discrimination against women.

Our Position Statements:

In 2006, The Women’s Commission issued four statements identifying the Commission’s stance on a variety of issues. The following are those statements:

  • Immigrant Rights

    • The Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission upholds the rights of all women, regardless of immigration status, to be free from violence, harassment, prejudice, discrimination, and workplace exploitation.

    We advocate for the human rights of immigrant women and their families to have access to services that meet their basic human needs, such as food, shelter, education, and health care.

    Immigrants have long played a role in Pima County’s rich and diverse history, and we recognize and value the unique contributions that immigrants make to our community.

    We work to build partnerships with community groups that develop immigrant leadership and support immigrant voices. The human rights of all people can best be ensured when our communities truly respect the rights and contributions of immigrant women and their families.

  • Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Rights

    • The Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission supports the rights of all individuals to live free of violence and discrimination, with equal protection under the law, as guaranteed by the United States Constitution, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

    Allowing some people to enjoy equal protection under the law but not others is unconstitutional and devalues the right of individuals to create their own definition of family.

    Lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LBT) women, like their heterosexual and gender-traditional counterparts, have indisputable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and should not be discriminated against in housing, employment, public accommodation, education, credit or in any other manner that non-LBT women take for granted. Such discrimination creates a culture in which violence against LBT women is accepted and tolerated. The Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission supports LBT equality and safety and opposes efforts that marginalize, stigmatize, or commit violence against LBT women and their families.

    The Women’s Commission promotes the equal rights of all consenting adults to enter into any non-abusive family structure that is appropriate for them, and advocates the defense of civil liberty principles through legal, legislative and public education programs. The rights and privileges extended to any American must be extended to all Americans.

    May 2006

  • Pay Equity

    • The Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission works to assist women in attaining full equality of opportunity in all aspects of life.

    We support equality of treatment in all aspects of employment including compensation and promotion and oppose discrimination based on gender or other protected status, including race, color, religion, national origin, age (40 and older), disability, sexual preference, gender expression, ancestry, familial status, or marital status.

    The Women’s Commission advocates for the rights of women. Women currently make an average of 77 cents to the dollar a man makes, with 20 cents of this gap remaining even after accounting for demographic and related factors such as occupation, industry, race, marital status, and job tenure. The costs to women, families, and communities are enormous over a lifetime, keep many women and their families in poverty, adversely affect their health, self sufficiency, standard of living before and during retirement, and deny them all the benefits which fair wages would have provided.

    We ask the City of Tucson, Pima County, and the State of Arizona, as employers, to eliminate all differential treatment of employees based on gender and perform self-auditing procedures to identify disparities of pay, promotions, performance evaluations, and other employment practices, and address them by creating equity where it has not existed. By so doing our governmental entities can improve the status of women in our communities and set a standard for ethical behavior for other employers in our city, county, and state.
    September 2006

  • Reproductive Choice

    • The Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission supports every woman’s right to make reproductive health decisions for herself, without pressure or manipulation from any other individual, organization or government body.

    Individual self-determination is a cornerstone upon which this nation was built and neither governments nor advocacy groups should have the right to make reproductive health decisions for women.
    Access to reproductive health education and services is crucial to fulfilling the fundamental rights guaranteed to all Americans. The Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission supports comprehensive science-based sexuality education, access to contraceptive and prophylactic products including emergency contraception over-the-counter, and keeping abortion safe, legal and accessible. All reproductive choice options should be available to women, regardless of their economic status or age.

    May 2006