Inky: Women Lag in Political Contributions

From today's Inquirer ("Women give less in campaign donations,") by Cynthia Burton:

Women control 51 percent of the nation's wealth, but account for just 27 percent of federal political donations, according to a report released yesterday by the Women's Campaign Forum Foundation.

There is a link on the article to highlights of the report and the full report is available via email. I couldn't tell from the brief methodology on the highlights but I do have a few questions. One is, if part of the data is derived from reviewing giving trends in federal elections, what safeguards were in place for evaluation donations from married couples? In my household I am responsible for all charitable and political donations. Many, but not all, of these are made by check and both names are on the check. I sign them but it is not uncommon for follow up invitations or mailings to be addressed solely to Mr. J. He finds this humorous but it annoys me; offenders seldom get a second check. Far too many organizations and campaigns will automatically file the donations under the male name listed. Households with two surnames present additional problems since some software products designed to do accounting and mailing lists for non-profits and political campaigns can't accomodate two names in one field. Even if there are two name fields they are still indexed primarily under the male name. Just sayin'....