LAFAYETTE – Tara Nelson, congressional candidate for Indiana’s 4th Congressional District, will be honored at the 22nd Annual Glamour Women of the Year Awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Nov. 12. 

Nelson was one of 15 women congressional candidates invited to the event. There are 181 female candidates running for Congress this year. Only 90 women currently serve as U.S. representatives or U.S. senators.
 
"I am deeply honored to be chosen to attend the awards ceremony," said Nelson. "For the next two weeks, as it has been for more than year, my attention will be solely upon the Nov. 6 election. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to joining this impressive group of women . My hope is that more and more women will run for office.
 
"Women make up 51 percent of our country’s population, but represent only 17 percent of Congress," Nelson said. "Hopefully, we will see a greater gender balance in politics during my lifetime, so my daughter and other women from the next generation will realize the opportunities we have worked so hard to make available for all women."

Last year the gala hosted numerous celebrities, including former First Lady Laura Bush and her twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, and Chelsea Handler.
 
Nelson said her focus for the election remains on job creation and protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. In particular, she will work to make sure the middle class remains strong and not decimated by tax increases and bankrupted by health care costs.
 
Nelson also reflected that if more women were in office, the gender wage gap would disappear. She said that full-time, working women earn only 77 cents for every dollar their male counterparts do for performing the same job. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the lifetime loss in wages for a woman amounts to an average of $431,000. In addition, Nelson emphasized that the gender wage gap is not just a "woman’s issue" because two-thirds of all American households are dependent upon women breadwinners.