Clinton has released a new agenda to address the work/family imbalance. As always, Alegre covered it first here.
As for why it is so important, Broadsheet nailed it, using a quote from Obama no less:
A family work/balance agenda could be becoming, dare I say, a must-have. As Obama pointed out in a 2005 speech, "The other side ... make[s] sure that in any given campaign or debate, the only woman's issue that ever comes up is not equal pay or health care or family leave, but the narrowest, most divisive issues like late-term abortion." Perhaps no longer?
Here is a link to the speech that the Obama quote was taken from.
The work/family imbalance probably should be an everybody issue, but the reality is that the imbalance disproportionately impacts women, and thus it is a woman's issue. No modern presidential candidate has ever given serious attention to a women's issue other than abortion. But Clinton is moving to make this a national issue. My hope is that this move on her part does make a work/family balance plan a must have for all of the candidates. This national attention would be a very good thing for women that are struggling to balance their obligations.
There are a myriad of reasons why Clinton is the one raising this issue. Hillary Clinton is our first serious woman candidate for president, therefore she can't help but run as a woman. It is women who are putting her polls so far ahead of the rest of the field. She has made wooing women a central component to her strategy to win. As far as I know, this woman-centric strategy is entirely novel in a major presidential campaign. Clinton has a long history with family issues. She has been actively involved in children's issues since she was an undergraduate. After law school she eschewed high profile offers in favor of a job with the children's defense fund.
I don't really know why more men don't seem to take the work/balance issue very seriously. Our democratic men usually have great positions on women's issues. Obama himself is pitch perfect when he speaks to the topic of work/family balance. He gives the impression that his experience of being raised by a single mother gives him accurate emotional insight into the seriousness of the topic. And both Edwards and Obama have clearly benefited from marrying well! But in my experience, women leaders are much more likely to make the issue a high priority. (I believe there are studies to support this observation, but I don't have time to look them up. I guess I'm too busy balancing work/family, sorry!)
The same observation could be made for other women's issues, e.g. the pay gap, domestic violence, gender discrimination etc. It is too bad, because there still are many more men than women in positions of power. If these men gave serious attention to women's issues, then women would be a lot better off.
But until the day that the distinction "women's issue" is no longer needed, the chance to vote for a woman presidential candidate is very attractive. There was no a priori guarantee that Clinton's gender would translate to increased attention to woman. But this work/family agenda, along with other areas of her campaign directed at women, are the beginnings of promise that I really like the sound of. If nothing else, it would be a major accomplishment to simply put the work/family imbalance on the national agenda.