A lot of the Bush damage to the country in general, like the war and the tanking economy, is front and center. But much of the damage to women has been under the radar. Presidential appointees can do tremendous harm, mostly out of the public eye. Take Wade Horn, one of Bush's Health and Human Services Assistant Secretaries. Horn founded the National Fatherhood Initiative to promote marriage as the solution to poverty, loudly touting the his belief that "the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church." Then he gave the group $12.38 million of taxpayers' money to push marriage instead of funding job training and educational programs to women get off welfare. But the marriage money is peanuts compared to the megabucks Horn poured into "abstinence-only" sex education in the public schools. That tab now comes to $176 million per year, even though the government's own research shows the programs don't work and teenage pregnancy is up for the first time in fifteen years.
Not to be outdone, the Bush appointees over at the Department of Education have stayed busy dismantling Title IX, the law protecting girls from discrimination in educational programs, including sports. Courts have for decades upheld Education Department's rigorous criteria for compliance as valid. But no matter. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings issued a Title IX "clarification," allowing schools to refuse to create additional sports opportunities for women based solely on email interest surveys. Failure of female students to answer email surveys is now routinely counted by colleges as a lack of interest in participating in sports. Neither the standard nor the email survey method of limiting opportunities applies to male students.
Even the women holding up Bush's precious wars have not escaped. Almost one in seven members of the military serving on active duty are women, and they make up a nearly identical percentage of National Guard and reserve units. Though the Air Force uncovered scores of rape accusations, a rising trend of reported abuses, and the most basic shortcomings in tracking the crime and attending to its victims in 2004, the Defense Department has been slow to pursue the allegations. And Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has yet to formulate a policy for dealing with contractors who commit rape.
The damage done by most political appointees can be undone by the next president or the next Congress if they're so inclined. Not so with the Supreme Court, where judges sit for life. If the Republicans regain the White House -- or even Senate -- and continue down the Bush path, we can probably kiss reproductive rights goodbye, and expect to lose any hope of redress in the courts for employment discrimination.
That's because the next president will likely make at least two Supreme Court appointments. Two is enough to do a lot of damage, as Bush lackeys John Roberts and Samuel Alito have shown. They've already tipped the balance, resulting in decisions upholding the first federal abortion procedure ban, and the severe curtailment of women's ability to sue for discrimination at work. The Court's only woman and strongest women's advocate, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, spoke out strongly in her dissent on both cases. She is 74 years old. Her colleague John Paul Stevens - another pro-woman vote - is 87.
So the real choice for women is not between race or gender, show horse or work horse. It's between continuing the Bush policies or voting in November for a candidate who can and will turn those policies around, and who will get rid of the anti-woman poison in Washington.
Women are not a "special interest." They are the majority - of the population, of registered voters, and of those that actually turn out. It's no wonder candidates are trying so hard to woo them. We've all heard the expression "buyer beware." As political buyers this year, women must be warier than ever.
]]>Bush's budget proposal is consistent with what author Riane Eisler, in her book The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics (Berrett-Koehler, 2007), calls a "dominator" economic system. Such a system is characterized by a distribution of resources to those on top, heavy investment in armaments and a lack of investment in meeting human needs. The result is an economic double standard in which programs associated with "femininity" (such as care-giving) are devalued, while "masculine" priorities (such as war) are highly valued.
If the U.S. ever catches up with the U.K. and other parts of the world that have embraced gender budgeting, it could go a long way toward changing our national budget priorities. Originally inspired by the early experience of countries such as Australia, and given further momentum by the U.N.'s commitment to the concept in the Beijing Platform for Action, gender budgeting is a simple idea: National budgets should not only be analyzed for the impact they have on certain groups (e.g., the poor), but they should be analyzed for gender fairness, including an analysis of how apparently gender-neutral models and policy-making tools may have an implicit gender bias.
The Women's Budget Group (WBG), an organization that brings together feminist economists, researchers and policy experts to consult with the U.K. Ministry of Finance, gives us one example in their analysis of the U.K.'s New Deal programs to reduce unemployment. They found that only 8 percent of funding for these programs goes to single parents, of whom 95 percent are female. Yet 57 percent of funds go to young people, of whom only 27 percent are female.
If we did a similar analysis of funding for outside contractors providing services on the ground in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, we would no doubt find that (1) the large majority of the contracts go to male-led and male-dominated companies, some without a single female board member and (2) close to 100 percent of the jobs created by those contracts go to men. Conversely, in U.S. domestic spending, women are the primary beneficiaries of such funding as the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) feeding programs (which also heavily employ women), but the $5.5 billion allocated to it is far outstripped by such costs as extending corporate tax breaks and/or tax cuts to the rich ($1.7 trillion over the next decade) that disproportionately benefit men.
The WBG stresses that gender budgeting is best done when women are a part of the budget-making process. With women holding only 16 percent of seats in the U.S. Congress and a paltry seven women on the budget committees in the House and Senate combined, that idea is a long way from current reality. But if the first step toward getting something done is imagining it, we can at least start down the path.
]]>For a longer version of this article, see the Winter issue of Ms., now available on newsstands and by subscription from www. msmagazine.com.
As a women's advocate, the most interesting face-off was between Edwards and Clinton over who would be better for women if elected. Not John Edwards - Elizabeth.
She had made the statement that her hubby would be better for the females of the country a week ago, and the two candidates in question were asked about it. John E. gave what my grandmother would call a "cutting bait" answer, not wanting to attack a woman I guess, while Hillary touted her 1995 speech in Beijing calling for international human rights for women. Elizabeth was much more direct in standing by her man in a post-debate interview, flatly stating that he would be better because his health care program is better, and that is of very high concern for women.
Truth is — all three of them are wrong.
The best candidate for women is Bill Richardson, and he has a very progressive women's policy platform to prove it. Rolled out in New Hampshire on July 16, he gets down to specifics, and it goes far beyond health care. No other candidate has committed as firmly as Richardson on issues that women tell pollsters they care about most:
Edwards is not wrong to say his health care proposal will help women, because almost any plan, including those from other candidates, would improve what women have now.
But low pay and lack of family supports in the workplace contribute to lack of health care, and he does not address these issues in a gender specific way. Bill Richardson does.
Most people believe Hillary is a strong advocate for women, and she undoubtedly is, at least in principle. But when it comes to specifics, Richardson is the candidate for women.
Editor's Note: In an effort to feature blog posts from all of the major 2008 presidential campaigns over the next several months, RH Reality Check is extending invitations to contribute an article or a statement to our Election 2008 coverage.
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