Translating Electoral Influence Into Equality

Next week, our nation will celebrate Obama’s re-inauguration – a victory made possible in large part due to support from voters of color, particularly women.

The media and pundits have made much of the influence of people of color on this election – and the changing demographics that will make people of color the majority of the population by 2050.

Although women of color are growing in electoral influence, they still face disproportionate barriers to equality, including higher rates of sexual violence, increased harassment in the workplace, cultural and language barriers in access to health care and economic disparities. How we choose to address the concerns of women of color now will shape tomorrow’s future.

Fortunately, the Ms. Foundation is at the forefront of efforts to eliminate poverty, discrimination and social injustice. We were ahead of the curve in recognizing the demographic trends and shifting our attention toward a more diverse and inclusive women’s movement. We’ve made a special commitment to building the power of low-income, immigrant and women of color to effect change that resonates in their lives, as well as the lives of all U.S. women.

Since women were so instrumental in getting President Obama re-elected, how can he return the favor? Tell us which issues are most important to you. If you were president, would you repeal the Hyde Amendment, giving low-income women abortion coverage through Medicaid? Would you ensure affordable child care? Or expand the Violence Against Women Act to include protections for LGBTQ women, undocumented immigrants and Native Americans?

How would you help women – particularly, women of color – translate electoral influence into equality?

President Urges Senate to Support Paycheck Fairness Act

On Tuesday July 20, 2010, President Barack Obama expressed his support for the Paycheck Fairness Act and urged the US Senate to pass the bill, which the House has already approved. In his written statement, the President noted:

In America today, women make up half of the workforce, and two-thirds of American families with children rely on a woman's wages as a significant portion of their families' income.

Yet, even in 2010, women make only 77 cents for every dollar that men earn. The gap is even more significant for working women of color, and it affects women across all education levels.... Paycheck discrimination hurts families who lose out on badly needed income. And with so many families depending on women's wages, it hurts the American economy as a whole. In difficult economic times like these, we simply cannot afford this discriminatory burden.

[snip]

We cannot do this work alone. So today, I thank the House for its work on this issue and encourage the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, a common-sense bill that will help ensure that men and women who do equal work receive the equal pay that they and their families deserve. Passing this bill is one of the Task Force's key recommendations, and I hope Congress will act swiftly so that I can sign it into law.

Let's hope the President is successful in encouraging the passage of legislation that helps bring pay equality to all. It has been a long fight for this bill. We reported on its House sponsor Representative Rosa DeLauro [D-CT] (August 2008), and (June 2010), and on Ms. Foundation grantee the National Women's Law Center's fight for it in May 2010. For more on the NWLC's advocacy on fair pay, see its Womenstake.org blog.

New Connections Will Pave the Road to Economic Recovery

In an effort -- as of this morning unsuccessful -- to generate more Republican support for the economic recovery package, President Obama has conceded a provision that would have made it easier for states to extend Medicaid coverage for family planning services to low-income families. Yet, just last week on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, he issued a stirring statement that proclaimed:

"…..(W)e are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make. To accomplish these goals, we must work to find common ground to expand access to affordable contraception, accurate health information, and preventative services."

Why, within days, has President Obama violated his own pledge?

Part of the answer is that our country's approach to economic policy simply ignores meaningful connections between the issues we face in our everyday lives. Because we allow abortion to be debated solely on ideological grounds, we repeatedly ignore the real-life connection between women's reproductive health and their economic security. How else could it go unnoticed that as more and more women lose their jobs, their economic well-being will be further jeopardized by limiting their access to contraception (through Medicaid or through private insurance), thus increasing their chances of an unintended pregnancy?

Making this connection visible would make it much harder for Representative John Boehner, the Republican House leader, to declaim, "How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?"

A second part of the answer is that we still do not consider women's economic participation vital to our nation's economic advancement. Witness the lack of concern for the absence of decent-paying jobs for women in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. How can this be when women account for nearly 70 percent of minimum-wage and below-minimum-wage workers, and when most poor Americans are women and children? Why do we not take action to realize the potential economic contributions of half our population as we prepare to spend billions of dollars to stimulate the economy and lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to criticism of the Medicaid family planning expansion by stating that it would "reduce cost." This is absolutely true. In 2007, the Congressional Budget office found that such a measure would save the federal government $200 million over five years by giving women the option to prevent unwanted pregnancies that would result in Medicaid-funded births.

But what Speaker Pelosi -- and President Obama -- didn't do, and must do, is make the connection that women's health is fundamental to our country's economic health. If we don't work quickly to ensure the economic security of women, particularly low-income women and women of color -- by increasing their access to contraception, decent-paying jobs with benefits, and quality and affordable child care -- our nation will forego the full benefit of their economic contributions now and in the future. Surely we can agree that this would be an enormous step backward in our quest for economic "recovery."

Sara K. Gould
President & CEO
Ms. Foundation for Women

[See also "Obama Recovery Plan Can't Leave Women and Families Waiting in the Wings."]