Perhaps in the least shocking news since Weiner's sexting scandal we now are presented with a whole new buffet of already predicted information.
Trump, the man who spent his campaign demeaning, belittling, insulting and objectifying women has come to appoint one of the most misogynist cabinets in the modern history of the USA.
Tax credits for child care and the prospect of paid maternity leave, new restrictions on abortion and less access to contraception, limits on health care that disproportionately affect women and minorities and curbs on funding for domestic violence, as well as slowing the momentum toward raising the minimum wage are just some of the news issues women will now have to deal under a Trump administration.
Let's take a look at Trump's selections for attorney general, Health and Human Services Secretary and CIA director: Jeff Sessions, Tom Price and Mike Pompeo respectively.
All three voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act in 2013, which funds shelters and services for victims of domestic violence, due to amendments that extended protections to L.G.B.T. victims.
The act is up for reauthorization next year.
Elaine Chao, Mr. Trump’s choice for transportation secretary, opposed raising the minimum wage during her tenure as secretary of labor in the George W. Bush administration.
Donald Trump opposed raising the federal minimum wage during the campaign, although at times he contradicted himself.
President of the Feminist Majority Foundation, Eleanor Smeal, points out that two-thirds of minimum-wage earners are women, who dominate fields with low-paying service jobs.
The President-elect, who supported abortion as recently as 1999, opposed it during his campaign.
So it comes as no surprise that so do almost all of his cabinet picks.
Senator Sessions and Representatives Price and Pompeo have repeatedly voted for abortion restrictions in Congress, including a ban on abortions after 20 weeks and opposed funding for Planned Parenthood and Title X, because abortion is included in these family planning services.
Nikki Haley, his nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, Betsy DeVos, education secretary and Ms. Chao also have a record of opposing the right to terminate one's pregnancy, with Mrs. Haley, while Governor of South Carolina signing into law a bill banning abortions from 20 weeks, despite a medically established viability standard of 24 to 26 weeks.
Ben Carson, his nominee for Housing and Urban Development, has opposed abortion (among other important issues) for a long time now.
When it comes to contraception things don't get better, with Mr. Sessions, Mr. Price and Mr. Pompeo all voting against requiring employers to provide health care plans that included contraception, citing religious liberty.
In an exchange that went viral in 2012, Mr. Price ridiculed the notion that there are women who can not afford contraception as part of his opposition to the Affordable Care Act, which requires contraceptive coverage without co-payments as well as a range of other preventive services for women. “Bring me one woman who has been left behind,” he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “Bring me one. There’s not one.”
This despite the fact that numerous women’s advocacy groups have demonstrated, high co-payments for birth control have been a significant deterrent for countless women.
In the end there is a small ray of bright hope in this dark future, proposals championed by Ivanka Trump (who the president listens to carefully) that would require paid maternity leave and offer expanded tax credits for child care.
The law as it is now provides only for unpaid leave.
However many people working on this issue would prefer paid family leave, so that men could play a larger role in the child's development.
The child care credits have also been criticized as too small and geared towards higher-income families.
As Ms. Smeal said however “Getting something is better than nothing right now.”
With this new administration American women can expect one step forward, and at least a thousand steps back from what we can gather.
All they have left now is to advocate as much as they can for a concentrated effort to block any of Trump's new initiatives.
Post a Comment