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Contact: Lela Shepard or Margot Friedman at 202/588-5180
Administration Rolling Back Progress for Women and Girls with Policies That Are Out of Sight & Out of Touch
NWLC’s Comprehensive Report Reveals Harmful Impact of Dozens of Policies and Proposals, Sets National Agenda to Improve Women’s Lives
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Read the Executive Summary at www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomenExecSummary2004.pdf.
For a full copy of the report, please visit www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf.
“The Administration’s policies are reversing progress for women and girls across the board – their opportunities to succeed in work and in school, their economic security, and their health and reproductive rights,” said Nancy Duff Campbell, NWLC Co-President. “The few positive steps the Administration has taken to help women are overshadowed by the overwhelming number of proposals that hurt them.”
“It is no accident that many of the Administration’s policies have a low profile. These actions are out of sight because they are out of touch with the beliefs and aspirations of American women -- and men -- and would not be tolerated if they were commonly known,” said Marcia D. Greenberger, NWLC Co-President. “It is critically important that these policies change to make opportunity and equality part of our daughters’ futures. We call upon the Administration to fully enforce our civil rights laws, increase retirement security, and adopt fair tax and budget policies that adequately fund services women and their families rely upon.”
The report focuses on ten key areas: women at work; girls at school; child care and other supports women need to work; tax and budget policies; retirement security; health and reproductive rights; violence against women; women in the military; judicial nominations; and government offices that are charged with safeguarding women’s interests. Some of the steps backward for women include:
n The Department of Education, without explanation, “archived” Title IX guidance on preventing sexual harassment in schools, making it unavailable to administrators and parents trying to protect children from sexual harassment.
n The Administration ended the Equal Pay Initiative and has removed all materials on narrowing the wage gap from the Department of Labor’s website. The Department of Justice has also dropped cases challenging sex discrimination in employment.
n The Labor Department repealed a rule to help employees obtain paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child.
n The Department of Education reduced Title IX enforcement while it established a Commission to weaken athletics policies that open opportunities for female students.
n The Administration’s budget would cut 300,000 children from child care programs by 2009.
n The Administration’s tax cuts and resulting budget cutbacks are a double whammy for women because they cut services and programs women rely on while providing little tax assistance to low- and moderate-income women.
n A plan to privatize Social Security that the Administration supports would require deep cuts in Social Security benefits for all future retirees, whether they participate in a private account or not. For example, by the Administration’s own analysis, a woman retiring in 2075 (working at an average wage) would receive benefits 46 % below current levels if she did not participate in a private account and 69 % below current levels if she participated in a private account. Even if she received an average return on a medium-risk portfolio from her private account, her combined income would be 21% below current benefit levels.
n The Administration’s plan to “restructure” Medicaid, changing it from an entitlement program to a block grant, will result in more women without health insurance.
n Women’s reproductive rights are being taken away by Administration-backed laws criminalizing abortion and giving the rights and status of “personhood” to fetuses and embryos.
n Medical research is being undermined and scientific information distorted to serve an anti-abortion and anti-family planning agenda. For example, the National Cancer Institute posted information on its website that falsely suggested there may be a link between abortion and breast cancer.
n The Administration limited the role of a 55-year-old advisory committee designed to promote recruitment and retention of women in the military and appointed new members to the commission who do not support opening new opportunities to women – one of whom called the Army “a vast day-care center, full of unmarried teen-age mothers using it as a welfare home.”
n The Administration has selected judicial nominees opposed to critical rights for women and girls. One judicial nominee wrote that wives must “subordinate” themselves to their husbands.
n The Administration proposed funding emergency shelters, crisis hotlines and other domestic violence services at 26% below authorized levels.
NWLC will continue to monitor these and other federal policy developments outlined in the report and post the updates in the Special Reports section of the Newsroom.
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