Feminism after the fall elections
Hartmann, Heidi
What are women to do in today's political climate? More specifically, what should the organizations that represent them in Washington do for the next two years? In my view, the task for the...
...While the president floated his trial balloon, women's groups actively lobbied him and his administration to hold it high and keep it aloft...
...He'll have to do a lot more than this, however, to win back women's votes...
...JEDI Women (Justice, Economic Dignity and Independence for Women), a grassroots Utah group of welfare rights activists, successfully mobilized similar groups to undertake marches, speak outs, and demonstrations protesting actual and proposed cutbacks in welfare at approximately seventy-five locations across the nation on February 14...
...The task is to speak up clearly and loudly to affirm women's rights to full participation in the economy, polity, and society...
...But this election cycle, rank-and-file women across the country took a look at what was happening for them—not much—and took time out...
...Some would proclaim their feminist ideals and mobilize their followers through militant tactics, while others would soften their appeal to try to appeal to moderate, centrist women...
...They seem still to want to be players, attempting to tinker at the margin of the new conservative agenda...
...Most women's organizations failed to confront him on his lack of responsiveness...
...For at least the past five years, in poll after poll, this bread-and-butter issue has headed the list of women's demands...
...In 1992 they elected President Clinton...
...It's not too late for the women's movement to get its act together...
...Polls show that women are generally more progressive than men, they support an active government and more generous help for the poor, and are more likely to say they are willing to pay higher taxes to achieve their objectives...
...With women's leaders flocking to his side without demanding much in return, President Clinton and the Democratic party have been able to take women's support for granted...
...Polls also show clearly what women want...
...Nor is it too late for the Democrats...
...It seems that many women's groups fear that standing up and demanding equality instead of begging for it will brand them as members of the lunatic fringe...
...it's not a mystery anymore...
...In short, women are the perfect supporters of activist Democratic politicians, and, particularly in 1980 when the Republican party moved to the right, abandoning its long-standing support for women's rights, women moved to the Democratic party in droves...
...In the meantime, let's hope women are building their base, not just to reelect Bill if he deserves it, or to bring the next Congress into pro-women hands, but to exercise power themselves...
...in 1994, they failed to come out in their usual numbers...
...The Council of Presidents, the Washington-based organization that represents the leaders of some ninety-five national groups that work on women's issues,* is beginning to forge ways to enable it to respond collectively to critical issues, despite a historically weak, confederated structure...
...As a friend of mine says, "Girls just want to have funds...
...In his first two years in office, President Clinton did little explicitly for women, and virtually nothing on the economic issues closest to their hearts...
...their leaders preferred to cooperate with our first prochoice president in twelve years, believing they could get more for women by playing as insiders than as outsiders...
...indeed there are some signs that it is doing so...
...To quote Irene Natividad, Chair of the National Commission on Working Women, we must, as a first step, "challenge the atmosphere of compliance...
...Other groups are working to link and mobilize women's advocates active at the state level into a national network, while yet others are linking grass-roots groups of activists— welfare mothers, poor people, immigrants, and * An organization of which this author is a member...
...workers...
...In my view, the task for the women's movement is clear...
...The Council of Presidents supported the activities in Washington and set forth its fundamental principles for meaningful welfare reform, deriding the current proposals for failing to meet them: child care, health care and educational opportunity, reproductive rights, child support enforcement, access to better jobs, and real assistance that provides an escape from poverty...
...But just as the Democratic party is unclear about whether to reaffirm its agenda and solidify its traditional base or to continue its 158 • DISSENT Right Turn drift to the right, pursuing the path of me-tooism, so too are women's organizations conflicted...
...Now, in the face of a graver threat than simply a sometimes supportive, sometimes indifferent Democratic president, namely an actively antiwomen, Republican-led Congress, some groups are beginning to realize that to get women's agendas acted upon, perhaps simply to defend the rights women have won, they must mobilize women...
...What they want is more money...
...They must organize their grass roots, elect prowomen candidates, and hold politicians accountable— Democrats as well as Republicans...
...With the ideological battle lines so clearly drawn, women must defend activist government at the national level, demand regulation of such corporate abuses as unequal pay and pervasive discrimination against women, and insist upon their rights to safe and legal abortion and to an environment free of violence perpetrated by men...
...They don't seem to realize that the new guys in town don't want to let them in the game...
...The president has shown some gumption in going after a substantial increase in the minimum wage, a policy that will help women disproportionately, because nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women...
...q SPRING • 1995 • 159...
...They want pay equity, opportunity for advancement, and respect on the job...
...Those who did gave only a light majority of their votes to Democrats, reducing their support for Democratic candidates substantially compared to past levels...
...A states-rights, free-market agenda will never be a women's agenda...
...Unless we take that first step to speak out strongly and clearly, we let Newt win the battle and the right wing win the war...
...They work as hard as men and they want to get paid as much as men...
Vol. 42 • April 1995 • No. 2
