Women are on the front lines – but we’re being ignored.
Hi John,
I’ll get right to it: I’m worried we’re not being heard right now. Congress has yet to make progress on drafting a fourth COVID-19 relief bill that will actually help women and families in this crisis.
Take child care, for example. In the last bill, Boeing, a giant corporation, asked for a $60 billion bailout and Congress didn’t even blink. Yet we asked for less than that — $50 billion — to sustain the entire child care sector — run mostly by women — that forms the backbone of our economy. Instead, there was only $3.5 billion in dedicated funding for child care in the previous legislation! And child care providers and families may not get anything else — unless we make sure our members of Congress hear from us right now. Can you email your representatives today and make sure they’re hearing from us?
We need to make sure they don’t ignore us anymore.
Thanks,
Catherine White (she/her/hers)
Director of Child Care and Early Learning
National Women’s Law Center
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Melissa Boteach
Date: April 3, 2020 1:02 PM
Subject: Tell Congress: Fight for Women and Families
Dear John,
As COVID-19 rapidly spreads across the United States, threatening the lives, health, and livelihoods of millions, our elected officials still need to do MUCH more. The legislation that Congress has already passed will bring some important relief to families, but it’s not nearly enough.
Despite women’s front-line role in both responding to COVID-19 and supporting their families, despite women being twice as likely to lose jobs in the current crisis, we are being left behind, left out, and in some cases, actively attacked.
COVID-19 is having an even greater impact on women of color. The fact that women of color experience greater gaps in income and wealth, are more likely to work in poorly paid jobs, and already suffer health inequities means that women of color and their families face greater risk of economic distress, unemployment, and poor health outcomes. While the virus doesn’t discriminate, its impacts reflect and amplify centuries of discrimination.
Put women and their families ahead of corporations, including ensuring women have workplace, health, and other critical protections they need. That includes closing the carve-outs so ALL workers have paid leave and time off, providing personal protective equipment and true safety standards for everyone on the front lines, and making sure everyone has access to health care and insurance, including reproductive health care.
Get relief to women and their families NOW. That includes increasing SNAP benefits, strengthening Medicaid, and investing in supports for survivors of domestic violence and sexual violence.
Stabilize state and local governments and the services and jobs they support. That includes providing at least $50 billion to stabilize the child care sector and ensuring states and localities and the nonprofits that partner with have adequate funding to respond to this crisis fully.
Take affirmative steps to protect and expand access to reproductive health care. Anti-abortion policymakers must be stopped from using this pandemic to try to shut down abortion access.
Our rights are not a bargaining chip. Our livelihoods don’t come second to corporations. The only way back to prosperity for our country is to center the needs of women, especially women of color. Women will lead the way forward to an economy that works for all of us, and not just the privileged few.
