Public Employee Press

2012 ELECTION
The GOP Agenda
The war on women

By JANE LATOUR

If your budget includes items like nannies, private school tuition and other luxuries, you might choose to vote for the Republicans.

But if you are a working woman - one of the millions of mothers worried about finding affordable child care, quality health care, and living on a shoestring budget because of falling wages and rising prices - then the Romney-Ryan ticket is not for you. The Republicans have taken outrageous positions on issues of interest to women. The radical right would eliminate insurance coverage for contraceptives and dilute protection from deadly domestic violence. They want to cut Social Security benefits and dismantle Medicare, Medicaid and other vital social services, measures that would cripple women and low-income families that rely on these programs to keep their heads above water.

The ridiculous claims about women and "legitimate rape" by Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri, and the attacks on Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke exposed the Republicans views on women. So did the Republicans' refusal to let Fluke testify before Congress about the need for contraceptives to be covered by health insurance.

Discussions about women and politics typically treat the economy separately from those about family issues. But they are interrelated.

The poverty rates for women and children stabilized in 2011 after years of increases, though they remain historically high.

The wage gap for women is unchanged. Women working full time, year round in 2011, were paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. Analysis of census data shows that millions of Americans were kept out of poverty in 2011 by income supports such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, the Earned Income Tax Credit and food stamps.

November's election presents a clear choice between protecting programs that families rely on or giving tax cuts to millionaires.

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