Budget Cuts Most Likely to Affect Women: So Why Aren't There Any Women on the Budget-Slashing Committee?

At Blair House, the old boys club meeting has consisted of Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), U.S. Senators John Kyl (R-AZ), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Max Baucus (D-MT), Reps. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who have convened for the budget negotiations with Vice President Biden, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Budget Director Jack Lew, and economic adviser Gene Sperling. Where are the women?

The lack of prominent women at the meetings raises suspicion that the problems affecting their constituents, particularly the elderly and most economically and socially vulnerable, won’t be addressed in this budget, said representatives from the coalition, which includes the National Organization for Women, the Older Women’s League, the Black Women’s Health Imperative, and the YWCA. To counter this, they are raising their concerns in public and requesting a meeting with government officials to demand that, in the words of NOW President Terry O’Neill at a Tuesday conference call, women’s needs be “at the center of the analysis.”

In a joint letter to President Obama and Vice-President Biden, the NCWO's Older Women's Task Force made its case: "Women are being asked to shoulder a burden that is not of their making, to pay a 'fair share' of the sacrifice that is needed when they are not getting a fair share of the jobs in the recovery or equal pay for an equal day’s work."

Whose Recession?

The idea that the recession has been primarily male-driven -- a “mancession” -- has resonated with the facts on the ground only to a certain extent. The catchphrase doesn’t cover the whole picture. As Bryce Covert recently wrote at the Nation, new jobs for men (a “hecovery” in her words) combined with a vicious wave of Scott Walker-style attacks on the largely female sector of public workers like teachers and nurses, may herald a forthcoming “womancession”:

...since late 2009, male unemployment has begun to either flatten out or make very modest gains. As of November, it was down .04 percent over the previous twelve months. Meanwhile, women’s unemployment rate is increasing—over that same period it rose .04 percent. According to the National Women’s Law Center, women lost 366,000 jobs between July 2009 and January 2011, while men gained 438,000, a difference of 804,000. These trends are set to worsen. 

Given that this is the case, it’s crucial that stimulus measures and other efforts to add jobs to the economy include women.

“We need federal and state support, not only for construction support but for women in the public workforce,” Cynthia Harrison, vice-chair, Women’s Committee of 100, said on Tuesday's call. “We need additional teachers, nurses and nurse's aids, as well as support for caregivers providing service in the home. And we also need to be sure that when we talk about shovel-ready projects...there’s an opportunity for women to train for male-dominated jobs.”