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Who's Voices on Presidential Commission on Women? Race, Class, Differences

by Lydia Howell

An organization called Women Count! is proposing a Presidential Commission on Women be created by the Obama Administration. Forty-seven years ago, the first Presidential Commission on Women was created, before Second Wave and Third Wave feminism, while the civil rights movement was building momentum, yet, had not yet won major legislative gains. The 'war on poverty” had not yet been declared. Gay rights still did not speak its name aloud. Disabled people were usually institutionalized and invisible.

What would such a Commission be like at the beginning of the 21^st century?

Younger generations have come of age in an era of conservative backlash, right-wing religion's repressive agenda and actions to reverse progressive gains of these movement. One of the most powerful reactionary weapons is to deny the continuing existence of oppressions with terms like “political correctness”, “post-racial” or claiming women's equality is “already established within gender differences”.

While the website of Women Count! has plenty of pictures of women of color, its statements are 'colorblind” (as well as, omitting any economic, sexual orientation or other differences between women). These omissions have plagued “mainstream” feminism (that is, the white, heterosexual, middle-class) form of feminism, exemplified by organizations for forty years. Third Wave feminism was born out of these omissions. It appears that Women Count! is an off-shoot of (primarily white) women who supported Hillary Clinton for president, yet, who haven't come to terms with the complexity of women's lives. We cannot be “generalized” into one mass called “Women”.

Recognizing women are ALSO members of racial/ethnic groups is a foundational idea that must be (finally) understood: the omission of race always implies “white only”, since it is white people's race—which includes white WOMEN's race-- that continues to be considered the “norm” that need never be said out loud. To assume that the experience of white women can stand for ALL women is simply not true. No matter what “common ground” all women may share in crucial respects, even issues in common have deeply significant differences based on race, economics, sexual orientation, disability, age and other elements of real women's lives.

At the most basic level, women of color must be central to any such Commission on Women and for that to be the case, there voices must be heard in the battle to create the Commission. Economic class is another key component for such a Commission. Given the strong links between race and economic status, Women Count! and anyone else pushing for a Presidential Commission on Women must put the nation's MOST VULNERABLE WOMEN at the center of such a Commission's work. Class-privileged white women who have climbed corporate and political ladders (often on the coat-tails of their powerful fathers or husbands) can NOT be the ones determining the 21^st century agenda for all women. To recognize and actually address the needs, disparities and inequality faced by the most vulnerable women in our country would inevitably expand equality for All women.

Consider these ideas in the context of one concrete issue.

Childcare: who is cared for and who does the care-giving?

All mothers who work outside the home need childcare. Millions of working poor and working-class women of all ethnicities struggle to find reliable, quality childcare that they can afford. Sometimes they rely on older relatives or neighbors, often having only a patchwork of care or having no choice but older siblings or even leaving kids on their own after school. Accredited child care centers are rarely in low-income neighborhoods and are too expensive anyway. Working second-shift jobs, having no car and little income all limit child care for these mothers. About 60% to 70% of these mothers are women of color, many living in high-crime neighborhoods where they worry about their children's safety—not only from crime but, also from police who see their children as criminals once they reach about age 12 or 13. Parks and recreation centers in inner cities have had youth program cut or fees raised, so, they are not an option either. Some churches have programs, but, most don't.

White, middle-class women have more options: accredited childcare centers in their neighborhoods (sometimes even at their jobs). They own a car so can easily take their children to daycare and pick them up on time—unlike women relying on public transportation. They are less likely to work second and third shifts—when child-care tends to be unavailable. Living in low-crime areas, they don't have to worry as much about their children's most basic safety and police do not target their children. Parks and recreation in suburban and middle-class areas are well-funded or if fees are now charged, there is an ability to pay. The most class-privileged white women can even hire women (often immigrant women of color) to care for their children in their home.

How much of the “progress”--that is, female “firsts” in various professions-- that is, progress for white women, has come due to women of color caring for white children either at home or in daycare centers?

Childcare is one of the lowest paid jobs (along with elder-care). This is due, in significant part, to gender discrimination. In a society that still sees work traditionally done by women—such as , care-giving—as worth very little economically. Certainly, some care-givers are white women, working poor women or students, for example. (I, myself, have done elder care for fifteen years). But, because of the low wages (often without any benefits), women of color get concentrated in care-giving jobs, as they do in other low-paid jobs. Immigrant women in these jobs (especially, working in private homes) are even more vulnerable to exploitation.

And no one asks, WHO cares for these care-givers' children?

So, something as basic as child-care must look at all kinds of resources and how they are distributed and to whom. Can our public schools be part of creating reliable, quality childcare and youth programs? Can childcare and youth recreation centers in the poorest neighborhoods, not only create reliable, quality care but, expand jobs for people who live there and who's children will be cared for? If relatives are caring for children, why shouldn't they be paid for this labor? That could add much-needed income to families living in poverty.

This means looking at city and state budgets, where deficits mean cuts in everything but Corporate Welfare subsidies and tax-breaks. All programs for the poor are ALWAYS on the chopping block FIRST. Urban public schools are facing budget-shortfalls, with the manta of “You can't throw money at failing schools!” being repeated over and over. With property taxes still the primary means of funding schools, suburbs and well-off neighborhoods get the programs and services their kids need (and class-privileged parents can also pay for enrichment or help with fund-raising), while the poor ---again, disproportionately of color--- live on crumbs. Inner cities, grossly neglected for decades, are where mothers of color and poor mothers raise their children—just as white “soccer moms” raise their children in suburbs. Poor and working-class women in rural areas face similar lacks: transportation, no childcare centers, working second and third shifts. How can these contexts not be relevant?

In states like California, for 20 years, budgets for education have fallen while budgets for prisons have gone up—with a near dollar-for-dollar shift from classrooms to cells. Who is filling those cells and what does that have to do with the “achievement gap” between students of color and white students? Which children are in pre-school/kindergarten--- and which are NOT? Only about one-third to half of children eligible for Head Start have ever had that experience due to never adequately funding the program. Now, there's moves to eliminate Head Start completely under the guise of No Child Left Behind, where corporations have made billions for test materials, curriculum and charter schools. Educational and enrichment opportunities are part of what working mothers think about for their kids' care so, these questions have to be part of thinking about childcare, too.

Of course, increasingly, it is becoming clear that the so-called “Mommy Track” is alive and kicking: that is, mothers of all races face all kinds of discrimination and lack of opportunity in the workforce, that women who are not parents are less likely to face and that men—whether parents or not-- never face. This common ground could be a means to look at the very real differences in circumstances under which mothers care for their children when they leave home for work.

But, even motherhood can't be a clear lens or means of solidarity, if only middle-class white women's voices are heard.

Inevitably, if one digs deep enough, you begin to have to look at the foster care system, family courts, juvenile justice and ultimately, even the criminal justice system.

Poverty, disability and being Lesbian too often means having one's children taken away entirely by child protection. Women of color are the fastest growing group in U.S. prisons—for primarily, non-violent petty economic crimes or “war on drugs” violations.

Women of color face sexual violence and domestic violence, just as white women do—but, how can they turn to police that act like an occupying army in their neighborhoods? I'm not at all suggesting that white women are always treated equitably by the criminal justice system. In spite of the media's obsession with white female victims, one should see that as most often a kind of cultural pornography, more than an indicator of how white women fare when they've been subjected to violence. However, crime statistics show unmistakable racial bias in law enforcement that means police don't show up at all or are as likely to arrest women of color as their abusive partners , during calls about domestic violence. Police brutality is an epidemic who's primary victims are people of color—meaning women of color can't trust police.

Take any major issue—health-care, income, education, housing—listen to women who are NOT white and who are NOT class-privileged, and you will see some common ground, but, also many deep differences. To only replicate white, middle-class women's experience—or what I call “corporate feminism”--in such a Commission is not true feminism at all. If our aims are to uplift ALL women with a Presidential Commission on Women, the women who have been most left behind must be heard. If the women who are usually left out are at the core of such a Commission, a deeper vision is inevitable.

When the intersections of racism, sexism and class are addressed, we get deeper insights, new ideas and different priorities for a yardstick to address not only “women's progress”, but, to really challenge things as they have been for too long, in our nation.

Lydia Howell is an independent Minneapolis journalist and winner of the 2007 Premack Award for Public Interest Journalism She is host/producer of “Catalyst:politics & culture” on KFAI Radio:

http://www.kfai.org