This month a group of experts in international human rights law from the United Nations traveled to the United States. For ten days they ventured through Alabama, Oregon, Texas and Washington, DC. Why? To evaluate the level of discrimination against U.S. women in law and practice. In their own words, their findings were “shocking” and “myth-busting.”
In their report, they scolded and condemned the United States for its utter failure in providing for the women within its borders. As they concluded in their initial statement: “The United States, which is a leading state in formulating international human rights standards, is allowing its women to lag behind international human rights standards.” This included the facts that maternal mortality and the percentage of women in poverty have both increased in numbers. The wage gap is greater than 20 percent, even more for women of color, and impacts women with lower wages throughout their lives and increases pension poverty. They noted the great impact of wage theft for migrant and undocumented workers, violence rates against Native women, police killings of African American women, and trans women locked up in male immigration detention centers. They were appalled by the state of women, especially mothers, in prisons and detention centers. It was pointed out that the United States is one of only two countries in the world that does not provide paid maternity leave, and that the unpaid leave of Family and Medical Leave Act does not cover all women.
Lack of access for reproductive education and health care was especially concerning to the investigators. Too many schools still teach abstinence-focused sex education. Religious objections to covering contraceptives, as exemplified by the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, has meant that not all women are free to make the best choices regarding the families they may choose to create. But the biggest issue was the restrictions and barriers women face in accessing abortions. “We witnessed the intimidation and harassment in our visit to clinics…Although women have a legal right to terminate a pregnancy under federal law, ever increasing barriers are being created to prevent their access to abortion procedures.” Through visits to clinics, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley, it was obvious that poor and immigrant are disproportionately affected by increased. Despite some assistance from the Affordable Care Act, “there is still no universal health coverage in the country, and too many women pay the price, sometimes with their lives, of this considerable coverage gap with strong regional and ethnic disparities.”
Findings come as no surprise
In what could be a perfect summary of the situation: “While all women are the victims of these missing rights, women who are poor, belong to Native American, Afro-American and Hispanic ethnic minorities, migrant women, LBTQ women, women with disabilities and older women are disparately vulnerable.” For many who read this, all these findings come as no surprise. Collectively, these are the truths of our experience every day as women in this country.
It is not that these problems are particularly “complex” or “difficult” in their solutions. It is not that the different sides have trouble negotiating their way to more “equal” treatment. Rather, the achievement of true equality and respect is utterly impossible within the system in which we live.
The United States is a capitalist, imperialist country driven by the pursuit of profit. It is to the benefit of those at the top to have half the population working at a lower wage, being unpaid while recovering from childbirth and raising the next generation for free. It is to their benefit to keep us hunkered down, focused on simply surviving as we are assaulted, incarcerated and made to feel vulnerable. If we are consumed with our struggle to survive, how can we organize to fight for our rights?
The injustice of these discriminatory practices against women in the U.S. is unfortunately not “shocking” to us. But we know that we cannot just let them continue to grind us down and oppress us. So it is by necessity that we must speak up, organize and fight back. We must build a movement that unites with poor and working-class men and women, the movements of the oppressed nationalities and the movement for LGBTQ equality. This movement needs to dispay the same in-your-face spirit of struggle that characterized the 1970s feminist movement and proclaims: “We will not be pushed back.” We need to overthrow a system that makes excuses to strip us of our rights and build a new system based on meeting the needs of women and all working and oppressed people.
