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Trump Is Quietly Attacking Women on Pay, Healthcare, Reporting of Harassment
The #MeToo movement has been a revelation of revelations. As it continues and the impacts are felt over the years, it should grow to be worthy of inclusion in our history books. On the contrary, Trump would like to simply make it history.
To the droves of women speaking up about sexual harassment and discrimination, the Trump administration’s message is clear: Shut up. Behind the scenes, and mostly through executive orders, the White House is making it harder for women to report sexual harassment and fight sex discrimination.
That's a strong statement. What is the backup?
The clearest example came in March. It received little coverage at the time. President Donald Trump reversed an Obama-era order that forbid federal contractors from keeping secret sexual harassment and discrimination cases. The 2014 rule prohibited these companies, which employ about 26 million people, from forcing workers to resolve complaints through arbitration, an increasingly common method businesses use to settle disputes out of the public eye. “This was a clear sign of the administration silencing women,” said Jessica Stender, senior staff attorney for Equal Rights Advocates, a women’s rights nonprofit.
THAT'S NOT ALL.
The attack so far has seen the most success via executive order, but a vast swath of the public policies proposed or endorsed by administration officials attempt to scale back women’s rights. From Trump’s repeal of executive orders meant to reduce pay discrimination to the budget floated in May, the failed repeal of Obamacare, and now the Republican tax bills, actions taken or backed by this administration harm women.
[In January], Trump signed his first executive order (surrounded by men). Literally a “gag rule,” meant to prevent health clinics around the world from even talking about abortion.
....the administration in August ditched an innovative equal pay initiative launched by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The scrapped provision would’ve required companies to report data on how much they pay workers ― broken down by race and ethnicity ― in order to make it easier to figure out the scope of the pay gap and ideally help close it. The EEOC spent six years devising this rule.
In September, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos rescinded a key Obama-era effort meant to help victims of sexual harassment and assault on college campuses
If these actions were properly covered at length, Trump (and Republicans) would lose significantly more support.
This war on women comes at a time when feminist ideals have never seemed more powerful. Finally, sexual assault victims are being heard and believed. Sexual predators.... are facing real consequences....
In this atmosphere, the Trump administration’s actions look remarkably like a real-time backlash to the growing assertion of female power.