An intersectional gendered eye spotlights issues such as:
CoVid 19 and Economic Recovery: The Biden Administration points to building infrastructure and creating clean energy jobs as paths to post-CoVid19 economic recovery and as a way to address climate change. While women have made inroads into the clean energy fields and into the building trades, men predominantly do this work. Efforts to train women, to create apprenticeship programs and to fight for their inclusion in unions is imperative.
Women’s Unpaid Labor: U.S. gross national product (GNP), a measure of the nation’s overall economic productivity, includes paid labor, not unpaid labor, most often done by women in the home and in the community as volunteers. What does this exclusion mean for how the GNP is defined and measured?
Voting Patterns: Progressive’s voting strategies emphasize the importance of expanding the electorate. Polls about voters’ candidate preferences record differences in racial and ethnic groups’ responses, but with the exception of a few selected polls (Center for Women and Politics, Rutgers University and the PEW Research Center), generally, polls do not pay sufficient attention except at critical moments to differences in male and female voting patterns. The “gender gap” mentioned previously reveals that women, particularly black women, are more likely than men to favor Democratic-social welfare, peace, education, and social services policies. How would a routine consideration of diverse women’s voting preferences challenge the assessment of a candidate’s viability?
- Housing: Cutting edge affordable housing developments promise green design, bicycle paths, and playgrounds on the exterior. But what about affordable housings’ interiors? The traditional (heterosexual) nuclear family with 2.5 children is no longer the norm. Today there are many kinds of families—single mothers with children, stepparent blended families, extended multigenerational households, cohabiting gay and straight couples with and without biological or adopted children, and formal and informal adoptive parenting arrangements. What do living arrangements that take these differences into account look like?
Health and Illness: Progressives advocate Medicare for All. Women live longer than men. Women are the ones primarily responsible for taking children to doctors and using the health care system. Women experience illness differently and respond differently to medication than their male counterparts. What do these gender differences mean for the implementation of Medicare for All’s plans for medical and preventive care services, for reproductive, prenatal, maternity, pediatric, care services, for long-term care coverage and insurance, and for medical research?
The Right Wing: The U.S. has moved to the right. White working-class Americans, traditionally Democratic, are now more likely to vote Republican. Globalization, de-industrialization and economic displacement are frequently cited as reasons for this shift. How does the historical “battle of the sexes” factor into this rightward shift and change our understanding of right-wing politics?
- Coalition Building: The #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements have captured public attention. Both demand redress of their respective injustices. What do the two movements founded by women, have in common? How can they empower each other to confront the wealth and income gaps in the U.S.?
