W = Weak on Women

George W. Bush: Weak on Women

George W. Bush's campaign website claims that "W" stands for Women. When Bush took office in 2001 he dissolved the White House Women's Office, created by President Bill Clinton, which worked towards positive changes for women and girls around the world. Since the closing of the Office, President Bush continues to rapidly weaken women’s rights. President Bush is...(1)

Weak on Workplace Equality

Ignored the Pay Gap

The Bush Administration ended The Equal Pay Initiative and removed fact sheets about equal pay for women workers from federal government web sites. The average woman in America today earns just 77 cents for every dollar earned by the average man. African American women earn only 66 cents on the dollar and Hispanic women earn only 54 cents. His FY 2002 budget slashed funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which enforces federal laws against discrimination and upholds equal pay. (2)

Refused to Raise the Minimum Wage

Nearly 7 million working women would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage. George Bush opposed increasing the federal minimum wage to $6.65 and supported measures which would allow states to opt out of any increase.(3)

Disregarded Job Discrimination

The Department of Justice abandoned prosecution of pending sexual discrimination lawsuits without notifying the plaintiffs or offering a reason.(4)

Weak On Support for Women and their Families

Cut Children Served by Child Care and Development Block Grant

The Child Care and Development Block Grant is used to improve the quality of childcare and assist low and moderate income families who can’t afford childcare. The Bush Administration’s proposed fiscal year 2005 budget will eliminate child care assistance for 365,000 children by 2009. (5)

Failed to Support Proven Child Assistance Programs

Although Head Start and after school programs have a proven track record the Bush Administration‘s budget includes minimal increases for Head Start and tried to cut the funding for 500,000 children in after-school programs in the fiscal year 2004 budget.(6)

Starved Important Programs to Cut Taxes for the Wealthy

The Bush Administration’s tax cuts for the wealthy came with deep budget cuts to services that women rely on such as: child care and services for domestic violence victims. (7)

Weak On Our Financial Security

The Administration’s plans to privatize Social Security would hit older women especially hard, because money would be siphoned out of the system reducing the benefits and replacing it with private investments that are risky and unlikely to make up the difference. In addition, the Administration is proposing elimination of a modest Savers Credit that gives an additional tax credit to low- and moderate- income individuals and families who contribute to a retirement account.(8)


Weak On Our Healthcare

Women and their families are losing access to health insurance -- in 2002, 43.6 million Americans were uninsured -- and health care costs continue to skyrocket. The latest Bush budget freezes funding for the Maternal and Child Health Block grant, cutting access to vital services such as screenings for newborns and parental care.(9)


Weak On Violence Against Women
President Bush slashed the Violence Against Women Program in his FY 2004 budget, reducing funding for emergency shelters, crisis hotlines and other desperately needed services to protect women from violence. In its FY 2005 budget, the Bush Administration proposes to cut $3 million from grants to states to improve stalker databases, encourage arrests, reduce violent crimes against women on campus, and enhance protections for older and disabled women from domestic violence and sexual assault. Bush asked Independent Women's Forum (IWF) President Nancy Pfotenhauer to join the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women. Pfotenhauer's organization claims that "the battered women's movement has outlived its useful beginnings," despite studies showing that one in five women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime.(10)

Weak On Opportunities

Opposed Affirmative Action

The Bush Administration filed a brief opposing the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy. Affirmative Action programs have dramatically increased opportunities for women and people of color.(11)

Undermined Title IX

Since its implementation in 1972, Title IX dramatically increased athletic opportunities for women and girls by outlawing gender discrimination. In June, 2002, the Department of Education formed a commission which then offered a series of recommendations to weaken regulations of Title IX. If the Bush Administration had had their way, 30 years of progress for women's athletics would have been dealt a potentially fatal blow.(12)

Weak On Reproductive Rights

In 2003, in an editorial titled "The War Against Women" the New York Times said of Bush, "The lengthening string of anti-choice executive orders, regulations, legal briefs, legislative maneuvers, and key appointments emanating from his administration suggests that undermining the reproductive freedom essential to women's health, privacy and equality is a major preoccupation of his administration - second only, perhaps, to the war on terrorism."(13)

Underfunded UNFPA

George Bush withheld $34 million in funds to the United Nations Population Fund in 2002. This came at the expense of women around the world who rely on UNFPA for services that reduce unintended pregnancies, abortions, and maternal deaths; promote safe pregnancy and delivery; and assist families with disease prevention, nutrition, and emergency aid. According to the UNFPA, the U.S.’s $34 million contribution would have been enough to prevent up to 800,000 induced abortions.(14)

Reinstated Global Gag Rule

On his first day in office, Bush reinstated the Global Gag Rule, eliminating U.S. funding to international family planning organizations that offer abortion counseling or services with their own private funds. Especially hurt are smaller towns and villages with fewer choices for care.(15)

Appointed Destructive Officials

President Bush appointed W. David Hager to the Food and Drug Administration's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. Hager has a history of refusing to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women and has recommended scripture reading as a treatment for premenstrual syndrome. In the past, Hager worked with the Christian Medical Association on a petition asking the FDA to override the ruling that approved RU-486, and he has written that it is "'dangerous' to compartmentalize life into 'categories of Christian truth and secular truth'."(16)

Nominated Right-Wing Judges

The Bush Administration is attempting to pack the federal bench with right wing ideologues. Not a single President Bush Federal Appeals Court nominee is on record supporting Roe v. Wade. One of Bush's nominees, Alabama Attorney General William Pryor said in 1997 that Roe v. Wade was "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history."(17)

Changed the Definition of Life

Bush's Department of Health and Human Services redefined fetuses as children under the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The rule explicitly includes the period from conception to birth as part of childhood.(18)

Compared Abortion to Terrorism

Bush declared January 20, 2002, just two days before the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, "National Sanctity of Human Life Day" The proclamation stated: "On September 11, we saw clearly that evil exists in this world, and that it does not value life ... Now we are engaged in a fight against evil and tyranny to preserve and protect life."(19)



Source 1: Sources: Anne Kornblut, “Shut office signals shift on women,” Boston Globe, 3/28/01; Sandra Sobieraj, “Bush ends women’s office,” Associated Press, 3/28/01; Mary Leonard, “Bush liaison courts support of women: office following Clinton approach,” Boston Globe, 12/20/01; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 2: Sources: Letter from Mitchell E. Daniels , Jr., Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, to Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (on file with the National Women’s Law Center); cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, “Current Population Reports, P60-221,” Income in the United States: 2002, at 10 (Washington, D.C.: U.S Govt. Printing Office, Sept. 2003), available at http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-221.pdf; “Women’s pay lags men’s in law, sales, journalism,” Reuters, 12/9/03 (reporting the results of a recent survey conducted by the National Association of Female Executives); General Accounting Office Report to Congressional Requesters, Women’s Earnings: Work Patterns Partially Explain Differences Between Men’s and Women’s Earnings, at 64, Oct. 2003, available at http://www.house.gov/dingell/documents/pdfs/womens_report03.pdf; General Accounting Office Testimony before the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management, and Intergovernmental Relations, House of Representatives, Women in Management: Analysis of Selected Data from the Current Population Survey, at 18-19, Oct. 2001, available at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02648t.pdf; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf
Source: “It’s Time – Past Time – for Equal Pay for Women,” National Women’s Law Center press release, http://www.nwlc.org/details.cfm?id=1845§ion=newsroom; U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2003 Annual Social and Economic Supplement, Table PINC-or. Work Experience in 2002 – People 15 Years Old and Over by Total Money Earnings in 2002, Age Race, Hispanic Origin, and Sex, See: http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032003/perinc/new05_114.htm, http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032003/perinc/new05_057.htm, http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032003/perinc/new05_117.htm.]
Source 3: Source: “The Minimum Wage Increase: A Working Woman's Issue,” Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief #133, 9/16/99 Source: Associated Press, 9/24/99

Source 4: Source: Vanessa Blum, “The Fight Within: Equality in the Justice Department,” The Recorder, 9/19/03; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf Source: Shannon McCaffery, “U.S. backs off discrimination cases,” Detroit Free Press, 12/11/03; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 5: House Budget Committee Democratic Caucus, 2/6/04, http://www.house.gove/budgets_democrats http://www.house.gov/budget_democrats; CBPP, 2/5/04, http://www.cbpp.org; Children’s Defense Fund, 2/6/04, Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Analysis, http://www.childrensdefense.org heep://www.childrensdefense.org Sources: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Budget in Brief FY 2005 (2004); cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 6: Source: Data from U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Head Start Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau, “Table POV34,”Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, Single Year of Age-Poverty Status 2002; “Good Start, Grow Smart,” April 2002; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, “Table 4,” Who’s Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 1999, Detailed Tables, available at http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/child/ppl-168.html; Estimates from the Afterschool Alliance, Feb. 2004 (on file with the National Women’s Law Center); cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 7: Source: “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf : Sources: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Budget in Brief FY 2005 (2004); cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf : Source: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government FY 2005 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Feb. 2004), appendix 699-700, available at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/browse.html; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf Source: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government FY 2005 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Feb. 2004), appendix 699-700, available at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/browse.html; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf Source: Washington Post, 9/5/02; IWF Statement of Record of Amicus Curiae, U.S. v. Morrison, 12/13/99 Source: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Budget in Brief for Fiscal Year 2005; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf Sources: See, e.g., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, “Strengthening Families Through Healthy Marriage,” 2003, available at http://www.loga.org/familiesmarriage.htm; NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, “Why NOW Legal Defense Opposes Federal Marriage Promotion in TANF Reauthorization,” 2003, available at http://www.nowldef.org/html/issues/wel/MarriageBackgrounder.pdf; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf Sources: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government FY 2005 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Feb. 2004), appendix 699-700, available at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/browse.html; Sharmila Lawrence, Resarch Forum on Children, Families, and the New Federalism, Domestic Violence and Welfare Policy: Research Findings that Can Inform Policies on Marriage and Child Well-Being, Dec. 2002. See also National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Domestic Violence, Homelessness, and the Need for Housing, Feb. 2003; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 8: Source: “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 9: Sources: http://www.census.gov, Health Affairs, Jan/Feb. 2004 Sources: House Democratic Policy Committee, “Fact Sheet: GOP Budget Fails to Lower Health Care Costs for Americans,” 3/25/04, http://democraticleader.house.gov/FS/HealthCare.htm

Source 10: Source: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government FY 2005 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Feb. 2004), appendix 699-700, available at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/browse.html; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf Source: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government FY 2005 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Feb. 2004), appendix 699-700, available at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/browse.html; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf Source: Washington Post, 9/5/02; IWF Statement of Record of Amicus Curiae, U.S. v. Morrison, 12/13/99 Source: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Budget in Brief for Fiscal Year 2005; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf Sources: See, e.g., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, “Strengthening Families Through Healthy Marriage,” 2003, available at http://www.loga.org/familiesmarriage.htm; NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, “Why NOW Legal Defense Opposes Federal Marriage Promotion in TANF Reauthorization,” 2003, available at http://www.nowldef.org/html/issues/wel/MarriageBackgrounder.pdf; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf Sources: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government FY 2005 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Feb. 2004), appendix 699-700, available at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/browse.html; Sharmila Lawrence, Resarch Forum on Children, Families, and the New Federalism, Domestic Violence and Welfare Policy: Research Findings that Can Inform Policies on Marriage and Child Well-Being, Dec. 2002. See also National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Domestic Violence, Homelessness, and the Need for Housing, Feb. 2003; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 11: Source: Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioners, Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003); cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 12: Sources: Charter – Secretary’s Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, approved July 5, 2002, available at http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/athletics/charter.html; Julie Foudy & Donna de Varona, Minority Views on the Report of the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, at iii, Feb. 2003; id. at 18-20, available at http://www.nwlc.org; U.S. Dept. of Educ., Office for Civil Rights, Further Clarification of Intercollegiate Athletics Policy Guidance, July 11, 2003, available at http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/title9guidanceFinal.html; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 13: New York Times Editorial, 1/12/03

Source 14: Source: Washington Post, 7/23/02 Source: Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director, UNFPA, Statement on U.S. Funding Decision, July 22, 2002, available at http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=146&Language=1; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 15: Sources: Memorandum of President George W. Bush for the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, Jan. 22, 2001, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/01/20010123-5.html; Memorandum of President George W. Bush for the Secretary of State, Aug. 29, 2003, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/08/20030829-3.html; The Global Gag Rule Impact Project, Access Denied: U.S. Restrictions on International Family Planning, Sept. 2003, available at http://64.224.182.238/globalgagrule/pdfs/executive_summary/GGR_exec_summary.pdf; The Global Gag Rule Impact Project, Access Denied: The Global Gag Rule and Contraceptive Supplies, available at http://64.224.182.238/globalgagrule/pdfs/issue_factsheets/GGR_fact_contraceptive.pdf; “Swaziland records world’s highest HIV/AIDS prevalence, U.N. Envoy says,” Kaiser Network Daily HIV/AIDS Report, March 22, 2004, available at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=22788; cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 16: New York Times, "Tribulation Worketh Patience," Maureen Dowd, 10/9/02; "Jesus and the FDA," Karen Tumulty, 10/14/02 Union of Concerned Scientists, http://www.ucsusa.org

Source 17: Source: “The Bush Judges: Rolling Back Rights,” NARAL Pro-Choice America, 3/3/04, available at http://www.naral.org/facts/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=5954
Wall Street Journal, 5/21/97; Montgomery Adviser, 6/5/03

Source 18: Source: 67 Fed. Reg. 61956 (Oct. 2, 2002); cited in “Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward,” National Women’s Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/AdminRecordOnWomen2004.pdf

Source 19: Source: Presidential Papers of the President, Proclamation 7520 – National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2002, 1/28/02

(Edited because some of the sources weren't visible - they were enclosed in brackets)

... Bush's policies have been an all-out ASSAULT on women.

Thank you for posting this. The facts are disturbing, but we need to have this all out in the light of day, especially now that Bush is goung around "courting" women's votes. Ugh. :scared:

I nominated this for the front page and bookmarked it.

Pretty much sums it all up. :hi:

I finally converted 2 Republican women and the thing that FINALLY did it was the assault on reproductive rights. Big thanks to all for all the links.

:kick:

this post would stay up top longer.

Surprisingly, we do have posters who oppose equal pay and affirmative action laws for women. Wonder why they haven't shown up?

I have a Bush-lite that i am trying to convert and this may do the trick.

I originally found it on the Kerry site -- since their latest redesign, it's no longer available that I can find. It holds no copyright, so anyone can use it as he/she wants.

Interesting middle name...

I thought it was Walker. Go figure. ;-)