What I learned from the White House's first summit on women
(just think, it only took seven years for this summit to occur)
What I learned from the White House's first summit on women
In a room with the Obamas, Oprah and scores of activists, there was rallying talk of self-care, rape survival and why men should never ‘babysit’ their own children
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President Obama speaks at the United State of Women Summit. Photograph: Rex
When Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, he made it clear that gender equality was high on his agenda. The very first piece of legislation he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which allowed workers greater latitude to sue their employers for equal pay. Since then, his administration has made sexism and violence against women priorities; creating the White House Council on Women and Girls and launching the It’s On Us campaign to tackle sexual assault on college campuses. As his time in office draws to a close, Obama has underlined his commitment to gender equality by convening the first ever White House summit on the United State of Women, which was held in Washington DC this week. It was a chance to take stock of the current state of women’s rights in America, as well as further afield, and to plan for the future.
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There were sobering statistics that backed up Biden’s calls for a cultural shift. Despite the fact that just 4% of US companies have female CEOs, a recent poll found that many still blame women themselves for the problem. 41% of Americans, we heard, believe that “women hold themselves back in the corporate world”. Laurie Fabiano, President of the Tory Burch Foundation, revealed that despite being drivers of the economy, women receive just one in every 23 dollars of business loans.
Many attendees spoke with grief about the recent shooting in Orlando, and the importance of an intersectional approach to gender inequality; tackling it alongside issues such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ageism and disablism. Joanne Smith, executive director of Girls for Gender Equity, spoke passionately about the need for domestic violence to inform gun control policy, because guns are the most common weapon used by men to kill their partners. Bamby Salcedo, president and CEO of the TransLatin@ Coalition, said that “systems within our governments, organisations and homes fail trans women of colour who are murdered simply for living their lives authentically”, and stressed that the visibility of trans women in the mainstream media, while positive, doesn’t automatically solve the wider problems of prejudice and violence.
There was talk of American women’s struggle for control of their reproductive health, with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards pointing out that women in America are now six times more likely to get a college degree than they were before birth control became legal. President Obama later touched on the same subject, saying: “A society that does not give women control over their own bodies is a society that will not work.
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http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/16/white-house-summit-women-obamas-oprah