Women’s Rights

Protecting Women’s Rights

It’s 2022 and women still are systematically disadvantaged by a system that does little to protect and invest in their futures. Currently, women hold just 32% of the wealth men have accumulated and women of color only hold pennies on every dollar a white man holds. Women are drastically less likely to go into STEM careers, yet drastically more likely to be victims of domestic violence. And, the COVID pandemic has exacerbated the challenges women — particularly women of color — face every day. We cannot stand idly by while our women aren’t treated as equals by a government that’s meant to protect them.

Now is a powerful time — a tipping point — in the fight for women’s rights. From the incredible turnouts at both the 2017 and 2018 Women’s Marches, to the wave of #MeToo and #TimesUp stories, our country and the world are awakened to the critical necessity to listen to women, believe women, support women, and to hold each other accountable for our words and actions. This remarkable moment in gender equity discourse, and the wide expanse of its reach, must be leveraged as an opportunity to move the needle further towards justice, fairness, and equality. Where we go next depends on our ability to build on this movement, stand our ground through inevitable backlash, and to focus on solutions. This isn’t just about raising our boys to be better men tomorrow — this is about men and women working together today to bring real progressive change to the systems that currently leave women at a disadvantage.

Here’s are a few of the things I’m fighting for —

Economic equality is imperative for gender equality.

True equality stems from financial independence. Women in America are still earning only 79 cents for every dollar a man earns. And when we consider the statistics for women of color, the outcomes are worse. In 2016, Public Advocate Letitia James released an analysis of the gender wage gap in New York City’s workforce, which highlights even larger disparities — black or African American women in NYC are earning only 55 cents for every dollar a white man earns, while Hispanic or Latina women are earning only 46 cents, far less than the national average.  And women — primarily Black women — hold two-thirds of the nation’s student debt, both exacerbating and resulting from racial and gender wealth gaps. This is especially detrimental for the over 4 in 10 mothers — especially women of color — who are sole or primary breadwinners for their families. 

This persistent inequity is a disgrace, and completely unacceptable. We must bring transparency to salaries by requiring disclosure and reporting of pay, limit requirements for job applicants to provide salary history information, and ensure that employers provide a salary range to applicants in job announcements and advertisements.

Another major issue driving our pay gap is the lack of access to boardrooms. Even now, at a time when earnings of Fortune 500 CEOs are at an all-time high, women only account for 5% of the list. Access to capital is also preventing women from reaching their economic potential. In 2017, a dismal 2% of venture capital dollars went to female-founded companies. This staggering gap in financing is preventable and we must focus on solutions. We must make a commitment to invest in companies with women and minority leadership in order to provide fair access to economic opportunity for all, and to drive further economic growth.

We must pass and build on the Paycheck Fairness Act, which codifies and expands critical Obama-Biden protections for workers’ paychecks. Today, one in four private-sector workers are in a workplace where they can’t talk about their current wage rate with other employees without fear of retribution from their employers. This is unacceptable.Transparency and accountability are our only way forward. We must ban the use of salary history to set wages and make hiring decisions, so employers have one less false justification for under-paying women and people of color.

We must strengthen the ability of employees to challenge discriminatory pay practices and hold employers accountable. We must expand funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to increase the number of anti-discrimination investigators, litigators, and enforcement actions.

We must invest in women-owned small businesses. 

Women start businesses at nearly double the rate of men, yet they only receive about 2% of venture capital funding. We must provide women-owned small businesses with the capital, technical assistance, mentorship, and support they need to grow. We can do this by directing federal funding to women-owned businesses, double funding for the State Small Business Credit Initiative, and expanding and improving the Small Business Administration programs that most effectively support women-owned businesses, especially those owned by women of color.

Reproductive care must be accessible and affordable.

Women all across America, not just in select states, should have full control over what happens to their bodies. The fundamental right to reproductive care has become a left-right battleground, with women losing out every time. This must end.

Every person should have the resources and agency to make healthy decisions about their own individual bodies, sexuality, and reproduction. Lawmakers must support, not deny, this right.

The Affordable Care Act made historic progress ensuring access to free preventive care, including contraception, but we cannot stop there. We must repeal the Hyde Amendment because healthcare is a right that should not be dependent on one’s zip code or income.

We must support our families.

Access to flexible scheduling, paid family leave, and high-quality child care remains a major hurdle for women and for families across America. The United States is the largest developed country that does not guarantee paid leave to workers, forcing new parents with limited resources to return to work just days after the birth of their children. Once parents return to the workplace, they have few affordable childcare options and often struggle to balance working schedules with time spent with their children.

This lack of workplace support for new parents disproportionately disadvantages women, who may be forced to compromise or suspend their careers in order to care for their children. 

Lower-income women with few options for childcare are especially burdened by this, which further widens existing wage disparities. Offering federal subsidies and tax breaks for workplaces that provide flexible scheduling options, paid family leave, and childcare for their employees will begin to correct the systemic injustices driving the wage gap.

Rising costs put childcare out of reach for millions, and it’s time for every American to have access to care and Pre-K regardless of their income. With the expansion of New York’s child care tax credit for middle-class families, I believe we can and should push for New York City to become a model for comprehensive national pre-K programs that support our families, rather than burden them with additional financial and emotional stress.

Combating Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

Domestic violence and rape is an epidemic plaguing our nation. Nearly 3 in every 10 women have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by a partner. Nearly 1 in 4 women have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

We must close the “boyfriend loophole,” which allows domestic abusers to obtain firearms, despite criminal convictions or restraining orders against them just because they did not marry the victim. The presence of a firearm in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%. Closing the boyfriend loophole is long overdue and should be a key, bipartisan priority.

We must expand funding for the Legal Services Corporation to ensure survivors have access to an attorney in civil and criminal proceedings. We must also expand funding to end the rape kit backlog. Rape Kit backlogs delay and even prevent criminal investigations from occurring.

Finally, we must end the toxic culture of rape, violence, and sexual abuse in this country. We must fund a public awareness campaign to educate individuals from early childhood to college campuses, to workplaces to end this toxic culture.

We must work to ensure our college campuses are safe for women. Survivors and advocates have fought to hold schools accountable and give young people truly fair access to education. Survivors should be treated with dignity and respect and heard- never silenced.