A Woman’s Response To Joe Biden’s New “Women’s Agenda”

Image Credits: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

On Monday, July 27, former Vice President and current Presidential Democratic candidate Joe Biden released an agenda for women in America.

For starters, I don’t think Joe Biden is qualified to speak about what’s best for women in America. Not because of the fact that he isn’t a woman, but because of how he treats women, but let’s jump into what is on Biden’s agenda for women.

Administration representation

Biden wants his cabinet to reflect the demographics of the country. While I love that idea in theory, I believe every single cabinet member should be uniquely qualified for their position and not filled to fit a quota. Merits matter more. We don’t need more women in government for the sake of meeting some unspoken quota; we need more qualified women in government. At the federal level, he will mandate inclusion and diversity training aka more money for the taxpayer to owe. 

“Women’s issues”

Biden says he will make sure that “women’s issues” stay at the forefront of his policy efforts. In case he missed the memo, all issues are women’s issues. I am more than my reproductive systems. In fact, I really don’t appreciate being minimized to my lady parts. He also promises to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, even though women have had equal rights since the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but I digress. 

Women’s economic security

First up on his bulleted list of things he wants to improve for women is economic security. His plan states:

“Women hold only 32% of the wealth men have accumulated and women of color only hold pennies on every dollar a white man holds. Women in the workforce, on average, earn less than men do. When they start a business, they have less access to capital, and have to dip into their personal finances. Only 56% of women ages 18–34 are able to save, compared to 70% of men.”

All of these statistics have been debunked time and time again. These numbers fail to include education level, individual choices, or a myriad of other factors that contribute to this any kind of disparity in pay. He does go on to mention that black women are in the most student debt, but I think we can agree that our country does have a student debt problem — even if we have different plans to solve it. 

The wealth gap 

In this section, he mentions that there is a wealth gap (yes, but it is one where the rich can fall and the poor can rise; it’s not a caste system), he wants to fight for equal pay (Equal Pay Act of 1963 already did this), ending workplace discrimination and harassment (I’m not against this per se, but I’m wary of more government mandates that put undue burdens on small businesses.) Also, how is Joe Biden going to lecture anyone about treatment of women when he can’t take his hands off people?), encourage women business owners and so on. He continues to say that women don’t have equal pay (again, we do for equal work, equal hours, equal qualifications, etc) and says that he would like to see more unions (no thanks, they’re outdated and forcing people into unions goes against the very foundation of a free country). 

Healthcare

Next up on his list is to “expand healthcare and tackle health disparities.” He proudly boasts about the Affordable Care Act. This is quite funny for me because my premiums doubled and I lost my doctor as a healthy college kid, but if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor…right?

Maternal mortality

Biden claims our country has one of the highest rates — 14 out of 100,000 mothers in America die during child labor according to the CIA. This isn’t super controversial.

Abortion

Biden would stop all laws that restrict Roe v. Wade. So the next question to ask is Biden okay with abortions up to birth? And if pro-choicer like Biden claim they want abortion o be “safe, legal, and rare,” why is holding abortion clinics up to ambulatory code so controversial? Biden wants to restore federal funding to Planned Parenthood. He would re-implement the Mexico City Policy. This policy would restore funding to global healthcare providers who also promote abortion services. Then, he states that he would restore the birth control mandate that the Supreme Court ruled on in the case of Hobby Lobby. The constitution and Biden may be at odds about this one. 

Continuing on with healthcare, Biden can’t help but continue to use his power for the worse by mandating what insurance companies should have to cover. He says these mandates will protect LGBTQ+, women with disabilities, incarcerated women, women veterans, and native american women. While reform through their federal insurance plans might be needed,  government mandates never go well. Premiums will go up across the board and other unexpected fall out. 

The family 

Moving on from that, Biden’s next item on the list is “help women navigate work and family.” Biden wants to be sure that families can get affordable and higher quality childcare aka more government overreach and mandates.

Free Pre-K for 3 and 4 year olds? I would love to know where this money is coming from.

Offer low-income and middle class families $8,000 tax credit to help pay for childcare? Okay, you got me there. This might be the one time a Democrat actually wants to reduce taxes, but he is still mandating more taxes in the programs above. 

Then, Biden goes on to mention other feel-good things like helping parents with childcare costs, investing in making sure that there are qualified people working with your kids, expanding access to childcare for working parents, and making sure that child of school age have better access to summer care, before school care, and after school care. Most of these things are to butter up the crowds. Others are programs that the federal government shouldn’t have their hand in at all. Failures of these programs can be seen in history time and time again.

Biden wants military children to have access to affordable childcare and expanding care for the elderly. I believe this is something most of us can support as we have an increasing number of people aging into this population.

Then, Biden says he wants to “eliminate the current wait-list for home and community services under Medicaid.” Good luck with that. 

Paid leave

Biden would like to see 12 weeks of paid leave for all workers to care for a new child or a loved one. While I think incentives might be good, a mandate is not.

He wants to require employers to give at least 7 days of paid leave for things like being sick or caring for a sick child. Though I don’t think it’s unreasonable, I do think, at this point, we all know how I feel about a mandate. Biden continues by supporting workers who want to have fair and flexible hours and supports informal and family caregivers. 

Violence Against Women

Next up, we have “end violence against women.” He starts by saying that one of his top priorities is reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. Biden wants to expand the safety net for survivors and wants to empower and protect our young people by expanding prevention services and other programs that would assist young people in dealing with sexual assaults, especially on college campuses. He wants to expand grants for culturally-specific services for survivors — that’s fine, but then let’s cut funding somewhere else. Biden wants to reaffirm tribal sovereignty and continues by saying he wants to invest in the well-being of adolescent girls of color specifically with young women in the criminal justice system. He wants to combat the violence against the LGBTQ+ community. Biden then states he wants to support older women who may be victims of elder abuse as well as support women and girls with disabilities. 

Immigration

On immigration, which is falling under this category of violence against women, he says that he will

“push to repeal extreme, anti-immigrant state laws that have a chilling effect on the ability of immigrant domestic violence, sexual assault survivors, and other victims of crimes to seek safety and justice”

“Ensure asylum laws protect people fleeing persecution”

“Increase visas for domestic violence survivors.”

There are so many problems with asylum laws when they have been abused by criminals. I agree that survivors of assaults shouldn’t be turned over to ICE, but I do think the criminals who are found guilty absolutely should be. 

Military

Biden wants to do more about military sexual assaults. He states he wants to confront the problems facing this generation with stalking in the digital age and that he also wants to end the rape kit backlog. Biden wants to “change the culture that enables sexual violence.” To that I say, change starts at home. We still haven’t seen any information from the University of Delaware about any alleged assaults and his unwanted touching of women is also a very big problem. In fact, he has happened on the international stage on television or in important ceremonies.

Women around the globe

His final point for this agenda for women is “protect and empower women globally.” Biden wants to support women in leadership globally and wants to elevate women economically, increase education opportunities, confront gender-based violence globally, and a ton of other “feel good things.” 

Overall, this is a bunch of, as Biden would say, malarkey. It is a feel good “agenda” to appease the Left and tout Joe Biden as “pro-women.” Good luck with that, Joe Biden.