Reposted from the Daily Courier Observer/ Written by Donna Seymour.
As the women of New York State listen to the candidates, we’d almost think this is the Year of the Women Voter. There are pink buses roaming the state, looking for our votes. There are politicians saying they get our issues and our needs – if we will just walk into the voting booth and vote for them, we’ll finally be getting their attention about our issues.
Promise. Cross our hearts. No, really – this time we mean it.
Here’s some important news for candidates: When women walk into the voting booth, they walk in on feet that are tired from standing all day for less than full pay. They are sick and tired of being harassed at those jobs. They are sick of being sidelined into pink ghetto jobs where wage discrimination is rampant and where there is no future.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in after bumping their heads against the glass ceiling – the systematic discriminatory practices at work that keeps them out of a leadership path that leads to high pay and to the front office as anything other than an administrative assistant.
When women walk into the voting booth, they always walk in with their lady parts – those same lady parts that too many politicians say women can’t control, women aren’t responsible enough to make health care decisions about, and that women must be protected from.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in after spending another day juggling the responsibilities of work and home – worrying if their kids are getting as good an education in their poor rural or poor urban school as the kids who go to a wealthy suburban school. This is a real concern because New York State is a state that has one of the worst records on educational funding equity.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in much too soon after having had a baby, because this state does not have a family-friendly pregnancy leave policy. Or they may have been discriminated against at work while they were pregnant, because New York State doesn’t treat pregnancy as a medical condition that requires work-related accommodation.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in after struggling to find safe, high quality and affordable child care for their youngsters. Because in far too many places in New York State, it costs families more to send their child to day care than it does to send that child to college.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in after having had to choose between taking care of a sick child or an elderly parent or losing their job because we don’t have universal paid sick or family leave in New York state.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in hungry because they’ve chosen to feed their children rather than themselves. In New York State far too many families struggle with food insecurity – plain old fashioned hunger.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in after leaving a homeless shelter because women and their children are struggling to find safe, affordable housing, which is short supply in too many parts of New York state.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in after looking for work, because in America, there are only five states where unemployment is lower than it was in 2008when the recession started. New York is not one of the five.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in after working their second low-wage job, if they have found work. In New York state most of the low wage workers are women. And because a cost of living is far higher than the minimum wage paid in New York State, women and their families struggle to make ends meet.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in bruised and beaten from domestic violence, with scars that show on the outside – or only on the inside.
When women walk into the voting booth, they may walk in after standing in a long line to vote after a long day at work, because in New York state, low-wage workers who lack workplace flexibility can’t take time off to cast their vote or vote early.
When women walk into the voting booth, they know that the people on the ballot will not look much like them. Elected politicians in America are overwhelmingly white (90%) and male (71%). White men have eight times the political power of women of color, who are 19% of the population but only hold 4% of elected offices.
Election Day is Nov. 4. Walk into the booth and vote.
No wonder most politicians think they can get by with a little pink washing in October. When women don’t have a seat at the table, the concerns of women and their families don’t get listened to.
When women walk into the voting booth, they know that for the last two years, politicians have failed them. The measures of the Women’s Equality Act never made it into law. Once again, the education funding formulas in this state were not reformed. Paid family leave never made to a vote. Child care is still an unmet need. The list goes on and on.
FYI to candidates. It really is the Year of the Woman Voter. And that is because in New York State, 10 million of the 19 million people in the state are women. Women are 53 percent of the people who actually vote in this state. Women are not a special interest group. Women have hearts, minds, and lady parts – and they take them all into the voting booth, every time! Don’t pink wash us or our concerns.