Where is Bernie Sanders on Gender Justice?

Ed. note: This post was originally published on the Community site.

I want to support Bernie. I really do. He’s right on the money to call for expanding Social Security, the most effective anti-poverty program in the United States. And I am more than down to fight alongside him against rampant inequality and for better wages and working conditions.

But I have to ask. Why does Bernie struggle so much to talk about gender? Why is it like pulling teeth for him to talk about my identity as a woman in addition to my identity as a worker?

I took a look through his platform recently, and I didn’t exactly see women represented there. For one, most of the policies that would disproportionately benefit women (equal pay, paid family leave, paid vacation, and paid sick days) are housed within the “Real Family Values” section, a classification that implicitly characterizes women’s rights as valuable only insofar as they benefit a larger family unit.

And while the platform mentions abortion briefly, it fails to offer any recommendations about how to preserve and expand access. Due to the Hyde Amendment, federal funds cannot be used for abortion except in limited circumstances. This restriction means that, as a result of economic deprivation, poor women, who are disproportionately Black and Brown, can be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. To reduce these barriers to women accessing basic health care services, Bernie should throw his support behind the EACH Woman Act, a recently introduced piece of legislation that, according to RH Reality Check, “would ensure that anyone who has health care or health insurance through the federal government also has coverage of abortion care.”

I also couldn’t help but notice the largest proposed expenditure in Bernie’s platform, which would allocate $1 trillion over five years to modernize our infrastructure. Bernie claims it would create 13 million jobs. From an economics standpoint, this makes perfect sense, as government spending on infrastructure has a strongly positive effect on economic output.

But I have to ask again, jobs for whom? While infrastructure spending creates a lot of employment opportunities, these openings are disproportionately filled by men. In fact, due to harassment and discrimination, women make up only 26% of all construction workers. In order for the gains of Bernie’s proposal to be more equitably shared, he must also explicitly embrace the National Women’s Law Center recommendations of ensuring stronger enforcement of workplace protections and an expansion of training opportunities. While this is just one example, it demonstrates why strong economic investments that fail to take identity-based barriers into account are incomplete.

However, in the past few weeks, Bernie has started to recognize that not all inequality boils down to class inequality, particularly around the issue of race. In response to powerful #BlackLivesMatter activism, he released his racial justice platform before an enormous crowd of 28,000 people in Portland on Monday night. This document is intended to address physical, political, legal, and economic violence perpetuated against Black and Brown people in this country and opens with the names of Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Michael Brown, and others who have died at the hands of law enforcement or in police custody. Thus far, it has received seemingly positive initial reviews:

#BernieSanders on Racism and Racial Justice – I haven’t seen a statement this strong from 1600’s current inhabitant. http://bitly.com/1MqWUO0

— Kirsten West Savali (@KWestSavali) August 9, 2015

The “violence” framing in the initial draft of the Sanders Racial Justice platform is powerful. & I look forward to seeing him expand this.

— deray mckesson (@deray) August 10, 2015

As Deray McKesson noted, the anti-violence framing of the platform would benefit from further elaboration. Right now, it’s disappointing that there’s no mention of law enforcement’s usage of sexual assault as a weapon of control and terror, a tactic that is disproportionately wielded against the bodies of Black women. Or the complicity of the state in the rapes of trans and queer women of color in immigration detention centers. Bernie should build upon this promising anti-violence framework by expanding it to also include gender-based violence.

Among the viable presidential candidates, Berne’s commitment to progressive economic policies could place him closest to what achieving gender justice demands. But, he cannot rest on his laurels – he must do more to include women, especially marginalized women, in his calls for a more equal nation.

 

Health officials credit vaccinations with chickenpox decline in U.S.

Researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) attribute the decrease in chickenpox cases in the U.S. — and the resulting hospitalizations — to the implementation of the chickenpox vaccine in 1995.

Rates of outpatient visits and hospitalizations for the illness also have shown a steady decline since a second dose of vaccine was recommended in 2006,  according to a recent CDC study published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.

The CDC said that before the vaccination was implemented in the U.S. approximately 4 million people would get chickenpox every year with nearly 11,000 people requiring hospitalized annually, and 100 to 150 people dying from the extremely contagious illness.

In 2012 alone, there were 93 percent fewer hospitalizations for chickenpox compared to before the vaccine was available, according to the researchers. After the two-dose vaccine was introduced, hospitalizations dropped  38 percent.

Outpatient visits for the illness, which causes itching, fever, fatigue and a blister-like rash, also dropped significantly. The CDC found that there were 84 percent fewer outpatient visits in 2012 versus the pre-vaccination period. From 2006-2012, outpatient visits declined 60 percent.

“We found that, in our study, rates for varicella in the U.S. continued to decline as the varicella vaccine program has become fully implemented,” Jessica Leung, the study’s co-author and a researcher at the CDC, said. “We saw significant declines in rates of varicella after the one-dose vaccine was recommended in 1995 in the U.S., and we’re continuing to see additional declines in varicella after two doses were recommended in 2006.”

The research also showed that raising vaccination coverage for chickenpox helped protect people who did not receive vaccinations from the illness.

“The surrounding population that can be vaccinated are not getting sick… ,” Leung said. “We’re seeing that for adults as well.”

Japan PM says future generations should not have to continue apologizing for WWII, China not pleased

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In a much-watched televised speech a day before Japan marked 70 years since its defeat in World War II on August 15, 1945, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed his “deepest remorse” and “sincere condolences” to Japan’s wartime victims, but—much to China’s disappointment—he didn’t give an original apology and added that future generations should not have to burdened by saying sorry.

20 Terrible Photos of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on April 18 with a moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). Devastating fires broke out in the city that lasted for several days. As a result, about 3,000 people died and over 80% of San Francisco was destroyed.

The earthquake and resulting fire are remembered as one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States. The death toll from the earthquake and resulting fire remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California’s history.

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This Is How Celebrities Took Their “Selfies” in the 1940s

They didn’t use a selfie stick, or even the word itself. When Gjon Mili invited celebrities to his studio in 1944 for a session in self-portraiture, the word “selfie” was 70 years from inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary…

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Actress Geraldine Fitzgerald

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Actor Van Johnson

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Actor John Garfield

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Actress Joyce Reynolds

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Actor Robert Alda

See more »

20 Terrible Photos of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on April 18 with a moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). Devastating fires broke out in the city that lasted for several days. As a result, about 3,000 people died and over 80% of San Francisco was destroyed.

The earthquake and resulting fire are remembered as one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States. The death toll from the earthquake and resulting fire remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California’s history.

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via 20 Terrible Photos of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.