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United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) Conference, Stamford, CT March 25, 2012 Selected audio from plenary sessions and panel discussions

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NOW: GOP Assault on Middle Class is a 'War on Women'

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Posted May 4, 2011

Interview with Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

worktillwedie

With Republicans in leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives and a majority of states in the hands of Republican governors and legislatures, budget cuts and policy changes are being proposed -- and in many cases, passed -- that disproportionately impact women, especially women of color. At the federal level, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., won passage in the House of his 2012 budget proposal that would convert Medicare from a program in which the government pays medical bills of senior citizens over 65 years of age --- into a voucher system that provides inadequate subsidies to purchase private insurance coverage. The GOP budget would also make major cuts to social safety net programs, such as food stamps, and impose a 35 percent cut on Medicaid and turn the program into state-administered block grants. In contrast to the deep cuts, Ryan’s budget reduces the tax burden on the nation’s wealthiest citizens and big corporations.

On April 28, activists organized by the National Organization for Women, or NOW staged a dozen protest actions around the country sending a message to politicians that women do not want to work until they die. NOW opposes Ryan’s budget that would dismantle Medicare and turn Medicaid into block-grants and other proposals that would increase the Social Security retirement age to 69 years.

Terry O'Neill, the president of NOW -- the National Organization for Women -- says while the media and Democratic politicians refer to these actions as "a war on the middle class," she says it's more accurate to call it "a war on women." Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with O'Neill about the different elements of the GOP-led economic assault, and what NOW is doing to challenge these policies.

TERRY O'NEILL: The budget is part and parcel, in my view, of this war on women, because other people have called it a war on the middle class, but to be very clear, middle-class women work a lifetime at unequal pay and they are the ones that are most vulnerable in any attack on middle-class programs, so it is a war on women to attack the middle class. On ideological grounds, right-wingers and Congress are attacking women's ability to get not just abortion care, but an entire range of reproductive health care services. That's on ideological grounds. On budget grounds, just on pure allocation of resources around the country, conservatives in Congress are slashing programs that disproportionately serve women, and a lot of people don't understand this, but those programs that are being slashed disproportionately employ women, as well as disproportionately serve women. So, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Women, Infant and Children's Nutrition Program, food stamps, Pell grants, other training programs, pre-natal programs, family planning clinics -- all disproportionately employ women as well as as serving women. So we really are facing a situation where women are getting slammed first and foremost by these men who are, at the same time, increasing expenditures for the military, which disproportionately employs men; they are talking about entrenching tax breaks for the wealthiest billionaires who are not women -- they are very disproportionately men -- so it's very much, in my view, a gender-based war on the middle class.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Although women make more than the 59 cents to every dollar earned by men in the 1960s, women now make only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. What's the impact of that over time?

TERRY O'NEILL: The reason women are so vulnerable to these cuts -- it goes right back to unequal pay. So workplaces in this country are severely sex-segregated and women cluster in jobs that don't have pensions and they're not represented by unions. So after a lifetime of working at unequal pay, women head into their retirement years with very little in the way of savings. Single women of color -- about half head into their retirement years with zero to negative net worth, and white women who are single head into their retirement years with a net worth of only $41,000. It's estimated that because of unequal pay, a woman loses -- depending on her level of education and what industry she works in -- that she will lose between $400,000 and $2 million in her lifetime. Now, how many kids could you put through college, without debt, with that million dollars you didn't get because people are not obeying the law?

BETWEEN THE LINES: Terry O'Neill, NOW is famous for organizing some of the biggest mass protests in American history. How are you responding to the current crisis?

TERRY O'NEILL: Yeah, we've been very aggressive at organizing at the community level. We just had an incredibly successful series of demonstrations around the country. We're working in coalition and the theme of the past two weeks of demonstrations is "Don't make us work 'til we die." This is a protest against the proposal to increase the retirement age to 69. You know, the average nurse lifts over one ton per day, and the average nurse cannot work to the age of 69, which means when she has to take "early retirement" at the age of 63 of 64 or 65 -- anyone who takes early retirement, their benefits are cut for the rest of their lives. That's their Social Security benefits as well as their pension, if they're lucky enough to have a pension. So, we've been engaged in the "Don't make us work 'til we die" protests around the country. We are currently engaged in a massive Contact your senator, contact your Representative effort to stop the outrageous cuts to all of these programs. Frankly, the Ryan budget -- Rep. Paul Ryan, who produced the House leadership 2012 budget plan, with their proposal to voucherize Medicare -- which simply means that Grandma gets a voucher, and Grandma's told, It doesn't matter how sick you get, Grandma. Once you use up your vouchers, you don't have any more health care. We're sorry, you're done.

To learn more about NOW’s campaign, call (202) 628-8669 or visit their website at now.org.

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