America's Unaddressed Feminist Issues
Editor鈥檚 Note: Ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, SIS professor Antoaneta Tileva authored this piece reflecting on several of the feminist issues she feels are currently going unaddressed in America. At SIS, Tileva teaches courses on identity, gender, class, and culture.听
In her beautifully succinct yet expansive definition, bell hooks writes that feminism is 鈥渁 movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.鈥 Her seminal book, Feminism is for Everybody (2000), establishes feminism as a movement for everybody and every body. Patriarchy鈥攐r institutionalized sexism鈥攁ffects people of all genders. Feminist issues are not just 鈥渨omen鈥檚 issues.鈥 Feminism today is concerned with intersectionality--looking at the intersections of class, gender, race, religion, and the way they shape people鈥檚 experiences.听
Let鈥檚 look at abortion rights through this intersectional lens. While abortion access has been labeled the feminist issue of this election, with most Americans favoring abortion rights, a conversation centered strictly on bodily autonomy misses the wider impacts.听
Increasingly restrictive laws majorly affect maternal and women鈥檚 healthcare outcomes. Maternity care 鈥渄eserts鈥濃攄efined as areas where access to maternity health care services is limited or absent鈥攍imit access to birthing services but also pose challenges in securing early and continuous prenatal and postnatal care.
in OB-GYNs means that mothers have to travel greater and greater distances to get treatment, but it also means that women can鈥檛 get preventative, routine healthcare and that infants can鈥檛 get postnatal care. States with more restrictive abortion policies have higher total , measured as death during pregnancy or within one year following the end of a pregnancy. This is within the wider context of the US maternal mortality rates which remain consistently higher than those of other wealthy countries.
For the second straight year, fewer students in US medical schools are applying for OB-GYN residencies in abortion-restricted states. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, applicant numbers in those states decreased by more than 10 percent. The explanation for this is that residents know they will simply not be trained on how to offer comprehensive maternal care, which includes performing abortions in cases such as high-risk patients for whom pregnancy may be life-threatening, or patients who experience ectopic pregnancy or incomplete miscarriage.
Furthermore, maternal healthcare is not the same across class and racial lines鈥 are more than more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts.
Some other feminist issues of this election include affordable/universal childcare, the wage gap, and, yes, also the war in Gaza.听
The US stands out among advanced economies for its lack of universal childcare. This has not always been the case. During World War II, the government successfully established Lanham Centers to provide childcare for working women. On December 9, 1971, President Nixon vetoed the , which would have created federally-funded public childcare centers across the US Influenced by Pat Buchanan鈥檚 trip to the Soviet Union and his resultant panic over childcare centers representing a communist turn, Nixon essentially stymied any progress on this issue. Funnily (or perhaps not so), even in his old age, Buchanan , stating, 鈥溾
The found that only approximately 40 percent of participants feel supported by their employer. A costs the US economy $122 billion annually.听
The remains, with women, on average, earning 84 cents on the dollar to what a man makes. For Latine, Native, and Black women, the gap is more like a chasm than a gap.
The war in Gaza is also a feminist issue. According to , since October 7, 70 percent of civilians killed in Gaza have been women and children and nearly a million women and girls have been displaced.听
Ultimately, these 鈥渇eminist鈥 issues are everybody鈥檚 issues. Feminism is not about representation alone鈥攊t is not enough to have people of certain identities in leadership roles.听
听