THE FEMINIST CRITIQUE

THE POLICY:

The Reagan administration supported policies against abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, and subsidezed maternity leave and child care. The welfare cuts enacted by the admistration were highly criticized because they effected women, especially women with children, more than men. The Nation magazine reported on November 7, 1981, that three out of four people losing benefits due to the Reagan budget cuts were women, most of them unskilled and with families. Other policy areas, such as the administrationÕs hard-line stance during the Cold War, alienated women in general and feminists in particular. In 1980 55% of male voters voted for Ronald Reagan, while only 47% of female voters supported him. This discrepancy became known as the "gender gap," and widened throughout his presidency. By 1983, according to a NY Times and CBS News poll, only 33% of American women believed that Reagan deserved re-election.


In Kittle and Avery's run-down of the issues on the 80's gender front, they point out the specific policies that American feminists have a problem with. They are as follows:
1. Ending legalized bias. Although the president opposes the ERA, he pledged to advance women's rights by attempting to eradicate state and federal laws that discriminate against women. In August of 1983, Justice Department official Barbara Honegger, quit in protest because she said that her job was to identify these discriminatory laws and that the project was a "sham." The two year-old task force found many such discriminatory laws, and not a single one changed. She and other feminists accuse Reagan of turning his back on women.
Political Cartoon 3 3. Economic Issues. Many women's organizations accuse the Reagan administration of failing to take the living situation of poor women into account when cutting federal programs. They assert that because women far outnumber men as recipients of Aid to Fa milies With Dependent Children, food stamps, medicaid, federally subsidized day care, family planning, and legal aid, they suffer disproportionately from the severe welfare cutbacks. Although Reagan takes credit for the enactment of other measures that h elp women, Pat Reuss of Women' Equity Action League charged that these moves started in Congress and "gathered cobwebs on White House desks."
4. Social Issues. A major grievance of American feminists is the administration's support for a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions and restrict abortion funding.
5. Female appointees. Women's rights groups are disatisfied with the amount of women that the President appointed to federal judgeships and to jobs requiring Senate confirmation. Reagan appointed 10 women to federal judgeships, the first female Supreme Court Justice - Sandra Day O'Connor-, and 95 women to posts requiring Senate approval. President Carter had a better record, and many feminists accuse the Reagan administration of initiating a regression in women's equity.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
July 13, 1983
"President and Gender Gap"

The article points out that, considering that women make up 53% of the electorate, it would be wise for President Reagan to bridge the gender gap if he plans to win the 1984 election.
A New York Times and CBS News survey found that,overall, only 33% of American women believe that Reagan deserves another term. Reagan's stance on the ERA and abortion are not the only problems he has in the public opinion polls with women. "His economic program that discriminates against the working poor and the elderly", the Reagan emphasis on military expansion, his aggressive Cold War approach and emphatic nuclear buildup are also policy stances that pattern "feminine disaffection", states the Post-Dispatch. The journalist argues that his policy on a broad scale is "costing him" the support of women.

THE LEFT vs THE RIGHT

US News and World Reports
September 5, 1983
"WomenÕs Issues- and the Reagan Record"
By Robert A. Kittle and Patricia Avery

US News and World Reports
September 5, 1983
ÒWomenÕs Issues- and the Reagan RecordÓ
By Robert A. Kittle and Patricia Avery

Following the presentation of the feministsÕ critique of the Reagan admistration, the article points out what the admistration did, sort of did, or did not do about the complaints of prominent American women:
1. Ending legalized bias. The article points out that although at the time Justice Department official Barbara Honegger quit in protest (August 1983) because no gender discriminatory laws had been changed, that after her resignation Reagan ordered the Jus tice Department to do an accelerated review of the laws and to have a recommendation by Labor Day.
2. Enforcing anti-bias laws. Reagan aides reject the view of the feminists that the Reagan administration has weakened the enforcement of anti-bias laws. The aides, in defending the administration's stance on weakening affirmative action and narrowing the application of a law that bars sex discrimination in schools receiving federal funds, point out that in other areas, government lawyers have sided with the feminists.
3. Economic issues. To answer the feminists claim that the cutbacks in welfare by the Reagan administration disproportionately affects poor women, White House aids emphasize that the decline in inflation benefits women. "We need to let women know that we've given them more buying power," said a senior presidential advisor. In defense of his economic record on August 26 before a group of Republican women in San Diego, Reagan said, "I believe the greatest contribution this administration can make to women is to get the economy moving and keep it moving."
Furthermore, the White House began backing bills in 1983 to improve child-support payments and outlaw sex discrimination in pension rates.
4. Female appointees. The study points out that although President Reagan's record on female appointees to federal judgeships and jobs requiring the approval of the Senate falls behind Jimmy Carter's record, the Chief Executive appointed about as many wo men to federal posts as Carter.Reagan also appointed the first female Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor.

Ladies' Home Journal
January 1984
"In Praise of American Women"
By Ronald Reagan

In his article, President Reagan discusses the lives of his mother Nelle, his wife Nancy, and his two daughters, Maureen and Patti. In doing so, he defends the different roles that women take in different times for different reasons.
His mother "kept us together emotionally and financially and provided stability for our family. Her education took her through only elementary school, but she knew no diploma was needed for kindness, for love, for doing what was right...I know, even as I write this article, there are women in America just like my mother... Perhaps the husband is troubled or out of work or even gone. They are women who seek to hold their family safe from alcohol or illness or crime or any number of possible threats, all the while working so that the family can survive economically... These women have my deepest respect and affection for what they are accomplishing."
Nancy, as the embodiment of her generation, "grew up in a society that taught them to be one thing, only to arrive at a point in their lives when society began expecting something else. Nancy had a successful career as an actress. I would never have asked her to give it up for marriage, but she made that choice herself. She said she wanted marriage to be her full-time job... I am so proud to be married to this woman. Nancy had the stregnth to give up part of herself for my career in politics, yet at the same time maintain who she is inside."
His daughters, Maureen and Patti, Reagan says, "are women of a different era than either Nancy or my mother. They are new, modern women, and they are very independent. I am quite proud of them. I must admit when certain people, for political reasons, say I don't understand the modern woman, I am always very tempted to say, "Oh yeah? Then how come I have two of the most independent, accomplished, loving daughters a father could find?...I not only love my daughters, I admire them. They are true individuals. Their outlooks and their lives are representative of the varied interests and varied futures women have today. Some seek to focus on the home and family. And some seek to do all these things."
In discussing the roles of his mother, his wife, and his daughters, Reagan points out that he respects each for what it is. "No role is superior to another. The point is, a woman must have the right to choose the one role she wisher or to perhaps fill them all..."

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