Standing behind his pulpit, White House press secretary Sean Spicer attempted to convince a chamber full of reporters that U.S. President Donald Trump was committed to women, so dedicated that he had induced womens empowerment a priority throughout his presidential campaign. The problem was, as the journalists well knew, the president hadnt. In fact, Spicers last-ditch strive last week to highlight his boss dedication to women in the last days of a month that was supposed to be dedicated to them was not only laughable, but harmful as well. Now, Trump has declaredthis month National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, while simultaneouslycutting all U.S. awards to an organization that provides reproductive health care and works to end infant wedlock and female genital cutting internationally.
In fact, Trumps claims about has become a champion for womens rights have often been met withskepticism by a large proportion of the American public with good reason. Prior to his election, misogynistic remarks that he has since was regarded as locker chamber banter, went viral. But aside from his own personal statements degrading females, the president has demonstrated hostility to policies and funding that benefit them.
Trump is not just not a champ of womens rights, hes utilizing females as a scapegoat is to promote policies thatll hurt them the most.
Donald Trump is not just not a champ of womens rights, hes utilizing women as a scapegoat to push forward policies thatll hurt them the most. And in less than 100 days in office, the president has cut finances, begun to heavily auditgovernment officesfocused on womens issuesand utilized womens security as a tool to justify deep problematic executive orderings.
Such co-optation of status of women issues only serves to further undermine females, especially those who are the most vulnerable, such as refugees, and defiles efforts to combat harmful practises like gender-based violence. If the Trump administration wants to truly convince the American public and indeed “the worlds” that its committed to womens rights, it needs to start acting on its assertions, rather than utilizing politically correct language to cover up other forms of discrimination.
Travel Ban
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Demonstrators complain President Trump’s rewrote travel ban on March 16, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
Americans have spent months debating the importance of President Trumps Muslim ban and the implied racism many people feel is behind its wording. But in our analysis as Middle East researchers focused on gender issues, weve found that in highlighting implications of religious discrimination against Muslims, many critics of the travel ban often miss the gender-based discriminationimplicit in the order as well.Not simply is the use of language in these ordersblatantly hypocriticaltowards females devoted different policy implemented by the administration, but likewise even if they are never put into action their existence shows the administrations willingness to use females as pawns in covering up discriminatory policies against other minority groups, especially Muslims and Muslim females. And this tactic will likely show up in different policy regardless of the fate of the travel ban.
The first executive order, issued in late January, stipulated that, the United States shall not be required to be admit establishments engaged in acts of bigotry or hatred( including honor slays[ a shape of gender-based violence often colloquially and derogatorily associated with Islam ], other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practise religions different from their own ). And while the second executive order, issued in early March, removed such a requirement, itretained language mandating that the Department of Homeland Security periodically liberates information regarding the number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women, including so-called honor slays, in the United States by foreign nationals as part of a greater report on terrorism-related offenses be carried out by foreign nationals that will be released every 180 days.
While such wording may at first seem intended to protect females, this is in fact absolutely no truth to the rumors. Just as Trump has determined a Muslim-focused precedent for his traveling ban by previously calling for a total shutdown of Muslims, here, too, his comments indicate his words are not genuine and are yet another way to put forth an agenda that brands Islam as violent think radical Islamic terrorismand backwards, rather than advocate for womens rights. For Trump, the term honor slay, at least based on these executive orderings, appears to go hand in hand with Muslims and even terrorism.In grouping these words, he is strengthening a dangerous stereotype about an issue that is much more complex and showing that his ostensible reason for including gender-based violence here is little more than political posturing and a hit at Muslims.
Trump’s ostensible reason for including gender-based violence in his traveling ban is little more than political posturing and a hit at Muslims.
Furthermore, Trump has thus far not made an attempt to correct this religious and regional discrimination not all honor slays perpetrated by Muslims, and its not part of the religion to carry them out nor does he seem at odds with some key players in his government who have suggested that the term honor slays holds predominately Muslim connotations. Such little initiative to clarify his stance or refute crucial variances seems to confirm his already clear biases about Muslims and making it difficult still to believe that he has the interests of women at heart here over yet another instance of Islamophobic policymaking.
Jeff Sessions, the present us attorney general, and a prominent figure in President Trumps administration, has now been and publiclyexpressed his views that honor slays are a problem specific to the Muslim cultural background of many refugees. Sensationalizeddiscussionsof honor slays arealsocommon amonganti-Islamactivistsand in right-wing news outlets like Breitbart, the organization formerly run by Trumps senior adviser Steve Bannon, which reported them recently as a brutal practise wherein Muslim males will slaughter or mutilate female family members accused of bringing reproach and dishonor to their families and Islam it is a practice that would not exist in the U.S. without mass immigration bringing its practitioners into U.S. communities. Bannon has often publicly indicated that even in a private capacity he holds similarly strong negative panoramas of Islam.
In this context, the inclusion of language denouncing honor slays indicates no fear for women at all, but is rather paired with concerns over terrorism to construct rationales for retaining mainly Muslim refugees and immigrants out of the United States. If helping these women is the goal, the administration should instead be supporting the organisations that protect these women abroad, rather than barring them from entering the U.S. and escaping situations the administration has deemed dangerous.
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Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general, has inaccurately indicated that honor slays are alone a Muslim problem.
Admittedly, irregardless of its clearly disingenuous focus on womens rights here, the Trump administration is not unique in its insincere use of womens the questions to make policy. But this unfortunate reality is amplified by Trumps history of negativity towards women and the unusualness of his presidency.
Gender-based violence is indeed a number of problems in immigrant communities, including Muslim communities, but it is not a problem solelyin these communities.And to single them out exclusively is both discriminatory and counterproductive. On top given the fact that honor slays are often rooted in tribal patterns, rather than belief, they are alsorelativelyrare in the United States; a 2015 reportcommissioned by the Department of Justice roughly estimates that there could be 23 to 27 a year.Comparatively, according to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, roughly three women a period aremurderedin domestic violence incidents in the United States.
Cuts From The Administration
Trumps inauthentic advocacy of the status of women extends beyond executive orderings to more explicit acts as well, further lessening the probability that he has women in his best interests. At the end of last year, a month before presuming office, the Trump transition team requestedthat the State Department hand over all information related to gender-related staffing, programming, and funding, basically is tantamount to an audit of programs related to womens issues.
More directly, the Trump administration is reportedly considering cuts to 25 violence against women grant programsestablished by the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. Trumps budget proposal cut an overall 4 percent of the Justice Departments fund and, as seems to be the case with many of its own proposal, the proposed programme budget gives few clearcut detailed information about where those cuts would come from. But devoted Trumps support for increasing other Department of Justice programs, violence against women awards, which come from the DOJ, may very well be on the chopping block, a move that would signal a ignore for programming that advantages females, including those that provide them with legal and emotional support in cases of sexual assault and abuse.
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Protesters march by the White House during a rallying to support women’s health programs on March 8, 2017 in Washington.
Proposed budget cuts likewise display a passion within the Trump administration to slash fund from programs that support womens health and safety beyond the homeland. One of Trumps first executive orderings was to reinstate the global gag rule, also known as the Mexico City Policy. The order requires that organizations that receive U.S. global health fund cannot have any association with abortion.
Changing course on the Mexico City Policy is detrimental to womens health globally, and blatantly discloses Trumps disregard for the safety of women worldwide. A Stanford Universitystudy found that when the order was restored in 2001, abortions actually increased in sub-Saharan African countries that had received substantial U.S. aid for family planning programs, while countries with organizations less dependent on U.S. fund did not discover a measurable increased number of abortions after the passing of the staff rules. In fact, Marie Stopes International, a charity focused on womens health, estimatedthat between 2017 and 2020 the reinstated global gag rule, without additional funds for their programs, could result in: 6.5 million unintended maternities, 2.2 million abortions, 2.1 million unsafe abortions and 21,700 maternal deaths.
Ever a human of stats and polls, the alarming numbers, if not the outrage from womens rights proponents, dont appear to have convinced Trump to change his policies just yet. Instead, we discover a doubling down on many of them while Spicer and Ivanka Trumpsay all the right things to convince us otherwise. If Trump craves proclamations like sex crime awareness month to serve as more than merely an empty token gesture, he will need to start rethinking the style his government approaches womens issues.
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