BLOG

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a record number of women aged 16 years and older—over 55 million across the country—elected not to actively participate in the labor force last month. This frightening statistic marks the highest number in United States history for out-of-work females who did not actively seek a job in the month of September. Of course, September 2014 is a month out of Obama’s two-term presidency—a tenure during which the president has repeatedly sought to divide and conquer by falsely claiming that conservatives are waging a “war on women.” Setting aside the flippant and insulting use of this slogan by White House demagogues (one need only look at real wars on women across the globe), the truth remains that American women are suffering more than they have in recent history under Obama’s reign. In fact, Tennessee women are bearing a disproportionate brunt of the president’s failed policies. Over the past 10 years, the workforce participation rate for women in Tennessee has dropped from 57.9 percent to 53.2 percent—falling significantly below the national average. Though Southern states typically have lower workforce participation rates than other parts of the country, Tennessee has one of the lowest. As the Obama administration continues to suggest that conservatives are not doing enough to narrow a supposed “gender gap” in the workforce, how low will these statistics for women need to fall before the pointed finger turns in the president’s direction? Take, for example, the income inequalities within Obama’s own White House staff. According to a recent report from the Washington Post, the president has not narrowed the gap between the average pay of his own male and female employees since elected to office in 2008. “The average male White House employee currently earns about $88,600, while the average female White House employee earns about $78,400, according to White House data.” This 13 percent gap has remained stagnant since 2009. Of course, this wage discrepancy can be attributed to many factors, but stands as further evidence of the president’s hypocrisy and habitual “deflection syndrome”—falsely attaching responsibility for mistakes or inadequacies that his administration perpetuates. Instead, Tennessee women and all 55 million women counted in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report should be insulted by the president’s presumption of our ignorance to the facts at hand. Deflecting his own failed economic recovery acts with false diversions about the Right’s war on women degrades our intelligence. Real, strong women do not need his pretentious excuses to complain, and we certainly refuse to be pigeonholed as government-suckling dependents who need Obama’s step-stools to rise to the top. Those with success know that we did build this and, as evidenced by these recent labor statistics, achievement came in spite of and not because of his feminist facade. -Lindsay Boyd