We are one week out from the 2024 Election coming to a close and none of us know who will win the biggest prize: the presidency. And yet, there is one thing that we do know for sure, and that is that there is a huge gender gap in this election between the women who overwhelmingly support Vice President Harris and the men who overwhelmingly support Trump. Regardless of who wins, women will either reap the benefits of pro-women policies or feel the repercussions of regressive ones on January 20, 2025.
It reminds me of my grade school days in the 1970s and how we would divide up into teams, “the boys vs. the girls” for kickball, and line up on either side of the chalk line taunting one another about who was the superior gender, boys or girls.
Here we are now 24 years in the 21st century and for only the second time in American history, a woman is the presidential nominee for the Democratic party and she is running against a man who has a huge deficit with women voters on issues of reproductive freedom, pay equity, and basic rights for women and caregivers when it comes to managing that all elusive work-life balance we as women navigate daily.
More simply stated: the election will have huge consequences for the women of America, and future generation of American women and girls more than any we have seen over the three decade or more. This year’s election puts the gender gap front and center in a way we have not seen since Secretary Hillary Clinton was the nominee. This time around the woman running is considered the incumbent, as she is the sitting Vice President of the United States.
Harris could become the first woman president of the United States and she has made clear that the reproductive freedom issue, caretaker issues, home ownership, small business loans and capital investment, would become front and center for her at the executive level in an unprecedented way. Women voters seem to be of like mind, as recent exit polling in battleground states like Michigan are reporting a large increase in women’s early votes beyond that of 2020. We will soon see just which gender has more electoral power in America, on November 5, 2024.
But what does all of this mean for women professionals, business owners, college co-eds, and young women entering the workforce in the next decade?
That is the question we must begin to address as women leaders in higher-education, in the C-Suite, as corporate and academic DEI officers, college campus leaders and the like. Because regardless of who wins, women will be front and center at the federal level policy agenda.
A woman votes at the Charleston Main Library in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 24, 2024, … [+]
Here is what we know to be fact. Former President Trump has been clear that he is against, so-called “wokeism” and “DEI”. It has been a major theme and rallying cry of the 2024 Election. Many corporations out of fear of retribution from red state attorneys general suing them for violation of the Supreme’s Court 2023 ruling against the use of affirmative action, immediately began to cease their diversity and inclusion programs, cut budgets and eliminated positions.
And universities which have been wrestling with the balance between free speech and protecting the rights of all its students, fear a second Trump term. Harris for her part is pro DEI policies, pay equity for women, and reproductive freedom. It is the central core of her campaign, even including expanding Medicare to help cover expenses for care-givers of aging parents or family. As we well know women are the overwhelming majority of care-givers in America. And having to care for a sick parent or spouse, an result in having to quit your job, or have to take on an extra job to help offset the exoribitant costs of long-term medical or elder care in 2024 America.
The second policy impact for women is around immigration. Trump wants to implement a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants who are already here, and go after DACA recipients. And Harris is looking to expand DACA and find a way to create a pathway to citizenship for those immigrants and workers already in the United States.
These are just a handful of policy differences that the two candidates have, but the coupdegrace of course is reproductive freedom and women’s health and wellness. This is where women will feel the most impact in their lives as mothers, sisters, friends, co-workers and employers. Having to take time off of work for IVF, childcare, care-giving or managing an unexpected pregnancy in state’s with a total abortion ban will also have a serious impact on women successfully climbing the corporate ladder.
In short ladies, the 2024 Election seems to be a policy referendum on the future that women want to have versus the one our grandmothers and mothers long ago belived that they had left behind.
This post was originally published on here
