Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Q&A on Women and the Economic Crisis

The divide between women's organizations and labor organizations is a false divide and we need to work to build bridges between the two movements.

Occupational segregation is considerably stronger in the vocational education system than in academic institutions. The number of apprenticeships in the US has declined 80% in the past 20 years. The total number of civilian, non-post office employees has shrunk 25% since it's highest point in the early 90s. FDIC had 7,300 employees in 93 and now have 4,200 employees. Same thing happened in the The federal Equal Employment Opportunity office (EEO) was cut 60%. Office of Contract Compliance was also severely cut.

Going back to Medicare coverage, every sentence written in the NYT about Canadian Medicare during the Clinton administration was an absolute lie. It's very important to get the real facts into the MSM. Cultivate the columnists and opinion writers in your local newspapers. Write to reporters as well. Get that wonderful, factual material into the hands of people who can use it for good.

Shout out to an extremely important book: Sisters in the Brotherhood: Working Women Organizing for Equality in New York City

Our critique has to get more nuanced. We need to stop badgering the MSM and work to keep newspapers alive. We're at a moment when we're losing these venues for public discourse.

Julia, FAIR: This is the opportunity to help decide what media will look like in the future. It is going to be problematic that newspapers are laying off staff, but it's also an opportunity.

Susan: The stock market is an indicator of how profatibility of corporations will look like in the near term. The whole Obama plan is based on this false belief that banks create jobs. Banks create loans to credit-worthy enterprises and individuals. Banks do not like to lend to people and firms who wont pay them back. Non-bank financial institutions made the predatory loans. The underlying mortgages were based on fraud and deception because they were issued by unregulated institutions. There was no regulatory institution that said banks couldn't buy these false, paper assets. The rating agencies that gave these fictitious assets high grades were part of the fraud as well.

You should look at unemployment claims as the way to understand where the real economy is.

If these economic terms don't make sense, read Dollars & Sense and United for a Fair Economy.

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