US President Joe Biden set up a Gender Policy Council on Monday that will seek to address the struggle for equality at all levels of his administration, as well as asking his team to take action against sexual abuse on the country’s college campuses .
The new White House council is the most powerful government agency to date in the United States to promote equality, and one of its aims is to create a national plan to end gender at a certain point in their lives. American women.
“It is a priority for our government to promote gender equality and equality, both nationally and internationally,” one of the two chairmen of the new council, Julissa Reynoso, said at a press conference at the White House.
Reynoso, a former ambassador to Uruguay of Dominican descent who now serves as chief of staff to the first lady, Jill Biden, is co-chairing the new office with Jennifer Klein, a gender expert who was an adviser to the former Democratic presidential candidate in 2016. Hillary Clinton.
“DIGNITY AND EQUALITY FOR WOMEN”
In a statement on International Women’s Day, Biden said the council will work to “ensure that all national and international policies” of its government are “based on a foundation of dignity and equality for women.”
While both Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and Barack Obama (2009-2017) had separate offices dedicated to gender issues – which disappeared under the mandates of George W. Bush and Donald Trump – neither of them had much relevance.
The new White House council will be the first in the country’s history to devote at least one person – Klein – full-time to advancing equality policies, and the first whose members will advise the president directly, something that did not happen. with Clinton or Obama. .
Reynoso will have to combine her duties on the council with her work as the First Lady’s Chief of Staff, which has also led her to become involved in immigration policy and in particular in the working group to reunite undocumented families who are separated at the border under the Trump’s. mandate.
In the new office there will also be one person – yet to be hired – who will advise Biden on issues of gender violence, and another advisor focusing on equality policies for black, Latina, Asian or Indigenous women.
LOOKING FOR STRUCTURAL CHANGES
The council will face urgent challenges, such as the crisis created by the labor market leaving of more than 2.5 million American women since the pandemic began, but it will also put a lot of effort into ‘long-term structural changes’. , ‘he explained. Reynoso.
Among them, Klein cited the push for the United States to get “paid maternity, family, or medical leave”, something that currently does not exist legally, in addition to “making childcare more affordable” and fighting discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
The officials must also develop a national plan of action to end gender violence, a topic not usually on the media agenda in the United States, despite the fact that it affects one in three women in their lives, according to the Coalition. has hit. Against domestic violence.
While a senator, Biden pushed for the passage of the first law on violence against women in 1994, known in English by the acronym VAWA, but many feminists believe that the legislation is insufficient, especially in terms of recovery and legal rights of the victims.
THE CHALLENGE OF SEXUAL ABUSE ON CAMPUSES
In addition to creating the new council, Biden also signed a decree on Monday ordering the Ministry of Education to review all of its policies to ensure students have access to education without sexual assault.
However, the White House has not clarified whether that means abolishing the rules imposed by Trump on sexual abuse investigations on the country’s college campuses, which has significantly complicated the grievance process for alleged victims.
According to a 2019 study by the American Association of Universities (AAU), one in four American college students is raped or sexually assaulted.
Few dare to denounce it, seeing that campuses maintain a climate of impunity for aggressors, a sentiment that has been reinforced since the new Trump regulations came into effect, which prioritize the right to a ‘ fair trial ‘of the accused students or teachers.