Text: Linda A Thompson
Anything that he did, would have been an improvement over what had been done before
Countering the ‘war on women’
It would have been hard for Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, to do poorly on women’s issues when he came into office in 2009. The actions of his Republican predecessor had set the bar decidedly low. “The doors were open for Obama. Anything that he did, would have been an improvement over what had been done before,” says Alison Woodward, emeritus professor and senior associate at the Institute for European Studies.
The Affordable Healthcare Act, even with its problems, was brilliant and was a really good thing for women
Under George W. Bush’s presidency, the White House Office on Women’s Initiatives and Outreach, a central government department focusing on women’s rights, was abolished. A string of policies were put in place rolling back women’s reproductive rights by restricting access to birth control and abortions. It took the ‘war on women’ – a commonly used term to refer to Republican policies restricting access to birth control – to new heights.
In a symbolic move, the first piece of legislation Obama signed when he came into office aimed to address an economic injustice – the longstanding gender pay gap. Women in the United States with full-time jobs earn on average 77 cents for every $1 men are paid. The 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act aimed to redress this situation by making it easier for workers to bring pay discrimination claims and recover wages lost to discrimination. Also during his first term, Obama pushed through his Affordable Care Act, a major reform that expanded and improved access to healthcare for millions of uninsured Americans.
Woodward singles it out as a second key Obama policy that benefited women. “The Affordable Healthcare Act, even with its problems, was brilliant and was a really good thing for women, as they are usually the people who end up having to take care of the sick and worry about the health of their families.”
Six weeks of paid pregnancy leave for female federal employees was a pretty radical move by American standards
Because the powers of a US president are limited, victories during Obama’s second term, when both the House and Senate came into Republican hands, were more meagre. Obama’s Paycheck Fairness Act, which creates stronger incentives for companies to pay workers fair wages, for instance, stalled on the Senate floor several times.
Setting an example in his ‘own house’
But that didn’t stop Obama from working in his ‘own house’, the federal government, his own administration and even his actual house, with First Lady Michelle Obama as a fierce advocate for women’s rights. “She and he together are a team for women; she is such a role model,” Woodward says.
To start with, he tried to make his cabinet a reflection of America’s diverse population. “He worked very hard to have a diverse cabinet; it’s certainly one of the most diverse the United States has ever seen,” says Woodward, though she acknowledges that Obama did not outperform Bush in this area, who also had five women in his cabinet.
Obama also reinstated the agency his predecessor scrapped. The White House Council on Women and Girls, comprised of representatives from each federal agency, coordinates efforts across federal agencies and departments to ensure that the needs of women and girls are taken into account in all programmes, policies and legislation. “That was important, because there was no speaking point for women’s issues in the federal government after Bush scrapped that department,” Woodward says.
Obama also opened the door to women to serve in combat roles in the military. He improved the wage classifications of federal employees, the result of which was that equal pay in the federal government and United States civil service improved.
More crucially, he made it possible for female federal employees to take six weeks of paid pregnancy leave – a “pretty radical” move by American standards, Woodward notes, as the US is the only industrialised nation in the world not to offer any form of paid maternity leave.
Real feminism is doing it for everybody. This involves men, not just women.
Number of female judges doubled
Perhaps one of Obama’s less talked about achievements, Woodward says, were the many female judges he appointed: the two Supreme Court judges – Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor – and the many circuit court judges he appointed at the state level. Of the judges Bush appointed, 21% were women; under Obama this figure doubled to 43%. And these appointments have had a ripple effect.
“This is something that citizens don’t worry about, you know, ‘who’s the judge’, but actually a lot of policy happens through the courts in the United States,” Woodward explains. “These appointees have had an amazing effect on a number of cases around access to birth control, around voting registration,” she says.
Addressing the college rape problem
During his term, Obama also worked to address the college rape problem. According to one oft-cited study by the Association of American Universities, one in four female college students are sexually assaulted before they graduate, though these figures have been contested by a number of journalists and researchers.
Under Obama’s administration, the US Department of Education opened almost 300 cases investigating universities’ handling of sexual assault cases, including such major institutions as New York University, Florida A&M University, Rutgers University and Howard University.
Verdict of his term
The area in which Obama could have done better, Woodward says, is changing men’s cultural attitudes. Referring to presidential candidate Donald Trump’s string of misogynist comments, Woodward says: “The whole issue of the misogyny that’s coming out now, the resentment among men about women, seems to be very, very deep-seated. You can keep making policies, but they need to be supported by the public and a change of mind-set.”
Obama did write an essay for the September issue of women’s magazine Glamour, in which he discussed women’s long fight for equality and urged men to fight sexism. He also confessed that, as the father of two daughters, he felt “the enormous pressure girls are under to look and behave and even think a certain way”.
But feminists have criticised Obama for his “dad feminism”, and Woodward agrees with them. “Real feminism is doing it for everybody. This involves men, not just women. Guys just can’t stand still, but they are. They are standing still, and that’s where you get this enormous resentment from men: they’re not prepared for the changes, because none of them thinks it’s about them.”
Still, Obama, by any measure, did right by women and girls, says Woodward: “He did a really good job, and I think on the women’s issue he did more than I expected. It was definitely a priority for him.”
About Allison Woodward
Alison Woodward's research focuses on comparative European Union public policy and organisation especially in the areas of civil society, gender and equality and migration. She is emeritus director of the RHEA center for Gender Studies and Diversity Research.
Since 2007 she has been a senior associate at the Institute for European Studies and has worked as policy consultant for the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the United Nations.
About the Institute for European Studies
The Institute for European Studies (IES) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) is an academic Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and a policy think tank that focuses on the European Union in an international setting. The Institute advances academic education and research in various disciplines, and provides services to policy-makers, scholars, stakeholders and the general public.
Based on its research, the IES constitutes the focal point for teaching European Studies at the VUB. It coordinates relevant study programmes, including the renowned Master in International and European Law (LLM) and the Master in European Integration and Development.