We here at Independent Women’s Forum are all about women’s empowerment. But we know the cavernous difference between smart policies and wasteful, sexist, pandering, nanny-state carve-outs. Sadly, that’s exactly what Democrats, and some Republicans, are pushing for in their wasteful $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” spending blowout.
FleetOwner, a publication covering the trucking industry, reports that “the bill promotes women in trucking. While women make up 47% of the U.S. workforce, they make up just 24% of all transportation and warehousing jobs, the bill notes. Just 6.6% of truck drivers are women, and women own only 8% of freight firms. The bill notes that adding women to the driver workforce could also make the roads safer, as women are 20% less likely than men to be involved in a truck crash. The bill calls for creating a Women of Trucking Advisory Board to encourage more women to enter the field.”
The problem with this approach is that there is a never-ending list of occupations with massive gender imbalances, from the lack of male nurses and teachers to college students. The Wall Street Journal reported just this week about how men are losing faith in college, that in the next few years, two women will earn a college degree for every man, if current trends continue. Should we further pile on the debt for future generations all in the name of government-overlord social engineering?
Sadly, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.), whom I’ve interviewed, respect, and generally align with on policy, issued a pandering press release supporting this trucking idea, claiming it has “received widespread support from shipping and trucking organizations, including FedEx, American Trucking Associations, Women in Trucking Association and United Parcel Service (UPS).”
Precisely: those private groups are the ones that should be supporting female truck drivers and building up a new talent pipeline! At a time of massive inflation, deficit, and debt spending, American taxpayers shouldn’t be playing a sexist, glorified HR recruiter.
We at Independent Women’s Forum are a 501(c)3 and enjoy the benefits of tax-exempt status in our work to focus on policy issues that affect women (hint—all issues). The difference is we enjoy the same status that any other female or male-centered non-profit organization would enjoy as well, from former President Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Alliance to pro sports’ partner org, A Call To Men. We don’t receive a special taxpayer-funded, cash infusion the way this bill would create for a favored, private-sector industry.
The other issue for Democrats raised by this is that now Democrats are admitting that gender matters. Would the Democratic White House be willing now to revise its CDC guidance on the COVID vaccine to change “all pregnant people or people who are thinking about becoming pregnant” and say “all pregnant women or women who are thinking about becoming pregnant?”
Democrats and progressives have spent years trying to erase gender and ignore biological differences. This threatens the long, hard-fought victories we as women achieved—including the victories we’ve celebrated at IWF. If I were being charitable I’d say that the Democrats were misguided; if I were being harsh I’d say they hate women and are sexist, backwards-thinking misogynists.