In a previous article I exposed the largest feminist group in existence, the National Organization for Women (NOW), consistently opposing shared parenting bills that would ensure capable fathers had equal time with their children. In this article I will illustrate NOW’s repeated declaration that government programs to help fathers were unconstitutional because they did not include women.
The first instance of NOW opposing a program designed to help fathers was in 1999 where they declared that a bill created for a program called Fathers Count was unconstitutional because the program did not include women. The only purpose of the program was to help unemployed fathers find jobs so that they could pay child support and avoid jail-time. Here’s a direct quote straight from NOW explaining why they opposed the bill:
“Because they(the bill’s authors) tie the Federal benefits available under the act to gender(i.e. “fatherhood”) these provisions violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution”
NOW didn’t even attempt to hide their gynocentric bias in their explanation about why they were opposing the bill. They just flat-out stated that programs to help fathers did not “protect” women under the Fifth Amendment. So EVERY bill that helps or protects men must either protect women equally or protect women-only according to NOW’s rationale. To illustrate how hypocritical they were keep in mind that at the same time they were complaining about this program only benefiting women in 1999 they were declaring in their own newsletters that their goal in 2000 was to elect as many feminist women to office as possible.
In 2006 NOW stated that responsibilities before rights was their agenda for dads. This was in direct response to fathers’ rights groups wanting shared parenting so that fathers could have equal time with their children. How can a feminist movement that claims to be about equality make this sort of statement?
In 2007, during the Bush Administration, NOW once again swooped in to declare a Federal program designed to help fathers was unconstitutional because the wording describing the program did not include women as well. The program was called The Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Initiative and it was focused on teaching fathers job skills and helping them connect with their children. $50 million dollars in help for dads was at stake.
NOW filed a lawsuit declaring sex discrimination and the government buckled under and made the program available to women. This still was not good enough for NOW. The Washington Post stated:
“If a woman says she wants to apply and it’s not happening, we want to know about it,” said Tara Wall, at the Administration for Children and Families, the HHS agency that oversees the grants. “Yes, fathers are the target group, but at the same time allowing equal access is required.”
Problem solved? Not exactly, said NOW President Kim Gandy: “The proposals they received and funded clearly indicate that they only intend to serve fathers.”
The seething jealousy NOW has historically exhibited towards anything helping fathers (and by extension helping children through fathers) was on full-display in their opposition to The Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Initiative. If they really cared about helping children it wouldn’t matter to them that a program was helping empower fathers because it would be obviously beneficial to families but their gripe was specifically with the fact that this initiative was improving the status of fathers which elicited the hyper-competitiveness we have witnessed from feminists in any program or occupation they see men prospering.
In 2014, President Obama, created a program for identifying issues of disadvantage facing young male minorities called My Brother’s Keeper. Immediately NOW swooped in and started pressuring the government to make the program include girls. As expected, they were indeed successful in getting Obama to include girls in the program.
The only reason that NOW did not flat-out declare this program unconstitutional was more than likely due to the fact that it was focused on minorities and openly opposing it would be too politically incorrect for NOW since it loves to operate under the guise of caring for the same black community it helped destroy by fighting programs and bills designed to help disadvantaged fathers in the first place. However, they vehemently kept the pressure on the officials in charge of the program until they scrambled and focused part of the program on girls and even when they did finally include separate programs for girls it was not good enough because according to NOW “separate is not equal”. To quote from NOW’s statement:
“The White House report ‘Women and Girls of Color: Addressing Challenges and Expanding Opportunity,’ was released today in response to the calls of the African American Policy Forum and many allied advocates, including NOW, for a realignment of the My Brother’s Keeper initiative (MBK). Unfortunately, it misses the mark.
The report catalogues the Administration’s accomplishments for women — all women — while noting that many girls and women of color benefit from those policies. It also invokes the concept of intersectionality, noting that ‘the challenges women and girls of color face … often lie at the intersection of race and gender.’
But the report’s announcement of an initiative parallel to MBK, a ‘Working Group on Challenges and Opportunities for Women and Girls of Color’, is the wrong response. Firstly, separate is not equal.”
Separate is not equal? I counted 47 female-only programs across the nation and was only able to find one program focused on males and that program of course was My Brother’s Keeper. NOW nor any other feminist group is demanding the federal or state governments include boys in any of these 47 female-only programs so their cry about how “separate is not equal” is beyond hypocritical.
The Heart Truth
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/hearttruth/
National Women’s Health Week
National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
http://www.womenshealth.gov/nwghaad/
National Community Centers of Excellence in Women’s Health
https://www.cfda.gov/?s=program&mode=form&tab=step1&id=9d2c58438f93677b8be9902417846df3
HIV Prevention Programs for Women
https://www.cfda.gov/?s=program&mode=form&tab=step1&id=5b7e9a6cf626ff4df8378459583c4ae8
Office on Women’s Health at CDC
African American Women and Mass Media (AAMM) Campaign
http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/what_cdc_is_doing/aamm.htm
The WISEWOMAN program
The Office of Research on Women’s Health
http://orwh.od.nih.gov/index.asp
Advancing Novel Science in Women’s Health Research (ANSWHR) Exploratory/Developmental Research Grants
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ep/answhr.html
Specialized Centers of Research on Sex and Gender Factors Affecting Women’s Health
http://www.niams.nih.gov/Funding/Funded_Research/orwh_scor.asp
Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health
http://orwh.od.nih.gov/interdisciplinary/bircwh/index.asp
US Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health (FDA)
http://www.fda.gov/ScienceResearch/SpecialTopics/WomensHealthResearch/default.htm
Women-Owned Small Businesses (U.S Small Business Association)
https://www.sba.gov/content/women-owned-small-business-program
US Food and Drug Administration – For Women FDA
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/byAudience/ForWomen/default.htm
Targeting Obesity in Young Women to Prevent the Development of Type II Diabetes (Federal Grant Program)
HRSA Office of Women’s Health (U.S Department of Health and Human Services)
http://mchb.hrsa.gov/womenshealth/
Women and Girls Initiative (Environmental Protection Agency)
http://www.epa.gov/ocrpage1/womenandgirls/index.html
Women Outreach Program (U.S Department of Agriculture)
http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/webapp?area=home&subject=oued&topic=ops-wn
Girl’s Health
Center for Women Veterans
Women Veterans Health Care
http://www.womenshealth.va.gov/
Women Veterans Program Minnesota
http://mn.gov/mdva/resources/healthdisability/womenveteransprogram.jsp
Women Veterans Program Massachusetts
http://www.mass.gov/veterans/women-veterans/
White House Council for Women and Girls
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cwg/about
White House Interagency Council on Women and Girls
Women’s Educational Equity Act
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg86.html
EVEN START DISCRETIONARY GRANT TO PRISONS THAT HOUSE WOMEN AND CHILDREN
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/evenstartprison/index.html
NASA Aspire to Inspire
NASA SISTER Program
http://education.gsfc.nasa.gov/sister/
Clean Energy Education and Empowerment “C-3E” Women’s Initiative (Department of Energy)
http://energy.gov/articles/clean-energy-education-and-empowerment-c-3e-women-s-initiative
ADVANCE: Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers (National Science Foundation)
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5383
Administration on Aging (AoA) National Education and Resource Center on Women and Retirement Planning (US Department of Health and Human Services)
http://www.aoa.gov/AoA_programs/Elder_Rights/Women_in_Retirement/index.aspx
U.S Department of Labor Women’s Bureau
Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (WANTO)
http://www.dol.gov/wb/federalregister3-30-2010.htm
Green Jobs for Women
http://www.dol.gov/wb/media/green.htm
Office on Violence Against Women
Violence Against Women Grant Programs
http://www.justice.gov/ovw/grant-programs
Enhanced Training and Services to End Violence and Abuse of Women Later in Life
https://www.cfda.gov/?s=program&mode=form&tab=step1&id=ebc1f1481f4cf4480ad4b17eaf54e772
Education, Training and Enhanced Services to End Violence Against and Abuse of Women with Disabilities Grant Program
http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=215013
NYC Women’s Health
http://www.nyc.gov/html/hhc/gouverneur/html/services/women.shtml
Illinois Women’s Healthcare Portal
http://health.illinois.gov/woman.html
Women, Infants and Children(WIC)
http://www.nutrition.gov/food-assistance-programs/wic-women-infants-and-children
Free Women’s Self Defense Program Virginia
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/police/services/women-self-defense.htm
Women’s Way North Dakota
http://www.ndhealth.gov/womensway/
Office of Women’s Health Arizona
http://www.azdhs.gov/phs/owch/women/index.htm
USAID Women’s Empowerment
http://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment
