First, they are blasting House Republicans for their proposal to block changes to the Violence Against Women Act that would extend protection to battered women who are LGBT, immigrants or Native Americans who live on tribal lands. “We are seeing the sheer gender bias of their so-called ‘clean’ bill,” Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) said Friday. “They don’t want to sully their hands dealing with women in the shadows.”
Second, they’ve cast the GOP proposal to lower student rates by taking money out of Obamacare’s prevention fund as another “assault on women,” as Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi put it at the news conference — which, appropriately enough, was held in a small alcove in the Capitol lined with statues of former male senators. According to the female Democrats, the prevention fund targets osteoporosis, arthritis and mental illness, “which disproportionately affect women,” explained Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). So by targeting such funds, Republicans are going out of their way to go after women, the Dems’ argument goes. “Their assault on women’s health is part of their continued assault on women,” Pelosi concluded…
But the Democrats aren’t going to let up their push to cast Republicans as the party against women. As my colleague Greg Sargent reports today, Senate Democrats are planning to hold a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, which “would put more pressure on employers to prove that differences in wages are not rooted in gender difference, and would make it easier for employees to divulge information about their salaries” to combat gender-based pay discrimination.
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