Why is the Senate failing to build back better? Blame sexism

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The Build Back Better Act is about the intangibles that underpin roads and bridges: child care, clean energy, health care, education, and taxing billionaires. In other words, it’s about people—children, seniors, families, women. Especially women. President Biden on the campaign trail promoting the Build Back Better plan in Wilmington, Del. on July 28, 2020. (Adam Schultz)

When President Biden celebrated the passage of the infrastructure bill by crossing a rusty, creaky bridge in New Hampshire, it sent a strong signal of what was to come. Men in hard hats and orange vests, fixing equipment that keeps the economic engine humming. Cars, trains, trucks and bridges – and jobs for men.

Indeed, it is likely that 90% of new jobs will go to men, working in construction, energy and transport.

Don’t be flippant: our physical infrastructure has been crumbling for decades, and it’s essential to shore it up and make it functional; and it’s a great way to put people to work in decent jobs, with real skills. We need bridges that don’t collapse and roadways that stay open during snowstorms.

But the truth is that the new bill only provides half the big picture of what we need. The “Law on Investment in Infrastructure and Employment” was not and is not autonomous; it has a twin, in the form of the Build Back Better Act, which is equally (if not more) important. This bill invests in the deeper, deeper infrastructure of our economy – the framework that keeps people going to work, keeps our landscape from going up in flames, provides adequate health care for our population and, after decades of neglect, seeks to strengthen the middle class.

So why does the Build Back Better Act coming in 2022 look tattered, diminished and, perhaps, headed for the trash?

Well, let’s call it: BBB isn’t primarily about men, men’s work, and the Business of America. Instead, it’s about the intangibles that underpin roads and bridges: childcare, clean energy, health care, education, and taxing billionaires.

In other words, it’s about people—children, seniors, families, women. Especially women. And the truth is, we don’t value women’s work the way we value men’s work. This is true both for work and for women. On the one hand, jobs that involve tasks generally considered “women’s work” (such as caring for children and the elderly, cleaning, cooking) pay less and offer fewer rewards and benefits, even when these jobs require high levels of skills, education and training. . And this is true for working women who do the same jobs as men: women are paid less in the same jobs, just as men who do “feminine” jobs are better paid.

In short, we don’t value women, women’s work, and families the way we value men wearing hard hats.

House Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif.) Is joined by other House Democrats in July 2021 to discuss investing in “people” infrastructure, including universal pre-kindergarten and credit extensions child tax, free community college, expanded home care for the disabled and elderly, and more. (Instagram)

This is certainly not new; previous efforts to invest in the economy focused largely on male labor. The New Deal failed child care and home care workers. Domestic workers are still excluded from federal labor law, opening the door to abuse and compensation. The last major effort to fund universal child care was opposed at the last minute by President Richard Nixon in 1971 amid fears of desegregation and communist infiltration, as well as the ethos of keeping women at their square.

While the past 50 years have seen progress toward progress and equity, we still regularly encounter obstacles on the way forward. And the pandemic has certainly changed the playing field for millions of us.

It also has to be said that it’s not just about gender, but also about class (as the wealthy have seen huge gains during the pandemic while most people have lost ground) and, most importantly, about race .

BBB seeks to invest in our families and communities, but the reality is that this would disproportionately benefit women, and it would benefit working women and women of color even more. Black, brown, immigrant and refugee women do much of the work that would benefit from a rising bill (in the labor market and at home). Older people of color, who have faced decades of structural barriers to wealth accumulation, would benefit from Medicare expansion. Communities of color would benefit from investments in education; in the cleanup of toxic energy sites; in more affordable housing; in nutritional carriers.

BBB is long overdue as it seeks to right the wrongs that have gone on too long and have grown out of proportion to millions of families. When people voted for President Biden, they voted for this kind of change: resetting the rules to help families instead of businesses.

Finally, BBB is not just about what is right. It is about what is needed to keep our country from collapsing. If we don’t mitigate climate change now, climate disasters will become more frequent, deadlier and more destructive. If we don’t build a strong child care system, parents won’t be able to go to work, and we’ll lose skills and experience, and huge chunks of the workforce.

Without BBB, we not only lose a movement towards equity, health and well-being, but also the chance for lasting prosperity.

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