The Democratic Party released a draft 2016 platform. Their support for gender equality is encouraging. The section on women and girls states that “the United States must continue to be the world’s strongest advocate for the rights of women and girls.” This includes contraception and abortion rights. And stopping human trafficking.
The Republican Party platform from 2012, however, has no section on women and girls. Though the platform does advocate restricting abortion rights, allegedly to protect women’s health. And the GOP says the U.N. Convention on Women’s rights will have an “ominous” impact on families.
In contrast, the 1956 Republican platform declared, “We recommend to Congress the submission of a constitutional amendment providing equal rights for men and women.”
When it comes to women’s rights, the GOP has moved backwards while Democrats have moved forward.
But Democrats are still falling behind. Their draft 2016 platform is missing a section about men and boys. Here’s what I propose:
We believe that addressing issues facing men and boys is essential to achieving gender equality. Boys (especially minority boys) are falling behind girls in school. Men are 92% of workplace deaths. Males are almost four of five suicides. Further, 98% of mass shooters are men, and most of them have had suicidal thoughts. And fatherlessness is a significant problem with serious social costs. We support the creation of a White House Council on Men and Boys, creation of a federal Office of Men’s Health, a greater focus on men’s mental health and suicide prevention, educational initiatives to support our boys, programs to promote involved fathers, and a presumption of shared parenting after divorce.
Will we see something like this added to the final 2016 Democratic platform? Maybe. But it’s a longshot. If not, there’s always 2020.
—
Photo: Pixabay
And as we can see after the election no such thing came to be. No “gender equality” is still being defined as “make sure women/girls don’t get the short end of the stick”.
Is this a joke?