The real "war on women:" the economy

The so-called “war on women” has been at the forefront of the 2012 Presidential race, with both President Obama and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney clamoring to show that the other does not understand the needs of women.

From the Sandra Fluke incident to Hilary Rosen’s comments about Ann Romney’s working record, a fiery national debate has arisen. In a desperate attempt to win the votes of women for the upcoming election, both Democrats and Republicans are quick to announce that they have a strong record on issues related to women for proper health care, higher education, equal pay and other hot topics.

But it stands to remain how women’s pressing needs will in fact be addressed. Women, as Obama declared in an Apr. 6 speech, are not a political special interest group, but rather a driving force in our economy. And this is not just an opinion, but a fact.

A study released in spring 2011 by theAmerican Express Open found that firms that are mostly held by women make up 29 percent of all businesses in the United States, a 50 percent growth from 1997 to 2011. The report also ranked Pa. seventh among all states for the number of women-owned businesses.

Sally Handlon of the Lehigh Valley is one of those women. Handlon opened up Handlon Business Resources 7 years ago as an implementation firm that partners with small business owners and executives to help with logistical and strategic planning.

Handlon’s business has helped numerous small business lift off, with many of those businesses being owned by women.

“The women that I know that are in business are successful and solid,” Handlon said. “Today that’s what we need to be in business.”

Handlon said that it is difficult for women to push forward in the workplace because women are constantly engaged in a balancing act between their home life and work life.

“[W]e’re not only just running the business, but we are [also] running the home. We’re running everything else so there’s only so much time in the day,” Handlon said.

Handlon expressed that women have to multitask much more than men do. Women are able to focus and get the task at hand completed quickly, Handlon said, because they always have so many other competing priorities going on and cannot risk falling behind.

The economic recession has affected small businesses owners regardless of gender, Handlon said.

“We’re all just trying to figure out what to do with this,” Handlon said. “You want to hire staff but you’re not sure you can sustain them. You just can’t count on things you used to be able to count on before,” Handlon reported with a sigh.

The economic recession has permeated many aspects of women’s lives. Diane Zanetti, the Executive Director of Turning Point of the Lehigh Valley, the valley’s women’s domestic violence shelter, noted that the state of the economy has greatly affected women in abusive relationships.

Turning Point did not see how much the economy affected the work that they do until 2010. Zanetti believes that this is because women realized that there was no “light at the end of the tunnel” for the economy, and that these difficult financial times were not going to quickly disappear.

Unhealthy relationships embody many forms of abuse – physical, verbal, faith-based and financial. In times of economic stress, Zanetti said there is an increase in all forms of the aforementioned abuses. There has been a significant increase in women filing for protection from abuse orders, Zanetti said, indicating that physical abuse has escalated during these tough financial times.

When the economy tanked in 2008, women in controlling relationships found themselves increasingly unable to be financially independent from their abusive partners, thus subjecting them to a more dangerous environment.

“The lack of jobs meant now there are no options – now there’s no place to go,” Zanetti said.

“If they (women in abusive relationships) were getting counseling and trying to find a way to leave that relationship, the financial-economic options became more and more limited, meaning ‘I am more and more trapped,’” Zanetti said.

When experiencing financial woes, Zanetti said it is common for abusive partners to force women to take on another job or two in order to increase their household income.

Zanetti saw greater numbers of women calling for shelter and counseling services. Furthermore, because Turning Point only provides housing for 30 days, Zanetti said this economy makes it more difficult and fairly unlikely for women to find housing, proper childcare and a job in such a short period of time. This can cause women to feel as though they have no choice but to return to their abusive partner and return to an unsafe environment.

In this economy, Turning Point has worked to shift their programming toward teaching women about how to become financially and economically self-sufficient. But this is hard to achieve when employers are not hiring and women cannot find their own source of income.

The economy has also affected Turning Point’s ability to provide much-needed services for women in the Valley. In 2011, Turning Point had to close a shelter, leaving them with only one remaining place to house women seeking refuge from an abusive environment.

While politicians and political parties are tearing one another down to gain the votes of women, it is important that they remember that women are not just a vote: they are an important piece of our economy, and they are affected greatly by changes in the economy.  Women need to be understood and represented, not targeted and confused by empty promises and political jargon.

Story by Dayna Geldwert. Video by Mara Kievit.