RELEASE: CAP, American Women, PPAF, and SEIU Launch Major New Women’s Initiative

Leading Organizations Introduce the Fair Shot Campaign, a Coordinated, Comprehensive Effort to Fight for Women and Families

Washington, D.C. — At an event featuring House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senior White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett, the Center for American Progress, working with American Women, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and the Service Employees International Union, launched the “Fair Shot” campaign. The major new initiative is focused on elevating public policies that address the challenges women face today and ensure that families are not just getting by, but rather have the opportunity to get ahead.

“How could it be 165 years later we are still fighting this fight? Well, in that tradition we’ve come together to prioritize a women’s economic agenda, an agenda – ‘When Women Succeed, America Succeeds: An Economic Agenda for Women and their Families,” said Leader Pelosi. “It’s about how we value the work of women. It’s paycheck fairness, paid leave, and having quality, affordable child care. These are steps, not everything, but important steps to helping women and families find a sense of economic security,” Leader Pelosi added.

Jarrett explained the campaign this way:

The work we have left to do is about providing our women and girls the fair shot that they deserve: a life of success and wellness. But we’re also driven by more than just the obvious moral imperative. We know that tackling the economic challenges of our time depends on prioritizing the economic security of women. Why? Because economic security for women means economic security for families, communities, and our nation.

In conjunction with the launch of the new initiative, the Center for American Progress released “Why We Need a Fair Shot: A Plan for Women and Families to Get Ahead,” in which CAP Senior Fellow Judith Warner lays out the challenges that the Fair Shot campaign seeks to address and the initiative’s policy goals. The cornerstone of the campaign is a comprehensive, common-sense policy agenda that spells out how to ensure women earn what they deserve and have a fair chance to help their families succeed, to promote women’s health throughout the continuum of their lives, and to advance women’s leadership opportunities. Specifically, this agenda includes:

Economic security

Raise the pay of minimum-wage workers, 62 percent of whom are women.
Enact stronger equal-pay protections such as the Paycheck Fairness Act to hold employers more accountable for discriminatory pay practices, ensure vigorous enforcement of equal-pay laws, and empower women to uncover discrimination and negotiate fair salaries.
Renew legal efforts to fight gender-based stereotypes and combat forms of gender-specific bias such as pregnancy discrimination.
Empower women in the lowest-paid jobs to embark upon career pathways that can lead to higher wages and better skills, and enable them to work collectively to improve their economic opportunities.
Support federal paid family leave legislation to provide workers with up to 12 weeks of leave at partial salary to care for a new child or seriously ill family member or to recover from a serious illness.
Support the Healthy Families Act, which would allow workers to earn up to seven days of earned sick time per year.
Work with employers, policymakers, and advocates to promote flexible workplace practices for all.
Expand access to affordable, high-quality preschool and child care.
Support congressional legislation to ensure that all women—regardless of where they live—have access to abortion services without having to contend with impossibly burdensome state restrictions.
Ensure that women get accurate and medically appropriate information from their doctors on all health matters without political interference.
Fully implement the Affordable Care Act, which contains provisions that guarantee women’s access to vital preventive services, protect against sex-based medical discrimination, provide coverage for maternal health services and contraception, and help women make informed health decisions throughout their lifetimes.
Enable healthy pregnancy and delivery by making sure that women have access to affordable care; information on how to maintain a healthy pregnancy; and unbiased, multilingual, and culturally competent medical care.
Eliminate the structural barriers to women’s equal participation and advancement in politics and the private sector.
Identify workplace practices that disproportionately hold women back and time-tested workplace solutions that would level the playing field.
Change the elements of workplace culture that demand unlimited availability and overwork in favor of more balanced work-life expectations for men and women alike.

Women’s health

Support congressional legislation to ensure that all women—regardless of where they live—have access to abortion services without having to contend with impossibly burdensome state restrictions.
Ensure that women get accurate and medically appropriate information from their doctors on all health matters without political interference.
Fully implement the Affordable Care Act, which contains provisions that guarantee women’s access to vital preventive services, protect against sex-based medical discrimination, provide coverage for maternal health services and contraception, and help women make informed health decisions throughout their lifetimes.
Enable healthy pregnancy and delivery by making sure that women have access to affordable care; information on how to maintain a healthy pregnancy; and unbiased, multilingual, and culturally competent medical care.
Eliminate the structural barriers to women’s equal participation and advancement in politics and the private sector.
Identify workplace practices that disproportionately hold women back and time-tested workplace solutions that would level the playing field.
Change the elements of workplace culture that demand unlimited availability and overwork in favor of more balanced work-life expectations for men and women alike.

Leadership

Eliminate the structural barriers to women’s equal participation and advancement in politics and the private sector.
Identify workplace practices that disproportionately hold women back and time-tested workplace solutions that would level the playing field.
Change the elements of workplace culture that demand unlimited availability and overwork in favor of more balanced work-life expectations for men and women alike.

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