Biden Needs a History-Making Women's Agenda in Response to COVID

Vice President Joe Biden will be the Democratic Party nominee and will face Donald Trump in the general election in November 2020. To win he will need women, a huge diverse plurality of women. As they have in every election since 1980, women will turn the 2020 election. 

They are more likely to be registered to vote and more likely to go to the polls than any other Americans. The 2018 midterms and 2020 primaries showed just how critical the turnout of women—Democrat, independent and moderate Republican will be this November. 

And of course, black women, the backbone of democratic turnout will be more critical than ever. But now, in the time of COVID-19, women’s concerns are more complex and challenging than ever. Biden’s promise to nominate a woman as vice president is an important and powerful commitment but it’s not enough. Joe Biden needs the most meaningful, history-making, aggressive agenda for achieving gender equity of any president before him.

Before, during and after the COVID-19 crisis, gender inequity plagues our nation. The 2020 World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report ranks the United States 53rd in the world for gender equity—behind Zambia, Ecuador and Bangladesh. American women were already more likely to live in poverty, to be employed in low wage occupations and to face challenges to access health care, childcare and paid leave before the COVID-19 crisis.