As the countdown to Donald Trump's inauguration approaches single digits, women across the country are preparing themselves for an anticipated attack on reproductive rights.
Planned Parenthood has seen a 900% increase in demand for IUD insertion. Fearful of a war on birth control, some women are reportedly stockpiling Plan B.
The day after the new President is sworn in, some 200,000 women and allies are expected to participate in a Women's March on Washington, D.C.
While reaffirming bodily autonomy is part of the march's agenda, its mission goes beyond that. Says a statement from the event's founders on its site: "We will not rest until women have parity and equity at all levels of leadership in society."
This may seem more easily said than done. The incoming administration is not expected to prioritize equality for women in any domain. This includes the working world.
Whereas his rival Hillary Clinton ran on the most progressive workplace equality platform of any major party candidate in history, President-elect Trump has dismissed the existence of a gender pay gap. (It exists, and remains pernicious in 2017.)
His six week maternity leave plan has been condemned by policy experts as "woefully inadequate" and "completely unserious."
In late December, his transition team asked the State Department to hand over details of "gender-related staffing, programming, and funding," causing concern that programs promoting women's full participation in the economy will take a hit in 2017.
Then there are the cultural implications of a leader who has bragged about grabbing women's genitals; was accused of sexual harassment and assault by multiple women (he denied these allegations); has objectified women; and has described a "wife" working as "dangerous."
"I worry about a backlash against women, Mad Men-style," said Tamara Draut, vice president of policy and research at progressive think tank Demos.
"I am worried about the day-to-day interactions that working women may find themselves having that we haven't seen for 50 years, at a time when we could see a reversal of the progress we've made in sexual harassment."
There are, however, concrete ways women (and their allies) can advocate for themselves at work, in spite of resistance -- and even hostility -- from on high.
Focus on local ballot measures. (And local politics in general.)
The election was, in many respects, a referendum on economic insecurity. At a city and state level, this translated to the passage of ballot initiatives aimed at making life easier for low-wage workers (most of whom are women), parents, and caregivers.
"Voters overwhelmingly passed initiatives to increase paid leave, increase childcare, and increase the minimum wage," said Vivien Labaton, cofounder and co-executive director of labor rights campaign Make It Work.
She noted that these measures passed in red and blue states alike. In the Ohio cities of Cincinnati and Dayton, voters approved tax increases to fund improved early childhood education. In Arizona and Washington state, measures requiring employers to offer paid sick leave succeeded at the ballot box.
In four states -- Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Washington -- minimum wage was put to a vote. In all four, it passed. And in South Dakota, voters overturned a measure that would have decreased minimum wage for workers under 18.
"These aren't partisan issues," Labaton said. "When voters can vote on these issues, they do -- enthusiastically."
Of course, not every progressive measure passed on November 8th. Voters in Missouri, for example, failed to back an increase in taxes on cigarettes that would've raised money for early childhood education.
Labaton and Demos' Tamara Draut encourage women workers to keep the pressure on city- and state-level legislators ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
"Find out what your city council is doing in terms of a fair working wage, paid leave, and paid sick days," Draut said. "Get those on the agenda. That is a lever that is much easier to influence."
Support the Fight for $15, and become allies for low-wage workers (they're mostly women).
What started as a loose coalition of New York City fast food workers has, in just four years, grown into an international movement that helped secure raises for 11.8 million people in 2016. On January 1st, the minimum wage went up for workers in 19 states and Washington, D.C.
The Trump administration, however, is likely to be hostile to further efforts to boost wages for the country's lowest-paid workers, 81% of whom are women. A recent report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research found that women of color are over-represented in low-wage jobs.
Demos' Draut urges salaried professional women to sign up to the Fight for $15, and become directly involved in low-wage worker protests.
She asks that middle-class white women recognize that the sort of corporate feminism espoused by the likes of 'Lean In' author (and billionaire) Sheryl Sandberg mostly doesn't apply to women in minimum wage jobs. Those with the time, energy, and resources to devote to advocacy must put in work on behalf of those who are struggling to pay their bills.
"The majority of these women have jobs, not careers they can lean into," Draut said. "If they want to lean in, they need paid leave, childcare, and a decent wage."
Draut believes white women owe it to women of color to become better advocates for progressive causes like minimum wage increases. "That's who voted for Clinton," she said. "That's the only group of women she won."
As well as the Fight for $15, executive women can get involved with issues that disproportionately affect working-class women -- for example, organizations working to promote reproductive justice.
"Higher income women should be advocating for lower income women, and managerial women for lower salaried workers," said Jessica Shortall, working parents' advocate, strategy consultant and the author of 'Work. Pump. Repeat: The New Mom's Survival Guide to Breastfeeding and Going Back to Work.'
Younger women (and men): advocate for paid parental leave on behalf of older colleagues.
In 2016, high-profile companies including Twitter, Ikea, Chobani, and many more rolled out paid parental leave programs, both to compete for millennial workers and address a shortfall in federal policy.
While more large companies are expected to follow suit in 2017, the U.S. remains the only developed country in the world with no laws guaranteeing paid leave of any kind.
Shortall hopes younger workers will take the lead in pushing for improved paid leave policies, just as they did at Coca-Cola, where a millennial task force helped devise the new program.
"In terms of advocating within the workplace, for millennial workers who are not yet childbearing, that’s a powerful position to be in," she said. "You cannot advocate for yourself when you’re pregnant. It’s very hard to. You’re already in a financially vulnerable position."
She also hopes that young men will step in as allies, both advocating for paid leave across genders and -- when they themselves become parents -- making it clear that parenthood isn't just women's work.
"Men can be very vocal and visible parents in the office," Shortall said. "When you have to go pick up your kids, say you’re going to pick up the kids. For fathers who are very present and active to make that a normal part of work conversation matters."
She encourages workers pushing for improved benefits within their companies to make it clear that parents across the gender spectrum deserve access to paid leave, rather than just birth mothers. (The latter is the only group who'd be covered by President-elect Trump's maternity plan.)
"If employers are required only to offer paid leave to women, that will introduce more implicit bias in the hiring process for women of childbearing age," Shortall said.
"It’s dangerous on so many levels. It reinforces that women are primary caregivers for families. What keeps happening is women dropping back from opportunities, or going part-time, or leaving the workforce. At the end of life they have less wealth to draw on."
Men can help simply by taking advantage of their paid time off, even if it's just two weeks.
"Take your leave," Shortall said. "Push back on this women-only thing."
