The Women’s Bill of Rights that women in West Virginia deserve

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announces the Women's Bill of Rights on a livestream on Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. (Independent Women's Voice photo)

Last week, Gov. Jim Justice announced the West Virginia Women’s Bill of Rights , a weird name for a transphobic bill that doesn’t give women any rights.

In fact, the bill specifically states, “‘Equal’ does not mean ‘same’ or ‘identical’ with respect to equality of the sexes.”

The purpose of this bill is to define “woman,” “man,”“female,” “male,” “mother” and “father” in state code based on the sex listed on the individual’s birth certificate, and to establish “certain single sex environments are not discriminatory.”

For the livestreamed announcement, Justice was joined by Independent Women’s Law Center Director May Mailman and Riley Gaines, a college swimmer who gained a platform by campaigning against transgender women from participating in women’s sports after she tied for fifth place with a transgender woman in a 2022 competition.

In the House Judiciary Committee on Monday, Del. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, tried to amend the bill to include a women’s equal pay act , but Committee Chair Tom Fast, R-Fayette, said the equal pay act wasn’t germane to the Women’s Bill of Rights legislation. The amendment was turned down, and the bill advanced with still no rights given to women.

Six of the bill’s sponsors are Republican men and, disappointingly, the other five are Republican women: Dels. Kathie Hess Crouse, Erica Moore, Laura Kimble, Margitta Mazzocchi and Debbie Warner.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are much more pressing issues concerning women in the Mountain State that should be addressed instead of attacking transgender women who will exist no matter what intolerant bills are passed. The West Virginia Women’s Bill of Right should actually include:

Equal rights

Women aren’t asking for more rights than men — they just want the same rights.

Remember in the 2022 regular legislative session when the Senate debated whether they should rescind the Equal Rights Amendment?

Even though state lawmakers ratified the ERA on April 22, 1972, Senate Concurrent Resolution 44 would have clarified that ratification was only valid until March 22, 1979.

The House rejected the Senate motion 18-75-7.

We have equal rights for now — but for how much longer?

Equal pay

The West Virginia Equal Pay Act is supposed to prohibit private and public employers from paying an employee at a rate less than the rate they pay an employee of the opposite sex for comparable work with comparable skills.

When workplaces won’t allow employees to discuss salaries with each other, how can this law even be enforceable? Let’s make a law to protect employees when they discuss pay with each other. The National Labor Relations Act gives employees the right to discuss wages, but there are some exceptions , such as federal, state and local governments — which includes schools, libraries and parks.

An average woman in West Virginia would have to work until 72 years old to make the same amount of money as a man makes by 60 years old, according to a 2023 review from the National Women’s Law Center. The difference in pay is approximately $483,000 in a woman’s lifetime.

Body autonomy

A woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body was taken away in West Virginia after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Since Sept. 13, 2022, the state has had a near-total abortion ban .

Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, announced last week on X that she was leading a resolution to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to allow the people of West Virginia to vote about whether or not they want abortion to be legal.

According to a 2023 Gallup poll, 69% of people support legal abortion. It seems unlikely lawmakers will put this decision in the hands of West Virginians, especially since voters supported abortion in all six states that have put it on the ballot since the Dobbs ruling.

Required maternity leave

Give us required paid maternity leave — and because we want equality, we want required paid paternity leave, too.

Most workplaces don’t provide paid maternity leave. A former co-worker of mine had to go on short-term disability in order to receive an income after having a baby.

Thanks to the federal law, the Family and Medical Leave Act, employees are guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave with continuation of their health insurance. Only 22 states offer additional leave, some with pay  — West Virginia isn’t one of them.

Young sponsored the Maternal Health and Family Support Act last year, which would have given an employee 12-weeks of paid leave during a 12-month period to care for and bond with a child. The bill died in committee.

Affordable child care

Speaking of babies being expensive, in West Virginia, a single parent pays half of their income for infant care, and 94% of their income for child care for two children, according to Child Care Aware of America .

Infant care costs $1,117 more per year than in-state tuition for four-year public college, according to the Economic Policy Institute .

The average cost of caring for an infant in West Virginia is $728 per month. If a woman works 40 hours a week making the state’s minimum wage, they’re only bringing in $1,400 before taxes are taken out. And then there’s rent, health care, food, gas … you know, necessities.

Child care is even unaffordable for most married couples in West Virginia. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, child care is affordable when it costs no more than 7% of a family’s income — in West Virginia, infant care for one child takes up 17% of a median family’s income. Only 10.7% of West Virginia families can afford to pay for infant child care, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

The legislature is working on helping out with child care — House Bill 5293 would establish a pilot child care program for low-income employees where the state, participating employers and employees contribute one-third of the total cost of child care.

It’s promising to see the legislature attack a real issue. Now, if we can just get them to stop attacking transgender people perhaps West Virginia can see some true equality.

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