The White House is quietly making it harder for women to report sexual harassment.

Courtesy of HuffPo:

Behind the scenes, and mostly through executive orders, the White House is making it harder for women to report sexual harassment and fight sex discrimination. 

The clearest example came in March. It received little coverage at the time. President Donald Trump reversed an Obama-era order that forbid federal contractors from keeping secret sexual harassment and discrimination cases. The 2014 rule prohibited these companies, which employ about 26 million people, from forcing workers to resolve complaints through arbitration, an increasingly common method businesses use to settle disputes out of the public eye. 

“This was a clear sign of the administration silencing women,” said Jessica Stender, senior staff attorney for Equal Rights Advocates, a women’s rights nonprofit. 

And it’s only a small piece of the picture. “The Trump administration has a clear anti-women agenda,” Stender said. “I say that with complete certainty. This is an all-out, full frontal attack on women.” 

The attack so far has seen the most success via executive order, but a vast swath of the public policies proposed or endorsed by administration officials attempt to scale back women’s rights. From Trump’s repeal of executive orders meant to reduce pay discrimination to the budget floated in May, the failed repeal of Obamacare, and now the Republican tax bills, actions taken or backed by this administration harm women.

It should not surprise any of us that the man who believes he has carte blanche to grab women by their genitals, and who defends a candidate accused of sexual assault and statutory rape, would have no interest in helping women or keeping them safe from male predators.

We just have to wait and see how long he can stand against the tide of determined women coming into politics specifically to wrest control out of the hands of the patriarchy and start moving the country toward a more just society.