According to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrats should have talked more about “women’s issues” this election cycle.
“I resent the notion that women shouldn’t be talked to directly about issues we care about,” the Democrat from New York said during an event hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “It’s a shame that the range of issues that affect women have been successfully rebranded into this one tight phrase to dust off the shoulder.”
Those questioning if Democrats had a “war on women” strategy that failed them this year during the midterm elections are false in their thinking, she said, according to the Huffington Post.
Democrats should be more actively pushing their agenda for women, which includes focusing on reproductive rights, access to contraception and raising the minimum wage, Gillibrand said — calling them not just women’s issues, but “family issues.”
All of these issues are ones that Republicans oppose, Gillibrand said.
“Republicans don’t have a branding problem with women, they have policy problem with women,” said Gillibrand. “Let me be clear: There’s a real difference between the parties on the full range of issues that affect women and their families, so the answer is not to stop talking about these issues.”
Gillibrand expressed hope that Republicans, who now control Congress and came out of the midterm elections victorious, will focus on these issues and inject them into the conversation on Capitol Hill.
“They are critical middle class economic issues that if solved, could immediately strengthen our economy,” she said.
