Independent Women’s Forum/Independent Women’s Voice (Summary 08/18/16) Not Independent, not mainstream, not neutral The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) says it’s a “non-partisan research and education institution.” The Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) claims to represent the views of independent women voters and to “ensure that mainstream women’s voices are heard.” But these organizations are most definitely not independent, mainstream, or neutral. IWF and IWV are deeply imbedded in the right-wing political infrastructure, have long connections to the Koch Brothers, and promote right-wing, often anti-women, policies and politicians. “Independent” branding is calculated and misleading Passing themselves as “independent” and “neutral” has allowed IWF and IWV to garner media opportunities to promote right-wing causes and candidates without scrutiny of their true agenda or allegiances. “Being branded as neutral, but actually having people who know know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position,” Heather Richardson Higgins, IWV President and IWF Board Chair has admitted. The IWF and IWV have taken advantage of their “neutral brand” and free pass from the media to speak out against equal pay, paid family leave, the “Violence Against Women Act,” Title IX, the Republican “War on Women,” rape on campus, regulated childcare, and provide false equivalence on other women’s economic and social issues. They are also frequently asked to weigh-in on a wide variety of public issues from guns to gay marriage, from education to the environment. Fact sheets on these issues are available here: http://www.exposedbycmd.org/independentwomensforum   Not independent in the 2016 Elections Selling Trump Despite immediate concerns about Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, IWF is now trying to sell Trump to women voters who is viewed unfavorably by 70 percent of them. • • • In March: IWF weighed-in against Trump’s “coarseness and objectification of women.” In July: IWV’s Higgins spoke against Clinton, saying “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” and put a positive spin on Trump’s rhetoric saying, for example, when he talks about illegal immigration, he just “wants to protect you and your kids.” In July: IWV also shared polling at an event around the RNC touting women voting for Trump though not supporting him. Attacking Clinton Using their appearances on Fox Networks, guest columns and opinion pieces in mainstream publications like Forbes, the New York Post and other legacy and online media outlets, IWF/V has generated a constant drumbeat of attacks on Hillary Clinton: • • In a June 9, 2016 op-ed in Forbes, IWF’s President Sabrina Schaeffer said Clinton was “synonymous with the corruption of Washington–most notably through the Benghazi tragedy… Being a Democratic woman apparently means never having to take the rap when you get caught.” Providing political cover for rightwing candidates IWF’s report, Working for Women: A Modern Agenda for Improving Women’s Lives,” is a collection of 20 failed market-based, corporate-biased policies that sound like they would help working women, without actually helping working women: • • • Instead of endorsing affordable access to paid family and medical leave for all, IWF suggests creating “Personal Care Accounts” (PCAs) so workers can save and use their own money to pay for medical leave. IWF advocates de-regulating childcare facilities, ending licensing requirements and reducing the caregiver-to-child ratio to make childcare cheaper (but much riskier). They argue that the gender wage gap is not a problem, but rather caused by personal choices made by women who “view getting paid a little less for their work outside the home [as] a fine trade-off for the time they get to spend inside their homes.” Speaking to ALEC lawmakers in July, IWF’s Schaeffer reportedly said, "One thing that we’re going to do for you is to “One thing we’re going to do for you is take a lot of the proposals in our report and do … sophisticated testing on how to sell them…. We’ll be taking this and packaging it into messaging hits I think will be helpful to you. Videos, commentaries, fact sheets, quizzes, scripts to help you with answers in the press…” Past partisanship is prologue In 2012, as Republican candidates imploded with a series of anti-woman claims, and while IWF argued that there was “no Republican War on Women,” IWV was working behind the scenes to elect Republican candidates fueling the controversy with their anti-choice claims, for example: • Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin claimed rape victims can’t get pregnant because “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Akin made this statement on August 19. On November 1, IWV spent $67,242.43 to aid Akin with robo-calls. • Indiana U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock asserted that when a woman is made pregnant as a result of rape, she carries a “gift from God,” and that such a pregnancy “is something that God intended to happen.” Two weeks later, IWV spent $176,991 on a “Romney wants Mourdock” ad. In 2014, IWV reported spending more than $850K on 2014 Senate races: almost all for GOP candidates with 0% NARAL ratings. It spent more than $5 million that year on related advocacy. IWF and IWF: Clearly not independent, neutral, or mainstream IWF and IWV receive the majority of their funding from the Koch-connected DonorsTrust and DonorsCapital Fund, ultraconservative funding fronts designed to shield donors’ identities. Allowing them to pass as “independent” in the media does honest debate a disservice.