The Independent Women’s Forum and the Independent Women’s Voice:
Not Independent, Not Neutral on Women’s Issues
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 non-partisan.
IWF and IWV are deeply embedded in the right-wing political infrastructure, have longstanding
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 frequently asked to weighin on a wide variety of public issues from guns to gay marriage to education to the environment.
Here is a snapshot of positions taken and quotes from IWF and IWV’s issue “experts” on
women’s economic and equality issues:
IWF has released a major report and project, “Working For Women,” timed for use in the 2016
elections which highlights the group’s approach to economic policies. The report was co-written
by Randel K. Johnson of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and mirrors the U.S. Chamber
lobbying agenda on a host of issues. The report is repeatedly referenced by IWF spokespeople
in their op-eds and media outreach. It’s a collection of 20 failed market-based, corporate-biased
policies that sound like they would help working women, without actually doing so:
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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 (and increase risks).
They argue that 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.”
The report also calls for: reducing tax rates across the board; deregulating the Fair Labor
and Standards act; altering social security to “us[e] a more accurate cost of living
measure, and adjust[t] benefit payments to augment the safety net for those with the

 lowest incomes”; and stopping any increase in the minimum wage, instead working to
“expand the current ‘sub-minimum wage.’”
The report is intended to help provide political cover for rightwing politicians:
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In July, IWF’s executive director Sabrina Schaeffer reportedly told ALEC lawmakers,
after admitting paid sick time and other progressive economic workplace policies were
popular with all women including conservative women, “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…”

IWF has a long history of opposing workplace reforms and other policies that would help women
and their families:
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IWF has argued:
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that Equal Pay Day is “a pseudo-holiday based on the idea that women are
systematically underpaid”;

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that women don’t benefit from the Lilly Ledbetter Act;

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that Title IX is the product of “an anti-male agenda in enforcement policies”;

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that the Violence Against Women Act should not be re-authorized because, among
other reasons, that "wives instigate violence, including severe violence, against
husbands more often than husbands do against wives" and that “a large percentage
of domestic abuse victims are men and homosexuals;

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that the ACA’s required coverage for contraceptive prescriptions should be opposed
because, among other arguments, it “may encourage more sexual activity” and
“encourage a substitution away from condom use, leading to higher STD rates.”

IWF strongly opposes paid sick time and paid maternity leave. With the Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton making these issues a center point of her campaign, IWF
surrogates have spreading right wing talking points against these policies – for example,
Carrie Lucas wrote 
  against paid family leave recently in the Washington Post.
In addition to taking stances against these workplace reforms in their major publications,
like the Working For Women report, IWF has written exclusively on the subject in white
papers: e.g. Policy Focus: The FAMILY Act in 2014; Paid Sick Leave Regulations in
2011; Mandated Paid Sick Leave: The Wrong Medicine for Workers in 2009.

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IWF has routinely claimed, as it does in its 2016 “Working for Women” report, that
sexism has no role in causing the gender wage gap. In 2012, IWF’s Carrie Lukas
wrote, “Americans appropriately recoil from the idea of a sexist economy that shortchanges hard-working women. If it were true, it would be outrageous. Fortunately,
however, this commonly repeated claim is false.” Lukas goes on to write, “Women are
better off understanding that it’s the decisions they make— not systematic sexism—that
determine how much they earn,” and that “Feminist groups disserve women by
promoting the false idea that the U.S. workplace is overwhelmingly sexist.”

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IWF has also been a longtime opponent of raising minimum wages, echoing right wing
orthodoxy as Carrie Lukas does in her blog, “A Job-Destroying Minimum Wage Won’t
Help Women,” claiming:
“Proponents of the higher minimum wage have also argued that the rate
increase will be a boon to women, since women account for about twothirds of minimum wage workers. Yet this statistic shows that women are,
in fact, far more vulnerable to the potential job loss caused by the new
proposed regulation. Women also account for nearly two-thirds (about 63
percent) of part-time workers, and part-time workers are more likely to earn
the minimum wage. As the minimum wage goes up, these women may
find that their part-time jobs are cut and consolidated. That's bad news for
those who had sought out a part time schedule to balance their work and
family responsibilities.”

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The IWF has attacked the idea that rape on college campuses is a real problem,
dismissing it instead as “hysteria,” and accusing the Obama administration of trying to
score political points with women, “Based on the dubious statistic that one in five women
on campus is a victim of sexual assault, the Obama administration has promoted the
idea that there is a “rape culture” on campus… The “rape culture” was a talking point for
the administration in its promotion of the “war on women…

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IWF denies the Republicans ever waged a “war on women” concluding on a “Test Your
Knowledge” quiz that is part of “A Guide to the War on Women” that: “Liberty is no war
on women. Democrats have used the "War on Women" charge to hurt Republicans'
reputations, tar them as sexists, and to distract from the real problems facing our
country, such as joblessness and the problems with ObamaCare…”
IWF has also defended GOP attacks on access to contraception and the freedom to
choose, and their opposition to to minimum wage hikes, expansion of funding for
childcare, and paycheck fairness all of which disproportionately affect women, as the
result of “ Democratic strategists [who] developed the concept of casting all GOP
proposals as a part of a "War on Women" as a political strategy to turn out the women's
vote…They found that accusing Republicans of being sexist, out-of-touch, and
interested in rolling back women's rights would be an effective communication tool,
which led to their strategy of casting all GOP proposals as a part of a "War on Women.”
Meanwhile, IWV was quietly running ads or robo-calls behind the scenes to try to elect
Republican candidates fueling the controversy with their anti-choice claims, for example:

 
  

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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.

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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.