Women Leaders Unite to Combat Hate During White House & WHIAANHPI Event Commemorating Women’s History Month and the One-Year Anniversary of the Atlanta Spa Shootings

Women Leaders Unite to Combat Hate During White House & WHIAANHPI Event Commemorating Women’s History Month and the One-Year Anniversary of the Atlanta Spa Shootings

On March 22, 2022, the White House Office of Public Engagement and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI) hosted a virtual national Women’s History Month event to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the tragic Atlanta spa shootings in which a gunman targeted three Asian-run businesses, killing eight people — including six women of Asian descent. The national event brought together senior Administration officials at the White House, WHIAANHPI, and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) women leaders to celebrate the strength and resilience of AA and NHPI women in the face of increasing violence. The event also featured performances by Hollis Wong-Wear and Aerica Shimizu Banks, who previewed the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center’s upcoming Bravespace project, which will feature AA and NHPI women and non-binary musicians and artists and provide meditation and healing tools.

“This month we have the obligation to recognize that hate and violence directed at the AA and NHPI communities is not new in America,” said U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai, who serves as Co-Chair of the White House Initiative and President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. “At the same time, we seize the opportunity to remind ourselves that from these dynamic and fast-growing communities, women emerge as great American leaders, trailblazers, champions, defenders, supporters.” Watch the entire event here.

Coinciding with the event, WHIAANHPI released its Combating Hate and Discrimination Resource Guide. The complete Resource Guide can be found here.

The Biden-Harris Administration Continues to Advance Gender Equity

The Biden-Harris Administration has continued to demonstrate its commitment to advancing gender equity and combatting gender-based violence and discrimination worldwide:

• The Administration created a National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, which identifies ten interconnected priorities ranging from human rights and equality under the law to improving economic security. The Strategy takes an intersectional approach that considers the barriers and challenges faced by those who experience intersecting and compounding forms of discrimination and bias related to gender, race, and other factors, including sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, and socioeconomic status. The complete Gender Strategy Report can be found here.
• The President’s 2023 budget requested approximately $2.6 billion for foreign assistance programs that promote gender equity and equality worldwide, more than doubling the amount requested for gender programs in the prior year. This marks the largest-ever gender budget request and would fund programming led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department, with USAID taking forward the majority of this historic budget request to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls around the world. Read the full summary of the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2023 here.
• President Biden proclaimed March 15 as National Equal Pay Day and called upon all Americans to recognize the full value of women’s skills and their significant contributions to the labor force, acknowledge the injustice of wage inequality, and join efforts to achieve equal pay. The President’s complete proclamation can be found here.
• Vice President Harris hosted a virtual White House Equal Pay Day Summit, bringing together partners across the country who are taking action to tackle pay discrimination, create good paying jobs, and supporting families’ access to care. Watch a video recording of the Summit here.
• March 8, 2022 marked the one-year anniversary of the White House Gender Policy Council. The Council, established under Executive Order 14020, seeks to advance gender equity and equality in both domestic and foreign policy development and implementation, and plays an essential role in the President’s efforts to advance equity in government policy for those who face discrimination and bias based on multiple factors—including members of the Black, Latina, Native American, AA and NHPI, and LGBTQ+ communities, as well as persons with disabilities. It is the first freestanding policy council focused on gender equity and equality within the Executive Office of the President. Most recently, the Council helped the Administration launch the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse (Global Partnership), together with Australia, Denmark, the Republic of Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The Global Partnership will bring together countries, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector to better prioritize, understand, prevent, and address the growing scourge of technology-facilitated gender-based violence. A fact sheet detailing the many accomplishments of the Administration on the anniversary of the Gender Policy Council can be found here. Read the full White House blog post on the launch of the Global Partnership here.