Deja Vu

I experienced Deja Vu as I listened to one of the addresses the other night on the televised Democratic Convention.  The story of a woman “hitting the glass ceiling” when she could not be promoted to a job position but yet she was responsible for training the men who were promoted to this position hit me like a ton of bricks, resurfacing memories of frustration and humiliation.

Back in 1971 I had just gotten my bachelor’s degree and had found it difficult to get any employment except for low-paying clerical work.  I took a job as a receptionist in the district office of a large, national manufacturing company. In less than two weeks I was given additional job responsibilities (but no extra pay) when I became the assistant to the order desk manager.

About a year after starting my job, an opening in the same company became available in a sub-office of the company District in another state.  The job reported to the district order desk manager (just as I did) and the functions were what I was currently performing in the district office, but the job had a fancier title and a salary of $300 more per month.  Wow! Was I ever psyched.  I knew the job functions, my husband was finishing his degree,  we could relocate and it seemed like a no-brainer that I should apply and ultimately get the job.  Wrong assumption! 

Yes I applied for the job, but got turned down.  The reason I was given was that “this job is not for a woman.”  No matter what arguments  I made….knowing the product line, the company, and performing the job functions competently for a year …..could change management’s view.   The next humiliation was when the new hire, a male who had no job experience with the company, no experience with the product line or supply chain management, appeared at my office to be trained by me for his new job.   Any illusions that I may have held about gender and pay equity quickly vanished. 

So it was deja vu for me when I heard a similar story given at the Democratic Convention the other evening.  And what does that story and my story have to do with today?  Plenty!

You might think that my story is 40 years old and that gender and pay inequity was wiped out a long time ago.   Guess again….not so.  At every educational level women continue to earn less than similarly educated men.  In a study conducted by the American Association University Women, the data showed that ten years after graduation the pay gap widens.  For example, in engineering and architecture there is parity in wages one year after graduation, but after ten years women earned only 93 percent of their male counterparts.  And in business and management the pay gap was even wider with women earning 69 percent of men’s wages compared to 81 percent one year after graduation (see Invest in Women Invest in America at http://www.jec.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=9118a9ef-0771-4777-9c1f-8232fe70a45c ).

The issue of pay inequality is complex and requires action on several fronts.  Federal and state governments, employers, and women themselves are essential players in breaking down barriers that are holding women back.

One of government’s significant roles in breaking barriers is establishing policy and passing legislation that dismantles discriminatory practices.  The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signed by President Obama in January 2009, is an example of this kind of action.

The law is named for Lily Ledbetter who faced pay discrimination and as a result championed women’s rights.  It wasn’t until near her retirement that Ledbetter discovered that she was a victim of pay discrimination for almost 20 years, making significantly less than her male counterparts. 

Upon discovering the pay inequity, Ledbetter decided to sue and initially won her case at the Federal level.  However the Goodyear Company appealed the case and it went to the Supreme Court and the company won.  The Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, interpreted the 1964 Civil Rights Law 180 day statute of limitations as beginning on the date the employer makes the initial discriminatory wage decision, not the date of the most recent paycheck.

So Lilly Ledbetter pressed on to get the law changed.  Her perseverance resulted in an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act that superseded the Supreme Court’s decision.  That amendment guarantees individuals the right to file an equal-pay lawsuit, expanding the 180 day statute of limitations for filing, by resetting the statute with each new paycheck affected by the discriminatory action

Pay inequity not only hurts women immediately, but it also adversely impacts them throughout their lives. It dogs a woman through to her senior years because there is a trickle effect over her lifetime.   Lower pay impacts a woman’s retirement savings, 401K, and her social security benefits.  Women seniors depend on social security benefits more than men because many times they have no other retirement income and, because women on average live longer than men, they depend on social security benefits longer than men.  However, on average, women’s social security benefits are significantly lower than men’s due to lower lifetime earnings.  The result is that many senior women live below or near the poverty level. (See Invest in Women Invest in America – Report by the Majority Staff of the Joint Economic Committee at http://www.jec.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=9118a9ef-0771-4777-9c1f-8232fe70a45c ).

The point of my story is this.  The Lilly Ledbetter Act is a huge win for women and others who face pay discrimination.  What happened to me in 1971 was that I was young, unaware, and didn’t know where to turn for help.  When you don’t know your rights, you can’t exercise them.   Women need to understand, stand up for their rights and advocate for themselves and others. 

And part of advocating for ourselves is also knowing who is advocating for us.  For more information on the Lilly Ledbetter Act, what it is, its history and who advocated for women see:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/s181 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_of_2009

To hear Lilly’s story see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMxsYqaFwA0&list=PL4498719C1B7FAD21&index=14&feature=plpp_video

Policy for Families Matter

I usually don’t go all political in my blog, but a recent report on public policy vis-à-vis  the needs of working families (and this is a woman’s leadership issue) threw me into high gear.   In a politically charged year when there is so much rhetoric given to “family values,” (and women’s issues) we need a closer look at what kind of values we’re talking about.  I’m tired of politicians giving lip-service to “family values” and then when it comes to doing the heavy lifting they are as scarce as an Easter egg in July.

A new report, Expecting Better: A State-by-State Analysis of Laws That Help New Parents, issued by the National Partnership for Women and Families concludes that there have been too few advances in federal and state employment laws in bringing public policy in line with the needs of the 21st century family in the United States. The United States is in striking contrast to 178 nations that guarantee paid work leave for new mothers and 54 nations that guarantee paid work leave for new fathers.

So what is the big deal? The big deal is how, as a society, we should walk our talk about family values and ensure that our public policy gives a hand-up to families.  The big deal is that by giving families a “hand up,” research shows that there are tremendous benefits for both families and businesses…..families gain economic security and better health and businesses boost their bottom lines. 

With women, as the report states, being the primary or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of families, loss of income during pregnancy or parental leave has significant consequences for the family.  The report cites that only “38 percent of workers have access to employer-provided short-term disability insurance, and only about one-tenth of the workforce has access to employer-provided paid family leave to care for a new child.”  And those families at the margins are hit the hardest.  “Workers in low-paying jobs who have the greatest need for both job protection and wage replacement during leave from work are far less likely to have access to either of these employer-provided benefits.”

And this is a women’s leadership issue.  Another recent report, Invest in America—Invest in Woman, a Report of the Majority Staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the United State Senate, cites  out-of-date social supports for working families, inflexible work arrangements and undervalued early care as major reasons for holding women back in reaching middle and senior management positions.

So what is wrong with this picture in a society that supposedly holds that the family is the essential ethical and moral unit of society,?  Where politicians can't stop gushing that they support women and families?   Where, in this latest report, over 60% of the States were given a grade of  “D” or “F” for supporting working families?  Perhaps a “hand-up” to help real children, mothers, and fathers living in 21^st century families isn’t our vision of  “family values”  and, in the end,  it’s all rhetoric after all.

Expecting Better: A State-by-State Analysis of Laws That Help New Parents available at http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/Expecting_Better_Report.pdf?docID=10301

Invest in America—Invest in Woman available at http://jec.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=57cfaf04-f297-4c61-964b-6321af47db03

Women's History Month: Unspoken Heroines

One of my passions is reading women’s diaries and journals, particularly those of the westward movement.  My personal library includes upwards of over fifty of these journals.   In reflecting on women’s history and contributions the following quote from the book “More than Petticoats……Remarkable Montana Women” by Gayle Shirley  is applicable to begin Women’s History Month:

“There are unwritten chapters in the history of every new settlement, which no pen will ever write, but could they be written, they would tell of the many heroines as well as heroes, women as brave and deserving of credit as those who landed from the Mayflower.  They have had much to do in the ‘winning of the west,’ and a higher civilization has always followed closely in the footsteps of the woman pioneer.”

                                    ……Lucia Darling Park, 1839-1905, Pioneering Teacher, Montana.

Gayle Shirley has a series of More Than Petticoats books detailing women’s remarkable lives from various states.  See http://www.gayleshirley.com/