A Band of Sisters

By the roots of our hair, shaking ourselves into awareness, linking arms and reaching our masses to, well, change the world.

Have you ever considered this?

"Women do two-thirds of the world's work. Yet they earn only one-tenth of the world's income and own less than one percent of the world's property. They are among the poorest of the world's poor."
-Barber B. Conable Jr., former president of World Bank.

Are you aware that April 24th is Equal Pay Day?

If you answered no to either question, you're in good company. That's why the New York Women's Agenda (NYWA) and Councilwoman Helen Sears, Chair, Committee on Women's Issues are spearheading an observance event in New York City on April 24, 2007--Equal Pay Day--at 11:00 a.m. on the steps of City Hall.

"NYWA'S coalition of diverse women's organizations is linking arms with women--and men--across the country in a call to action that spotlights the disparity in pay for women and people of color which continues to limit opportunities for them and for their families," said NYWA president, Sandra P. Eberhard. "People are invited to show up and to wear red to spotlight the gap in wages between women and people of color compared with those of men."

[For more info, contact Pachtman Communications: 212-996-1715, [e-mail].]

"The annual observance of Equal Pay Day is a great opportunity to turn up the dialogue on the need to level the economic playing field and the ensuing benefits of economic empowerment for all Americans," Eberhard explained.

Come on. Is equal pay for equal work really still an issue?

Though the late Mr. Conable's quote above was made during his 1986 speech at a joint meeting of the World Bank and the IMF, not so much has changed, in 2007. Consider these stats, the most recent available, for working women in the U.S.:

-In 2005, women's earnings were only $.77 for every $1.00 earned by men.

-For women of color, the gap is greater: only $.71 for African American women and $.58 for Latinas.

-A working woman will lose between $700,000 to $2,000,000 over the course of her lifetime compared to her male counterpart with the same level of education.

-At the present rate of progress, it will take 50 years to close the wage gap nationwide.

-Equal pay in female-dominated jobs would increase wages for women by about 18%.

Still not convinced?

Consider this Publisher's Weekly review of Dr. Evelyn Murphy's book, Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men--and What to Do About It (written with E.J. Graff, senior researcher at the Brandeis Institute for Investigative Journalism and head of the Gender and Justice Project, 2005, Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, Inc.):

"More than 40 years after the Civil Rights Act prohibited gender bias in the workplace, women are still earning almost 25% less than comparably employed men. For Murphy, the reason why is obvious: persistent unintentional, and sometimes even intentional, discrimination. 'Today's conventional wisdom about what causes the gender wage gap ignores anything that happens behind employers' doors,' Murphy, who has a doctorate in economics and is a former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, points out. To open those doors, she examined scores of recent lawsuits, which provided her with more than 200 pages worth of stories and statistics guaranteed to convince even the most satisfied working woman that on-the-job discrimination is 'still with us, and it's not going away on its own.'"

"...Murphy, with the help of Graff, a senior correspondent for the American Prospect, analyzes five types of discrimination--'blatant sex discrimination, sexual harassment, workplace sex segregation, everyday discrimination and discrimination against mothers'--and calculates that, over a lifetime, each working woman loses between $700,000 and $2 million because of them--that means less money for bills, homes, investments and retirement plans. [Copyright © Reed Business Information.]

2007, yet still so many women among the working poor.

Many women live paycheck to paycheck, and have been their entire working lives. Or they were affluent at one time, and now they want and need to come back into the workforce, only to find that their paycheck barely pays for their childcare.

Reality bites. Yet it's a great wake-up call--and a call to action.

When you consider the reality of the current state of pay for women and people of color, it kind of shakes you to your core, doesn't it? A little bit like this?

"By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet."
-Sylvia Plath

So sizzle for a few minutes. Then do something. Tap your/our considerable power.

How can we move forward rather than stay stuck rehashing the statistics?

First, we have to shake ourselves out of complacency and recognize that pay disparity still exists--and we have to get it, on a visceral level, how much it hurts the working poor--namely women and people of color--and also how it brings down all of us as a society.

Next, we need to become aware of just how much collective power we as women have to bring about a sea-change.

Then, we have to link arms--with women and with men--to strategize, and engage in big-picture thinking and implementing.

Women have the economic buying power to make equal pay happen.

Are you aware that:

-83% of all household spending is controlled by women?

-80% of all checks written in the U.S. are signed by women?

-75% of all mothers are now in the paid labor force?
[From HabitsandHabitats.com]

-The purchases made by black women are the single biggest influence on the growth of African-American spending. With more income to spend, black women have increased expenditures over last year in categories in which they are the dominant buyers. These include child care (+8%), personal care products (+18%), gifts (+155%), food (+3%), women's apparel (+2%), women's footwear (+13%)?
[From Target Market News]

Have you ever considered this?

Women are the Chief Buying Officers (CPOs) of American households

Wanda McPhaden writes: "Women are the CPOs (Chief Buying Officers) of American households, and are rapidly gaining in gender status as the nation's top wealth holders. According to Tom Peters and other experts monitoring the American marketplace, women now make 83 percent of all consumer buys, including 94 percent of home products, 89 percent of vacations, and 75 percent of all decisions regarding the purchase of the largest investment most of us will ever make--a house."
"As women have increased their earnings, built their own businesses, weathered divorces, widowhood, and taken charge of family bequests, they've grown more independent and wealthy. IRS data indicates women comprise 39 percent of the top wealth holders in the U.S., a category defined as adults with total assets of $625,000 or more. That adds up to some 2.5 million women with combined assets of $4.2 trillion. [Read McPhaden's full article.]

Kind of shakes you to your core, when you think about all that power, doesn't it?

So just how does having the economic buying power and influence connect to having the power to change unequal pay?

Sandra Eberhard gave me a great example: "One of our NYWA stars, Sharon L. Patrick (of Sharon Patrick Company, formerly President and Chief Executive Officer of Martha Stewart Living), at the 2006 New York Women's Agenda Star Breakfast, said to us:

'Women--we need to support each other financially. We need to buy each other's products. We need to pay our colleges--women don't do that either. We need to donate money to the politicians who support our causes.'

"I heard her and thought, She is so right--when is the last time that I gave to my college?"

Equally vital questions:

-When did we (when did you?) last research which companies advance pay equity?

-When did we (when did you?) stop to think about where we're putting our considerable buying power?

-If we (you and I) have employers/companies that do not pay fairly, why do we support their products?

-Do we even know which companies are culpable?

Think about it. Think about these questions.

Why? Because a piece of changing the status quo is awareness. A second piece is taking action.

Now that you know that pay inequity still exists, you--we all, and that includes you--are responsible for doing something about it.

First, measure your own--or a loved one's--wage gap. Do the research. What would you, or a woman in your life, be earning if she were a man? What will this wage gap cost you, or her--or those who depend on her--over the course of her career?

Next, educate about companies that don't pay women fairly.

Think Murphy's Lists, Not Murphy's Law when it comes to pay equaity.

For example, in her book, Getting Even, Dr. Murphy asks, "Are you (or a woman you love) being cheated out of 33 percent of your earnings--simply because of your sex? Is that fair? No. Can it be stopped? Absolutely. Murphy "explains how to close the wage gap...through real-life stories and a wealth of data--including an exhaustive list of companies that contribute to the problem--that has never before been examined."

Murphy's lists include, for example:

-"Employers That Had To Pay For Sex Discrimination in 2002" (pp.43-48, hard copy)

-"Companies That Had To Pay Up For Refusing To Hire Women" (pp. 58-58, hard copy)

-"Companies That Had To Pay Up After Being Charged With Refusing To Promote Women" (pp. 70-72, hard copy)

-"Universities That Had To Pay In Equal Pay And Tenure Denial Lawsuits" (p.78, hard copy)

-"Employers That Had To Pay After Being Charged With Paying Women Less Than Men Doing Similar Or Comparable Work" (pp. 79-81)

-"Employers That Had To Pay Up After Being Charged With Pregnancy Discrimination" (pp. 84-85, hard copy)

-"Employers That Had To Pay After Being Charged With Retaliation Or Driving Women Off The Job" (pp. 90-93, hard copy)

-"Recent Payouts For Women Who Charged Harassment By The Boss" (pp. 110-113, hard copy)

-"Payouts For Women Whose Employers Dismissed Harassment Complaints" (pp. 117-122, hard copy)

-"Group Grope: Some Of The Payouts For Large-Scale Sexual Harassment Claims Between 1998-2004" (pp. 136-140, hard copy)

Before you buy another product, before you take out your checkbook and spend without thinking about these issues, find out what the companies you're doing business with are doing about pay inequity.

Are they doing anything? Are they serious? Are they putting their money where their mouths are? Where's the evidence? What are their initiatives? Are those initiatives coming from the top down? Are the boards on board? Are there women on those boards? (We know the answer to that--just ask Linda K. Bolliger, Founder and CEO of Boardroom Bound, "a 501(c)(3) public service that supports the nation's interest by working to restore public trust in Corporate America by pre-qualifying a new generation of director candidates and by creating the pipeline network that delivers them to the corporate boardroom."--so the next question is: "Why not?" And, "Are there women in the pipeline to sit on those boards?") What grades are these companies you're considering doing business with getting on their pay equity initiatives, from watch dogs, from the data?

Start digging; start surfing; do your due diligence before you buy.

Take a look at Dr. Riane Eisler's new book, The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, March 2007). "Eisler first captured world attention with her bestselling book, The Chalice and the Blade. With her new book, she offers a new way of thinking by transforming "the dismal science of economics" into a practical plan for solving global warming, poverty, and terrorism. Hailed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as "a template for the better world we have been so urgently seeking," by business guru Peter Senge as "desperately needed," and by Gloria Steinem as "revolutionary,' The Real Wealth of Nations proposes a "caring economics" that is more cost-effective, humane, and sustainable."

"The Real Wealth of Nations details a new strategy for an economic system that gives visibility and value to the most essential human work: the life-sustaining work of caring and caregiving whether it's done in the home or the workplace."

"In The Real Wealth of Nations, Eisler provides examples of how the current economic system in the U.S. is achieving negative results: In its 2004 Global Competitiveness Report, the World Economic Forum found that the US trailed the much smaller Finland in economic competitiveness, which Eisler shows is largely due to the fact that Nordic nations, where women have higher status, invest in their human capital, starting in early childhood and the US does not. According to a 2006 CIA report, the US ranked 42nd in child mortality, behind Cuba and many other poorer nations because money is allocated for prisons, weapons, and wars, and not healthcare, childcare, and other caring activities."

"Eisler provides in her book a structure for business leaders and politicians to transform our economic system into one that values human effort and nature and leads to improved levels of health and education among people of all socioeconomic strata, reduced employee turnover and absenteeism, environmental health, and greater productivity for businesses and our country. She provides hard evidence to show that companies with caring policies achieve a higher return on their investment for shareholders. For example, one study showed that offering employees childcare yielded a return on investment of 521 percent in four years." [Read entire article on Scoop Independent News.]

Ready? Move.

Make known what you/we now know. Spread the word. Do something. Move.

We can publicize, talk, blog about the facts, the numbers, and the people still affected by unequal pay for equal work. We research and spread the word about companies that do not give equal pay for equal work. We raise awareness, get it out there, make it visible for all to see--we make it impossible, or at least very difficult, to ignore. And then women--and men who also care about pay equity--simply don't consume from these companies. And we refuse to turn a blind eye to unequal pay.

Refuse to become desensitized, as we have, to so many issues, including pay inequity, that are causing our communities--local and global--to implode.

In the case of the wage gap, to quote Dr. Murphy:
"American women must hold every employer accountable for closing the wage gap."

New York Women's Agenda's Sandra Eberhard weighs in:

"Things will change when we women decide that it should change. Everything in this country is really about economics. Once we get down to the economic level, things shift."

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While discussing this issue with some folks, a colleague said: "Remember the day undocumented immigrants decided they were not going to show up for work that day? It shook up things; it got people thinking. Let women stop working for one day--can you imagine that?!"

It got me thinking. What would happen if women stopped working for one day--if mothers sat down, if waitresses sat down, if nannies, if you and I--if we all stopped working for one day, what would happen?

Another colleague then upped the ante, posing the question, "What if one day women didn't work, and then, another day, women didn't buy?"

But we do buy. We don't act. We accept the status quo.

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Q: If women have all this buying power, why haven't we already done something? A: Buzz Lightyear; neocons vs. conservatives; figuring out how to pay for college--in other words, life.

Question: Why do we do nothing about unequal pay for equal work? Why do we support companies that practice this inequity? Why are we complicit via our complacency?

Answer: Women are busy--busy to distraction.

Cakes:
When I interviewed Sandra Eberhard for this post, she had just finished her gazillion-hours per week work schedule. To speak with me required her to take time out from making a Buzz Lightyear cake for her 4-year-old nephew's birthday. "Buzz Lightyear is out of vogue. There aren't any ready-made decorations around, so I'm improvising. It's great!", she laughed.

Kids:
Later, while I was transcribing and writing, my son arrived home, with two lovely friends in tow; all three are college freshmen. Naturally, I shut down my computer to hang out, when invited, and to talk with them.

My son's roommate for next year (and new BFF), explained to me his views on the difference between neocons and conservatives (BFF falls into the latter group and wanted to make sure that I got that; I did, and was delighted to be having the discussion).

"A", my son's BFF's childhood friend, is a young woman who brought with her some much-needed estrogen into my testosterone-heavy home. I took another break from work so that she and I could talk, over pizza in the kitchen, about how she'd been accepted into N.Y.U., U.S.C., and Emerson.

A couldn't afford to attend her dream schools. This was due to a combination of factors, including: the financial toll her parents' divorce had taken on the family, combined with the inadequate financial aid packages her dream schools had offered her, and also because, being a woman, A (naturally) was thinking about her other siblings, particularly her sister, two years younger than A, who is now a junior in high school and preparing to go through the college application process. A "didn't' want to use all of the family resources selfishly on her own college dreams." She choose a different school--not her dream school, not nearly as great of a match to her interests, passions, and talents--but a school that gave her a free ride on tuition.

Mentoring:
So A and I talked about short- and long-term school and career strategizing, options, and I dug out one of my books, Cynthia Ruiz's Cash For College, which A pored over, looking at grant and scholarships--especially funding for women and Latinas--that might help her achieve her ambitious goals.

Connecting the dots:
Obviously this last interaction raises the issue of just how much divorce, unequal pay, women re-entering the workforce, or trying to regain lost career ground costs not only us, but our children. Not to mention that the world misses out on the contributions of adult women, and their children, who may not be afforded the same opportunities of those with more resources, to make the contributions they were born to make.

Damn, this post is interminable. Is she ever going to stop talking?

You're right, of course. But I don't have time to edit. While writing this post, I've heard, "I don't know...go ask Debra." Or, "I don't know...go ask Mom." Or my son has called 14 times (I'm not kidding) or my husband has called (only once--he was in firm meetings all day today), or my stepson has come to ask me how to sort his frat-house laundry piles, or my niece needs me on the phone. And now my step-son is announcing from the other room, "Okay--We're going to start eating now, so hopefully someone will want to come and join us once she's finished with whatever she's doing that's so important."

So, I get it--how busy you/we all are. And like you, I'm doing the best I can.

Talking, working, cooking, contributing, raising our kids--but there's more we have to take on, no matter how busy we are.

Talking (and talking, and talking, and talking) with our kids and their friends, with their communities. Cooking. Baking. Working. That all takes time. It's critical time. It's time that gives a priceless, precious return on investment. And it's what we as women do.

Still, we aren't taking the time out to move ourselves and our causes forward--precisely because we're so busy doing--we're so consumed, working every minute, multi-tasking, that we don't have time to pause, to step back and see the big picture.

We're so caught up in our own little worlds, trying to make our own microcosm work with the resources that we have (time, money, energy), that we can't see beyond those day-to-day concerns.

What I'm not saying.

I'm not blaming women for pay disparity.

What I am saying.

We have so much more power, individually and collectively, than we allow ourselves to believe. And what that means is that we don't have to focus on "what are they doing to us?" Instead, it's time. It's time to focus on what we can do--now--to change things for ourselves rather than wait, and wait, and wait for someone else to take charge.

We need to link arms.

Think about how much s__t we get done, individually. Need an inspirational reminder? Read Shelly Rachanow's new book, If Women Ran the World Sh*t Would Get Done: Celebrating All the Wonderful, Amazing, Stupendous, Inspiring, Butt-kicking Things Women Do. Then think about how much we could do collectively.

We've got to keep thinking, asking the hard questions, and posing real solutions for eliminating pay inequity.

This is why organizations like NYWA and other women's organizations exist: people think that we've come such a long way. Eberhard said to me, "We've got Hillary running for president; we've got Nancy Pelosi; we've got the president of Harvard. But that's such a small number of women leaders--that's just three people."

"What about the masses? Where are the masses, how are their needs being addressed, how are they being served, when we talk about this issue? This is what this day is all about. It's about reaching everyone. Not just the privileged few. It's about equal pay for equal job, no matter what that job is. The importance of this issue touches, or should reach, every level of our country."

It's true. Unless women keep these issues in the forefront, many people will be very happy to let them go buy the wayside. Or to pretend that these issues don't even exist.

So show up. Get politically involved.

Women need to do all of the action items above. We also need to connect the dots, and pull out our checkbooks to pay for the political agendas that matter to us. We need to show financial support to those political candidates who support the causes that matter to us.

-Write a check today, before sundown.

-Or run for office yourself.

-Or join a political campaign.

-Put your transferable skills to work. To find out precisely all of the ways you and women you know can do just that, check out the Women's Campaign Forum. [See the HuffingtonPost piece, Husbands, Hemlines, and Hair: Time to Shift the Focus.]

Show up, in any and all ways that you can, for equal pay for equal work.

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April 24th Event--A first for New York City

"New York has never had a rally for equal pay for equal work--it hasn't even been on the agenda. I'm not sure that women--or men--are even aware that we have an Equal Pay Day, that we have this awareness day. We're asking folks to wear red so that people understand that there is still a difference, a gaping disparity in men's and women's salaries."

The New York Women's Agenda wants as many women and men as possible to show up for this observance. Eberhard says: "We want New Yorkers to understand that this legislation has not been passed--that we don't have equal pay for equal work."

I asked Eberhard why, in her opinion, the equal pay for equal work agenda not been passed. "Because women have not rallied together to get it passed. It's a woman's issue. And I believe that women need to set the service standard in this country for the issues that are important to us: health care; equal pay--you know, these are our issues. And we as women need to band together to make this happen."

Eberhard challenges us to dig down deep, and to think about this question:

"How are we ever going to combat poverty unless we have fair and equal pay for women doing the same job as men? Women are in the workforce--we're here to stay. And we need to be paid fairly."

We need to keep these issues in the forefront of our awareness. We need to band together. And we do have strength in numbers, plus we have economic buying power.

Once we decide to link arms and to set our standards--we will create a course correction.

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Is your city or town holding an Equal Pay event? Post it here. Get the word out.

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New York City's Event
Who: Council Member Helen Sears, Chair of the Women's Issues Committee and the New York Women's Agenda (NYWA) along with a number of women's organizations around the city including: Now NYC, American Association of University Women, New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts & Media, Committee for Hispanic Children & Families, Advertising Women of NY (AWNY), Women in Development NY (WIDNY).

What: Press conference to highlight the issue of the disparity in pay for women and people of color in observance of Equal Pay Day.

When: Tuesday, April 24, 2007, 11:00 AM

Where: Steps of City Hall, New York, NY.

Why: Equal Pay Day is observed in April to indicate how far into each year a woman must work to earn as much as a man earned in the previous year. In 2007, April 24th symbolizes the day when women's wages catch up to men's wages from the previous year. Because women on average earn less, they must work longer for the same pay. For women of color, the wage gap is greater. While women's wages have risen in all states, in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars, since 1989, the typical full-time woman worker does not make as much as the typical man in any state. At the present rate of progress, it will take 50 years to close the wage gap nationwide.
Contact: Office of Council Member Helen Sears, Dalton Alludes: 718-803-6373; or 917-340 -4044.

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The mission of the New York Women's Agenda is to inform and educate the public and advise policy makers about the impact of public policy decisions on the welfare of women and families. This event is part of the 2007 Action Agenda of NYWA's Government Affairs Committee, including Joan Firestone and Linda Hartley, Co-Chairs and Beverly Neufeld, Pay Equity Coordinator. For information about NYWA, go to www.nywa.org.

NYWA's coalition of 100 women's organizations in NYC ▪ 212.937.2411 ▪ [e-mail]

by Dr. Debra Condren, founder, Women's Business Alliance; author of amBITCHous