It's Women's Equality Day, the date marked to celebrate women getting the right to vote in our nation 90 years ago today. It's both hard (and easy in some sad ways) to believe that it was just 90 years ago that women got the right to vote in our nation.
Reflecting on this, I called my grandmother, who turns 95 this year, to see what she recalled about women winning the right to vote, and who had this to say with a twinkle in her voice:
"Well, I wasn't able to vote when I was 5 years old and women first got the right to vote. Although as a child I thought I should be able to vote, but of course I couldn't. I had to wait for what felt to me like a very long time to be old enough to vote. I remember when I first voted and going into the polls. I remember that all my girl friends voted too. We all voted. We wanted to take part in what was going on in the world. The only way we could do that was by voting."
Fast forward 90 years to now in 2010: Women do have the right to vote, we also have a modern economy with women comprising 50% of the entire paid labor force for the first time in history this year, and women now take part in what's happening in the world in many more ways than appeared possible to my grandmother when she could first vote.
But that doesn't mean women in our nation have achieved equality yet.
That's right. It's not yet time to pop the bubbly and celebrate victory on Women's Equality Day just yet. There's one very large group of women in particular who are experiencing significant inequality in our nation: Mothers.
The issue of wage and hiring discrimination against mothers is bigger than most people realize. The maternal wall is what's standing in the way of most women even seeing a glass ceiling.
In fact, while most women without children make 90 cents to a man's dollar, mothers make only about 73 cents to a man's dollar, with mothers of color experiencing increased wage hits. Since over 80% of women in our nation have children by the time they're forty-four years old, the majority of women face this kind of discrimination at some point in their lives.
And, this discrimination can't fully be blamed on mothers for choosing different career paths, as many have done. In fact, there was a study done on this very topic at Cornell University a couple of years ago which found that even when people have identical resumes, education, and job experiences, women with children are much less likely to be hired.
There's real discrimination here.
As a result, families are struggling. Moms who work full-time still struggle to put food on the table. This hurts children. This hurts taxpayers. This hurts us all. Case in point: Almost 1 in 4 kids in our country are experiencing food scarcity due to family economic limitations, according to the USDA.
In this economic downturn the paychecks of moms are critical to keeping families afloat. In fact the majority of families need two parents in the labor force to make ends meet these days. Frankly, we have 1950s public policies when it comes to families, while the rest of the nations in the world have sped ahead.
Without such policies, having a baby is a leading cause of poverty spells in our nation. One of the big reasons for this is that people end up having to quit needed jobs when they don't have the bridge of paid family leave for a few weeks after the birth of a baby--like 177 other countries do.
We can do better. We can't celebrate Women's Equality Day just yet.
We need to see family economic security polices pass that are the norm in most other nations--policies that studies show help lower the wage gaps--including paid family leave, access to affordable childcare, sick days, flexible work options, and the Paycheck Fairness Act among other things.
Modern women are between a rock and a hard place, and we need to band together in organizations like MomsRising.org, The National Partnership for Women and Families, 9to5-National Association of Working Women, AAUW, National Women's Law Center, and more to push for family economic security policies that make it possible for everyone--not just moms--to be able to excel at work, to have a life, and to care for loved ones.
There are now more ways for women to be involved in our nation than in my grandmother's time when she felt the only option open to her was voting.
It's now time to use those increased options for our voices to be heard to take those next steps for family economic security policies and to lower the wage gaps so we can fully celebrate Equality Day with our daughters and granddaughters.
Here's to making it so!
Follow Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rowefinkbeiner
What we could use in this country is some 1950s families to go with them. Back then, there were two parent (imagine that!) families, and one parent worked while the other raised the kids. Now both parents work, day-care raises the kids, everybody's unhappy and somehow this is all somebody else's fault.
Feminists demanded and got no-fault divorce, then discovered raising kids by yourself isn't all fun and games. Feminists demanded and got laws against hiring discrimination based on gender, then discovered working while you try to raise kids by yourself is even less fun. Now these same women are complaining that having to take responsibility for your career, family and life choices and live with the consequences of them is sometimes no fun at all.
Welcome to reality.
Back in the 50s women were banned from working most interesting jobs. Black people were similarly confined to mindless service sector or physical labor. Forgive me if I have trouble regarding it as some kind of idealized utopian dream.
Though I agree that it would be fabulous if the average family could make ends meet with ONE parent working instead of two.
Don't remember any of the mothers in my neighborhood while I was growing up wearing pearls or designer dresses, perfectly coiffed with immaculate houses, dinner miraculously appeared on the table somehow. They worked very hard managing their often (large) families, (including my mother), there was only one income (usually from the father), and somehow we made it through.
Perhaps this is what ipolitics123 is referring to.. However, to blame feminism for changing the way it was is a veiled way of this person saying that women of today are to blame for the situations they are facing, and if only we could go back to being like Donna Reed types, everything would be OK again.
Exactly who do you expect to pay for these policy changes? Have you noticed that there is not currently enough money to pay for the EXISTING social services?
The earning disparity statistics are quite real, but they exist because of the demands of leaving th workforce or curtailing workforce participation as a result of rearing children.
You can legislate a tax or a whole series of 'leveling' agency support and you will get lower growth as a result. See Europe for the result. In addition, even with those support policies, Europe's birthrate is lower and in some cases, less than the replacement rate.
Sorry, but your advocacy is a prescription for a 1% economic growth rate forever.
Small businesses, where most jobs are, cannot afford your proposed support programs. The result, and I know this from personal experience, will be fewer hires.
Thanks for clearing it all up and making it easy for us! Now I can just go bake some cookies and not worry my silly little head about icky things like equality and fairness!
Yay!
The fact that you say you're a scientist frightens the hell out of me. Jesus, who do you work for, the Texas textbook group? You sound like you're from the 50's with your tripe. Go back to your Focus on the Family group.
We are not talking 'absolutes'. All human behavior is along a spectrum, but answering the above question will go a long way to plotting the graph....
There are MANY books out there you can read on the RADICAL differences that exist between men and women, their BRAIN, their HORMONES, their PHERMONES, their physical capabilities, and yes, MANY IT IT has to do with ovaries and testies. Give women another 100 of yrs and YOU WON'T SEE lots of women pilot, fire fighter, soldier, police, construction worker, etc, women are NATURALLY prone NOT TO be FOR hunting type positions, our body works against that. And give men another 100 yrs and they'll SUCK at nurturing, multi tasking, many aspects of literature, Emotional Intelligence,etc
ACCEPT the reality and don't give women a bad name. American STYLE feminism has destroyed men in this country.Men are either wimps,OR gay in Urban American cities and I am appalled by some views of modern American women
So, when are you women going to demand equal rights?
We have options here. What's YOUR suggestion for making sure that women aren't penalized in their professional lives for becoming mothers?
What about their paid time off from work?
Women DO cost more to employ because of maternity leave, time off, higher insurance costs, etc.
Who should pay for that?
Should men and singles subsidize them?
That is essentially what the debate boils down to...
Still working toward the day when taking time from work to care for your children is also recognized as essential for dads.
I guess if you're poor and you absolutely need that job, you don't have the choice to be a good mother.
In fact, my children and I still struggle to survive while he and his wife live in a huge home and drive expensive vehicles and take yearly vacations. The kids still get nothing. So, even women discriminate against motherhood--its systemic. Injustice hurts. It doesn't just hurt me, the mother. It's still hurting my children and my grandchildren today in less earnings and less opportunities. I have lost hundreds of thousands in earnings & benefits. Discrimination has devastated my life.
She didn't and now lives in abject poverty when she isn't living with her parents. If we had government provided childcare like most of Europe she wouldn't have had to choose between having a child and being able to adequately provide for one. She could have finished her degree and would be a certified paralegal now.
But that would be a REAL pro-life agenda where children and mothers are supported with real social safety nets. Much more work and $$ than the fake one.
Most women are too decent to just chuck the kids, so they are stuck. Marriage, and later enforced support, are there for a reason.