More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Feminists have fought for equal pay for decades. Many factors have prevented women—and especially women of color—from achieving it, including unequal education and training, systematic hiring and promotion discrimination, workplace sexual harassment in the workplace, and occupational segregation.
As experts in our field and industry suspected, the Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down affirmative action created a cascading wave of attacks on corporate DEI initiatives meant to level the playing field and eradicate the racial wealth gap.
We cannot close the racial wealth gap without programs specifically designed to support Black women.
The largest investment in childcare in American history expired this September. As Congress continues to negotiate a budget deal, the need for $16 billion in emergency childcare funding—requested by President Biden and congressional Democrats—remains top of mind for parents, early educators, childcare owners and directors, and employers across the nation.
The Century Foundation’s new report shines a spotlight on the 11 states and Washington, D.C., that have taken action to directly address the childcare cliff with state funds.
Launched in 2018, the Reykjavík Global Forum convenes women leaders from all sectors, including politics, business, civil society, academia, the arts and media, to share ideas and solutions on how to further advance society towards female and male equality and to promote and positively develop the number of women in leadership positions.
November 30 marks Native American Women’s Equal Pay Day, spotlighting that those working full- or part-time are still earning only 55 cents for every $1 paid to non-Latino white men. Only Latinas have a wider gap. But 55 cents is, in many ways, an incomplete figure.
There is much that is unknown about the nuances of the pay gap for Native American women. For years, the United States has failed to invest in data collection on Indigenous communities, making it difficult to reliably track wage gaps among the 574 federally recognized tribes.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, is the nation’s most important food assistance programs for low-income Americans, and one of its most important anti-poverty measures.
Former Representative Leonor Sullivan (D-Mo.) was one of only 11 women in the House in 1953, and came to Congress determined to help her constituents. Sullivan’s legislative strategy, aided by growing urban, Democratic power in the House, eventually led Congress to approve food stamp “pilot projects,” which ultimately laid the groundwork for SNAP.
In 2022, all Latinas with reported earnings were paid just 52 cents to the dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic male workers. In spite of every attempt to hold Latinas back, we are fighting the current, winning against all odds and leading the way towards change.
Megan Rapinoe hung up her soccer cleats after the final U.S. game of the 2023 World Cup. Rapinoe has proven herself as one of her generation’s most talented female players. Off the field, Rapinoe has been a leader on crucial social issues like LGBTQ+ rights, racial justice, gender equality and pay equity.
To many of her fans, her profile as a fierce agent for change is the defining component of her legacy. Count me among them.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the 1963 Equal Pay Act and Aug. 15 is Moms’ Equal Pay Day—the day that symbolizes how far into the year a mom must work to earn what men did in the previous calendar year.
An increasing number of mothers, including two-thirds of moms with young children, are breadwinners, and four out of five Black mothers are the sole or primary provider for their households. Yet America’s leaders and laws leave mothers to figure it out on their own—to simply ‘make it work.’ Despite the best efforts of the Biden administration and allies in Congress to invest in caregiving in the wake of the pandemic, every single cent of the care economy investments included in the “Build Back Better” package were left on the cutting room floor.
So what do we do about it?
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: Movies like Barbie and Oppenheimer are impossible without actors and writers, and women are still getting paid less in the industry; Christopher Nolan’s film had the opportunity to mention critical women of the atomic age but failed; Emily’s List’s new Madam Mayor program will “serve as a critical touchpoint” for woman mayors to receive support; and more.
Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is being observed on Thursday, July 27, this year—meaning it takes Black women seven months to earn what white men made in 2021 alone.
Inequities in pay only exacerbate the compounding oppression of being both Black and a woman in this country. Gender justice must be married to racial justice in order for there to ever be a semblance of equal pay.
