Tag: Older Women and Aging

Is It 2157 Yet? How Businesses and Policymakers Can Accelerate the Timeline for Equal Pay

At our current pace, we won’t close the wage gap between men and women until 2157—nearly 136 years from now, with 36 of those added to make up for pandemic setbacks. We can’t hand off this injustice to our great-great granddaughters. So how can public policymakers, philanthropy and private businesses come together to accelerate the process?

There are solutions for narrowing the wage gap between men and women—let’s start by raising the federal minimum wage to $15; providing paid leave to all employees; and changing hiring practices.

March 2022 Reads for the Rest of Us

March 2022 Reads for the Rest of Us

Each month, I provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups. March and April are historically big months for new book releases, and this year is no exception. I’ve narrowed down a list of hundreds of books to 36 this month. In addition to some compelling fiction, there’s imperative nonfiction, memoirs and debuts. 

Karen V. Hill, Director of the Harriet Tubman Home: ‘She Was Able To Separate the Brutality of Slavery From How She Loved the Land’

Karen V. Hill is president and CEO of the Harriet Tubman Home, Inc. in Auburn, N.Y. She has successfully pursued federal legislation to have Harriet Tubman’s homestead become one of the newest units of the National Park Service.

“To me that’s just startling, that this place in Maryland where she had been treated so harshly, she was able to separate the brutality of slavery from how she loved the land.”

Harriet Tubman’s Disability and Why it Matters

Harriet Tubman’s Disability and Why it Matters

Most 19th-century writers focused on Tubman’s bravery and strength. Her supporters praised her for her successful solo journeys into the slave-holding South to free dozens of enslaved people.

Yet, as an enslaved woman who lived in a patriarchal and anti-Black America, Harriet Tubman’s freedom dream and fugitive activism demonstrated something else: She offered up a version of freedom where a disabled Black woman sat at the center of it, where Black women were liberators, and where liberation was communal and democratic.  

Sundance 2022: “Calendar Girls,” a Joyful Documentary About Women for Whom Age Is Just a Number

Currently premiering at Sundance, Calendar Girls is a documentary about a Florida dance troop made up of women aged 50-plus. Embracing whimsy in unicorn-themed headbands one minute and then discussing heavy subjects like death and assisted suicide the next, the Calendar Girls offer their perspectives on what it means to grow older while exploring the power of friendships, leisure, work and learning new things even later in life.

caregivers

Too Often, Daughters Are Family Caregivers. Better In-Home Care Options Would Change That

Without access to in-home care, women tend to take up the unpaid responsibilities of caregiving. In my family, it fell to me—the oldest daughter. 

Congress has finally agreed on a framework for Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda. This includes an unprecedented investment in home care to expand access to caregivers by improving their pay and training. Congress must invest in home care. Young girls and young women deserve to experience their childhood.