Sisters In The Brotherhood: Gender Equality

BY DIANE STAFFORD • MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS • JANUARY 24, 2010

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For several months now, we've been watching the percentage of women in the workplace creep toward the 50 percent mark.

The most recent numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Employment Statistics survey show that 49.9 percent of establishment payroll jobs are held by women.

The Economist magazine this month looked to the tipping point and illustrated its cover with the iconic biceps-flexing woman from World War II, altering the poster's original headline — "We Can Do It!" — to "We Did It!"

But it depends on what the definition of "it" is.

"It" may be cause for shrugs ... for celebration ... or concern.

Before I explain, please permit an interesting historical aside: That "We Can Do It!" woman is not Rosie the Riveter.

Rather, the poster was based on a United Press International photograph of Geraldine Doyle, a factory employee. An artist, J. Howard Miller, used the photograph to paint the "We Can Do It!" poster for the Westinghouse Co. It was one of a series of patriotic posters that hung in-house at Westinghouse.

The "real" Rosie the Riveter image was painted by Norman Rockwell, who used a 19-year-old telephone operator in Vermont named Mary Doyle for his model for a 1943 Saturday Evening Post cover.

But back to the cautionary comment about crowing, "We Did It!"

First, saying that women are poised to hold half of all establishment payroll jobs is not the same as saying that women represent half of the work force.

They don't.

There still are about 10 million more men than women in the labor force.

It's true that this recession has been a "mancession." Layoffs hit industries and jobs dominated by men (construction and manufacturing) harder than those dominated by women (education and health care).

Even so, according to the labor bureau's Current Population Survey, there are about 7 million more employed men than women. That's because the population survey is a household survey. As such, it captures farm workers and other self-employed individuals who aren't included in the establishment payroll survey.

But even the household survey undercounts men; it excludes the military.

Whichever statistical series you put more weight on, it's obvious that women's presence in the workplace is a given — but far from a domination.

• Women, largely because they bear the children, still work less over their lifetimes than men.

• Women, because of their preponderance in "pink collar" jobs, still earn less than men.

• Women, because they work fewer years at lower-paying jobs, have less in savings and less income in retirement.

• Women continue to be underrepresented in business power structure. The Catalyst organization says that 15.4 percent of Fortune500 corporate officers are women; 14.8 percent of Fortune 500 board seats are held by women; and 6.7 percent of Fortune 500 top executive earners are women.

• Women, who head 40 percent of U.S. households, are more likely to live in poverty.

• Women are more than twice as likely as men to hold part-time jobs.

You can cite individual exceptions to those generalities. But in the aggregate they show that merely being in the workplace doesn't equate to empowerment or equality.

And, as The Economist noted in its cover story, the United States has been slow to create workplace policies that accommodate the realities of child- and elder-care giving that tend to fall on women.

So that's why saying, "We Did It!" may be premature.

But it's OK to recognize the gains for women. For many, the benefits of financial liberation are great.

And it should be noted that workplace gains are going hand in hand with education.

Women are more than half of the college student population. As women's education and professional work force participation grows, there may, within a generation, be a time where "We Did It!" truly deserves the exclamation point.

Diane Stafford is the workplace and careers columnist at The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or by e-mail at dstafford@kcstar.com.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100124/BUSINESS01/1240335/1003/NEWS01

Sec. Hilda Solis

U.S. Secretary of Labor

Posted: January 29, 2010 11:56 AM

One year ago today, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which restores the law to where it was before the Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. by clarifying that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 occurs each time compensation is paid.

In signing the bill, President Obama said, "equal pay is by no means just a women's issue -- it's a family issue... And in this economy, when so many folks are already working harder for less and struggling to get by, the last thing they can afford is losing part of each month's paychecks to simple discrimination."

One year later, the law has already been applied to court cases involving allegations of wage discrimination; however, an earnings gap still remains, as does wage discrimination, as attested to by wage discrimination complaints filed and court decisions.

Women earn only about 80 cents for every dollar that a man earns, and the gap is even greater for African American women and Latinas, who earn only 70 cents and 63 cents, respectively, for every dollar a man earns.

The wage gap has significant consequences to the economic security of women and families. Today, families are increasingly dependent on women's wages. In married couple families, wives' earnings account for 36 percent of family income, and approximately 2 million women have now become the sole breadwinner, supporting families with just over one-third of the usual family income.

Reducing or eliminating the earnings gap will require action on many fronts, including moving more women into non-traditional jobs, creating opportunities for occupational mobility, and addressing wage discrimination.

While women have made strides in increasing their numbers in male-dominated occupations, among the 20 leading occupations of employed women, women are the majority among all but first line managers/supervisors of retail sales workers; managers, all others; and cooks.

My vision of "Good Jobs for Everyone" includes, among other things, increasing workers' incomes and narrowing wage and income inequality and helping workers who are in low-wage jobs find a path into middle class jobs. Among the steps the Labor Department will be taking to deal with wage discrimination is a renewed emphasis on the identification and elimination of gender-based compensation discrimination at the worksites of Federal contractors. In addition, the Women's Bureau has been engaging in and will increase its outreach to stakeholders and its education efforts to its customers to apprise them of their employment rights in furtherance of my vision.

This entry also appears on the White House blog along with a video of the signing ceremony.

Follow Sec. Hilda Solis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@HildaSolisDOL

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-hilda-l-solis/not-just-a-womens-issue_b_442008.html

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