women's equality day--what the heck do I tell my daughter??
Women’s Equality Day: What the Heck Do I Tell My Daughter?
Today is Women’s Equality Day. At the center of my mind today is:
What the heck do I tell my daughter?
How do I tell my daughter about the fact that despite many gains made for women’s (and mothers’) equality, women still don’t earn equal pay for equal work? Women now make, on average, only 77 cents [PDF] for every dollar that men make for full-time work.
Not equal.
How do I tell my daughter that there’s rampant hiring and pay discrimination against mothers? While overall women make 77 cents to every man’s dollar, women without children make 90 cents to a man’s dollar, mothers make 73 cents and single mothers make only 60 cents to a man’s dollar. Women of color experience increased wage hits on top of this. Further, studies have found that with EQUAL resumes, women with children are up to 100 percent less likely to be hired than women without children. When moms are offered positions, on average, they are offered starting salaries that are $11,000 less than those offered to non-mothers.
Not equal. These stats keep me up at night, particularly given that 81 percent of American women become mothers by the time they are 44 years old.
What do I tell my daughter about the fact that women don’t yet have equal representation in Congress? Women are 50.7 percent of our population, yet women comprise only 17 percent of Congress. This low representation of women in our national legislature ranks us 70th of all nations, behind Turkmenistan, Croatia and China. Our nation is missing out. The Harvard Business Review recently reported, “If a group includes more women, its collective intelligence rises.”
Not equal. There’s definitely no reason to celebrate Women’s Equality Day here.
. . . . . .
So, what the heck DO I tell my daughter?
Then it hit me. I know what to say: I’m telling my daughter that I’m fighting for her and for all the daughters in our nation on Women’s Equality Day.
. . . .
For Women’s Equality Day, I’m telling my daughter to fight.
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/08/26/womens-equality-day-what-the-heck-do-i-tell-my-daughter/