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Women’s Employment Update: February brings good news but there’s a long road ahead

Posted by Abby Lane, Fellow | Posted on: March 08, 2013 at 02:39 pm

Today’s release of February jobs data brought pretty good news – 236,000 jobs added to the economy and the overall unemployment rate dropped slightly to 7.7 percent. Unfortunately we still have a long way to go.

Here are the highlights from today’s NWLC analysis:

  • The overall story in February was good, but women only gained one-third of the jobs added last month. The economy added 236,000 jobs between January and February, only 80,000 of which went to women.
  • Public sector losses continued in February. Both women and men lost public sector jobs in February, bringing the total number of public sector jobs lost over the recovery to 462,000 for women and 280,000 for men.
  •  Unemployment rates fell for adult women and men, but still remain unacceptably high. Adult women’s and men’s unemployment rates fell in February – to 7.0 percent and 7.1 percent, respectively. While these rates are an improvement since the recession began in December 2007, they still aren’t very good when put in historical context: apart from this recession, adult women have not seen unemployment rates above 7 percent in nearly 30 years – for men it is over 20.
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4 Ways NYC’s New Teen Pregnancy Ad Campaign Hurts Teen Parents

Posted by Amy Tannenbaum, Program Assistant | Posted on: March 08, 2013 at 02:04 pm

I’ve been in utter shock since hearing of this new ad campaign in New York City aimed at preventing teen pregnancy. While I support and strongly encourage efforts to help teenagers to avoid becoming pregnant – including comprehensive and medically accurate sex education, access to contraceptives and abortion, and a culture that allows teens to talk about sex openly and honestly rather than shaming them – this ad campaign will do harm by perpetuating stereotypes and further discouraging and stigmatizing teen parents. Consider the following four points: 

  1. The ads play on stereotypes and shame teen parents. People will see the sad faces of the babies in the ads and assume that children of teen mothers are not happy or well-cared-for. The messages about reduced graduation rates and a life in poverty paint teen mothers as incompetent and unworthy of motherhood. It is a message that mothers who live in poverty – especially young mothers of color – receive all too often. The ads perpetuate this message by featuring mostly children of color Rather than recognizing the difficulty of being a teen parent or emphasizing the importance of delaying pregnancy until after educational and career goals are met, these ads only call negative attention to them.   
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Jon Stewart Agrees – Early Learning is a Critical Investment

Posted by Amy Qualliotine, Outreach Associate | Posted on: March 08, 2013 at 12:45 pm

On Wednesday night, the President’s new Early Learning Initiative got a moment in the spotlight on the Daily Show. Host Jon Stewart, in that way only he knows how, highlighted the importance of investing in children’s early years. My trying to recap the clip will certainly erase all the humor, so I’ll let you watch it for yourself.



Think of life like a marathon (just go with me on this metaphor). Many of America’s most vulnerable children are starting five miles behind everyone else - yet we expect them to finish on par with their peers. Expanding the access these children have to high quality early learning opportunities will be revolutionary.

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My Mother is a Minimum-Wage Worker

Posted by Claudia Kim, Communications Intern | Posted on: March 08, 2013 at 10:38 am

I walked into a crowded room on Capitol Hill this week to witness my first congressional press conference. Senator Tom Harkin and Representative George Miller were enthusiastic about their legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10.

I’ll be graduating from college in a few months, and I’m looking for my first job. But the issue of minimum wage isn’t something I’ve been thinking about. As a college graduate, I’ve been assuming that I’ll be able to find a job that pays well, despite the shaky economy. Amie Crawford, a college graduate and fast-food worker from Chicago stood at the podium and described what it’s like to work hard prepping food for the public but not have enough money to buy food for herself. I was stunned. Amie’s story made me wonder about the millions of other hard-working women who cut back on food, drop their health insurance, and go without child care in order to get by on a minimum wage salary. And I thought about their kids who might go to bed hungry.

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Amie’s Story

Posted by Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel | Posted on: March 06, 2013 at 04:43 pm

Amie Crawford

Amie Crawford at the intoduction of the Fair Minimum Wage Act

Before the “snowquester” blew into town, I had the pleasure of attending a press conference on the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, which Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative George Miller (D-CA) introduced on Tuesday. The Fair Minimum Wage Act would gradually raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour, increase the minimum cash wage for tipped workers from $2.13 per hour to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage, and index these wages to keep up with inflation. 

I was excited to be present for the introduction because I believe this bill is hugely important, especially for women. If you ask me why, I might be inclined to rattle off a few numbers: women are 2/3 of minimum wage workers in the U.S., women are the majority of the workforce in the 10 occupations paying less than $10.10/hour, women working full time, year round are paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts…the list goes on. But listening to the speakers at yesterday’s event brought home what those numbers mean for real people, whose stories are more powerful than any statistics.

One of those stories was Amie’s. Amie Crawford might not strike you as the typical minimum wage worker: she has a college degree and worked as an interior designer for decades before the recession hit. Amie herself “used to think that minimum wage jobs were for other people…They weren’t me. They had less education, fewer skills. They didn’t work as hard or try as hard.” Then Amie’s life changed—and she acknowledged, “I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

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Court Finds that Quinnipiac University Is Still Not In Compliance with Title IX

The District Court that first told Quinnipiac University it violated Title IX when it dropped the women’s volleyball team and claimed its cheer squad counted as a sport has once again told the university that it is not in compliance with the law. In an almost 100-page opinion issued yesterday, the Court instructed QU to continue to sponsor volleyball and said that QU needs to make more progress before the Court will let it out from under its watch. Maybe this time the University will finally get the message.

The latest decision comes after QU asked the court to lift the order instructing it to keep volleyball and devise a plan to provide equal opportunities for female students. QU claims that it has added golf and rugby for women and made changes to cheer that should make it count under Title IX; so they once again want to drop the volleyball team (they seem to have a volleyball vendetta).

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Girl Model: Harmful Stereotypes on the Global Stage

Posted by Amy Tannenbaum, Program Assistant | Posted on: March 06, 2013 at 11:00 am

My favorite part of last weekend’s Oscar ceremonies – aside from the self-confidence exuded by Quvanzhané Wallis – was Anne Hathaway’s short commentary at the end of her speech. She noted, “Here’s hoping that someday in the not-too-distant future, the misfortunes of Fantine [her character] will only be found in stories and nevermore in real life.” She was referring to Fantine’s life in poverty, where she is forced to sell her hair, and then her body, to support herself and her daughter. Fantine learns that while society values her beauty, it will also exploit her for it.

While I share Anne’s hope that cultural change is not too far off, documentaries like PBS’s Girl Model highlight how much work lies ahead. The film follows Nadya, a 13-year-old Russian modeling hopeful, and Ashley, a recruiter and former model, as Nadya is brought from her small town in Russia to Tokyo with promises of money and modeling opportunities. Nadya faces pressures to be thin and to lie about her age; although she is valued for her youthful looks, she is told to say she is 15 rather than 13. She eventually leaves Tokyo, in debt, her hopes of building a better life for herself and her family shattered. Read more... Add new comment

The Department of Education’s Collection of Gender Equity in Athletics Data Is Critical

The title of this post is the message we conveyed to the Department of Education in response to their request for public input regarding the collection of Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) data. If you’re not familiar with the EADA, check out our one-pager here that explains what the law requires of colleges and universities (for example, the numbers of men and women playing sports and expenses allocated to each team). The Department helpfully puts all of this info on a website where anyone can look up any institution and print out a few pages with all the information that schools are required to disclose.

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