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Becka Wall, Program Assistant

Becka Wall is the Program Assistant for the Communications Department. Prior to joining the Center, Becka interned at organizations such as The White House Project, Media Matters for America, the Newseum and the National Council for Research on Women. She graduated cum laude from American University with a degree in Communications focusing on the relationship between Media & Government in May 2011. In her spare time, Becka enjoys volunteering around DC, blogging about women's rights and baking up a storm.

My Take

Teen Mom Proves we Need the PPSAE Now More than Ever

Posted by Becka Wall, Program Assistant | Posted on: May 07, 2013 at 12:50 pm

My senior year of college, two of my roommates and I watched Teen Mom CONSTANTLY. I liked to pretend I wasn’t watching it, but the conversation usually went something like this:

Becka (standing in doorway): “Oh jeez, guys. You’re watching this?”

Arielle: “Yes. Absolutely.”

[10 minutes later]

Rachel: “…Do you want to sit down?”

Becka (still standing in doorway): “…..Yes. FARRAH’S CRYING FACE IS CRAZY.”

When you watch the show, the difficulties of teen parents and pregnant students become painfully clear. Recently, I was re-watching Season 1 on Netflix Instant, and it clicked – wow. The Pregnant and Parenting Student Access to Education Act would REALLY help these girls.

Title IX already affords a number of protections to pregnant & parenting students. This law requires that schools receiving federal funds not discriminate against students on the basis of sex, which includes pregnancy and related conditions like childbirth, pregnancy termination, and recovery. This prohibition against discrimination comes in a number of forms – for example, students must not be forced to attend a different program or school than their peers, must be given the opportunity to make up missed work for pregnancy-related absences, must be treated the same as if they had a temporary disability, and may not be excluded from sports or extracurricular activities.

The Pregnant and Parenting Student Access to Education Act (PPSAE) is designed to go beyond nondiscrimination by giving students the tools they need to succeed. It would enable school districts to – among other things – create graduation plans for pregnant and parenting students; provide academic support, parenting and life skills classes, strategies to prevent future unplanned pregnancies, and legal aid services; help pregnant and parenting students gain access to affordable child care, and revise school policies and practices to remove discouraging barriers. Pretty great, huh?

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Stephanie Stewart, My Hero!

Posted by Becka Wall, Program Assistant | Posted on: May 01, 2013 at 09:34 am

A few months ago, my employer, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), filed an administrative complaint against the City University of New York (CUNY) for violating Title IX by discriminating against a pregnant student, and just this morning we settled the case with CUNY, which has agreed to take some important steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

Stephanie Stewart

Stephanie Stewart

A little background: Stephanie Stewart, a student at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), was pregnant at the start of the Spring 2012 semester. Because BMCC, like the vast majority of colleges and universities, receives federal funding, it is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of sex by Title IX. Unfortunately, BMCC left it up to instructors to determine their own policies for absences and make-up work and didn’t explain that pregnancy-related absences must be excused.

Stephanie’s professor in her anthropology course called “Roles of Women” refused to accede to Stephanie’s request that, if she had to miss class to attend a pregnancy-related medical appointment or to deliver her baby, she be allowed to make up the work she missed. The professor told Stephanie that she doesn’t allow make-up tests or assignments, even in cases of unforeseen emergencies – including Stephanie’s pregnancy, and refused to grade homework turned in via email when Stephanie had to attend a doctor’s appointment.

Stephanie didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. She brought her case to the attention of NWLC and helped score a BIG-TIME victory for all CUNY students. As a result of the settlement, CUNY will adopt a policy regarding the treatment of pregnant and parenting students, making it clear that absences for conditions relating to pregnancy are excused and students will be allowed to make up missed work.

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Five TV characters Who Could Seriously Use a Raise

Posted by Becka Wall, Program Assistant | Posted on: April 09, 2013 at 04:27 pm

Cross-posted from BuzzFeed.

I have so many current ladies on TV who I look up to professionally, but with women earning an average of only 77 cents to every dollar men earn, I had to wonder: what’s Liz Lemon’s wage gap? Once I answered that question for myself, it then lead me to wonder: Holy crap. Are ALL of my favorite working women on TV underpaid? The answer: yes. Here are my top five. Who are your TV working heroines? Who did I leave off the list? Let me know! 

1. Liz Lemon, 30 Rock

The very first person I thought of when I thought about hard-working women in TV was OBVIOUSLY Liz Lemon. Girlfriend works HARD. She works extremely late, keeps crazy hours, and throws her life, heart, and soul into her work – and enjoys every single second of it. Plus, female producers/directors have median weekly earnings of $1,070; while men have median weekly earnings of $1,131. Hers wasn’t the biggest or most shocking gap on my list, but $61 per week translates to $3,172 per year – that’s an awful lot of Cheesy Blasters!

Liz Lemon, 30 Rock

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Equal Pay Day 2013: Where We Go From Here

Posted by Becka Wall, Program Assistant | Posted on: April 09, 2013 at 10:06 am

To mark Equal Pay Day, NWLC's Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment, and Becka Wall, Program Assistant for Communications sat down for a chat on the success we've had on equal pay – and what we need to do next.

Becka: Hi, Fatima! Thanks so much for sitting and chatting with me about Equal Pay. I feel like this has been such a long and uphill battle. Where does the fight for equal pay stand right now?

Fatima: Since we passed the Equal Pay Act, the wage gap has narrowed by 18 cents. And there has been some clear progress – no longer will you see separate gender-based pay classifications, for example. But the wage gap has not budged for a decade, so there is serious work to do.

Fifty years since the passing of the Equal Pay Act is a great time to look at where we are – assess how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go.

Becka: What are some of the major causes that contribute to the issue of unequal pay?

Fatima: Women are still paid less for the same job, and it’s impossible in some spaces to get salary information. Some workplaces actual ban women from talking about their own wages. Women are concentrated in occupations that pay less. There are also a number of barriers to higher, paid traditionally male jobs. And there is a continuing penalty for caregivers – studies have shown that women who are mothers are paid less than men who are fathers.

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On Jon Hamm, Hollywood, and Sexual Harassment

Posted by Becka Wall, Program Assistant | Posted on: April 03, 2013 at 01:37 pm

Jon Hamm’s … ahem… manhood has been all over all my RSS feeds as of late. Apparently, the wardrobe people on the set of Mad Men needed to ask Hamm to wear underwear so he isn’t exposed by tight-fitting suits, and he’s been caught at unflattering angles that accentuate certain body parts, shall we say, over others.

As a result, of course, the Internet has gone crazy – multiple Tumblrs have been created in honor of his privates, and article upon article has been written poking fun at the whole situation. Hamm is pretty upset. He told Rolling Stone:

“They're called privates for a reason. I'm wearing pants, for [expletive’s] sake. When people feel the freedom to create Tumblr accounts about my [penis], I feel like that wasn't part of the deal."

But as Slate points out, constant commentary on private parts has become par for the course for female celebrities. We plaster images of every single wardrobe malfunction, create Internet memes, and feel completely comfortable shaming female celebrities for their clothing mishaps. Anne Hathaway sums up perfectly in her recent interview with Matt Lauer about her wardrobe malfunction while promoting Les Miserables:

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