Womenstake, NWLC's Blog

Celebrating Milestones in Women on the Judiciary; But There Is Always More to Be Done

Posted by Cortelyou Kenney, Fellow | Posted on: June 12, 2013 at 09:33 am

The President should be applauded for the giant leap forward he has made in placing women in federal judgeships. Indeed, the President nominated and seen confirmed a higher percentage of female nominees than any other president in U.S. history, according to a new report from Alliance for Justice.

The Report contains numerous causes for celebration:

  • Forty-two percent (42%) of President Obama’s confirmed judges have been women—almost double the rate of President George W. Bush (22%) and almost fifty percent greater than that of President Clinton (29%).
  • President Obama already has nominated and seen confirmed more minority women judges (33) than President George W. Bush (22) or President Clinton (23), and has quintupled the number of Asian Pacific American women judges (from 2 to 10).
  • Nine district courts now have their first female judges: the District of Wyoming; the District of Alaska; the Eastern District of California; the Eastern District of Washington; the Middle District of North Carolina; the District of Vermont; the Southern District of Iowa; the District of Maine; and the Middle District of Louisiana.

Nevertheless, as the NWLC has chronicled, much work remains to be done.

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Tags: Courts, Women in the Judiciary, Judges & the Courts | Add new comment

What Do Auto Parts Have to do with Contraception: Autocam, the ACA, and Why Women in Manufacturing Can’t Seem to Win

Posted by Shari Inniss-Grant, Fellow | Posted on: June 11, 2013 at 11:44 am

Women in manufacturing continue to lose out. As we’ve said before, women aren’t seeing any of the gains from the recovery in the manufacturing sector. While the nation has gained over half a million manufacturing jobs since 2010, women have lost 36,000. In March alone, women lost 12,000 manufacturing jobs.

But these aren’t the only kinds of losses hitting women in the manufacturing industry; even women who have managed to hold onto their jobs might find themselves stripped of some benefits if employers like John Kennedy, CEO of Autocam, have their way.

The man at the helm of Autocam Corporation, a Michigan-based for-profit company that manufactures auto parts and medical equipment, is arguing he should have the right to deny employees and dependents all forms of contraception. The district court did not agree. It denied his request for a preliminary injunction, stating that, “Implementing the challenged mandate will keep the locus of decision-making in exactly the same place: namely, with each employee, and not the Autocam plaintiffs.

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Tags: Birth Control Refusal, Birth Control/Contraceptives, Barriers to Reproductive Care, Health Care & Reproductive Rights | Add new comment

El Salvador Case is a Reminder that Abortion Restrictions Threaten Lives

Posted by Kelli Garcia, Senior Counsel | Posted on: June 11, 2013 at 11:13 am

Today, reproductive rights advocates in D.C. will hold a vigil in support of safe, legal, and affordable abortion care for all women, no matter where they live. This vigil comes after the Salvadorian Supreme Court denied a critically ill woman, known only as Beatriz, a therapeutic abortion. Beatriz was pregnant with a nonviable, anencephalic fetus. Due to complications related to lupus, cardiovascular disease and kidney functioning, the pregnancy threatened Beatriz’s life. The Supreme Court waited seven weeks while Beatriz’s health deteriorated before issuing its ruling. Last Monday, the Health Ministry allowed Beatriz to undergo a cesarean section. Beatriz is currently recovering; but, as expected, the fetus, which was missing part of its brain and skull, did not survive.

Think this can’t happen here? Think again. If anti-abortion activists get their way, abortion could be banned in all circumstances. Already, women seeking care at Catholic affiliated hospitals may be denied medically appropriate treatment. One study found that doctors practicing at Catholic-affiliated hospitals, which are required to adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, were forced to delay treatment for miscarriages while performing medically unnecessary tests. Even though these miscarriages were inevitable and nothing could save the fetus, some patients were transferred because doctors could still detect a fetal heartbeat or required to wait until there was no longer a fetal heartbeat to provide the needed medical care.

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Tags: Abortion, Abortion, Reproductive Refusals and Restrictions, Reproductive Rights, Barriers to Reproductive Care, Health Care & Reproductive Rights | Add new comment

NWLC Releases a New Report: 50 Years and Counting: The Unfinished Business of Achieving Fair Pay

Posted by Valarie Hogan, Fellow | Posted on: June 10, 2013 at 05:04 pm

This might be difficult, but try, for a minute, to imagine Congress as a group of artisans – glass blowers, perhaps – who must use their breath to shape the world we live in. Actually, that shouldn’t be too difficult. They may not be artistically inclined (or maybe they are) but obviously, Congress is in the business of shaping our lives through debate (aka their breath) and legislative action.

Today marks the 50th Anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, yet Congress has apparently forgotten the importance of using its power for positive change.

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Tags: Data, Employment, Equal Pay, Equal Pay Act, Equal Pay and the Wage Gap, Wage Gap, Equal Pay and the Wage Gap, Employment | Add new comment

NWLC Supports New School Reform Bill and Urges Senate Committee to Strengthen It

Posted by Lara S. Kaufmann, Senior Counsel & Director of Education Policy for At-Risk Students | Posted on: June 10, 2013 at 04:37 pm

Last week, Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, introduced the Strengthening America’s Schools Act of 2013, a bill to reauthorize (fancy word for “update and fix”) the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as No Child Left Behind.

The “mark-up” of the bill—when the HELP Committee votes on amendments and hopefully sends the bill to the full Senate—starts tomorrow.

The National Women’s Law Center supports http://www.nwlc.org/resource/letter-help-committee-support-strengthening-americas-schools-act this bill, and urges the Senate HELP Committee to further strengthen it during tomorrow’s mark-up.

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Tags: Child Care & Early Learning, Early Childhood Education, Education and Schools, Pregnant and Parenting Students, Senate, Title IX, Pregnant & Parenting Students, School Reform & Dropout Prevention, Education & Title IX | Add new comment

An Equal Pay History - The Fight Continues...

Posted by Catherine Yourougou, Fellow | Posted on: June 10, 2013 at 02:55 pm

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, giving us the opportunity to look back on what it took to get that landmark law in place, and what it will take to finish the unfinished business of achieving fair pay. 

Efforts to end the practice of paying women less than men for work in the same job have been underway for a very long time — well over a hundred years, in fact. The 41st Congress passed an appropriations bill in 1870 — 1870! — that prohibited gender pay discrimination in federal jobs. Unfortunately, by the time it got to the Senate, it was severely watered down and only applied to new employees. Enforcement of this bill was virtually non-existent. 

Even back then, the injustice of paying women less than men for work in the same job had support amongst women's rights advocates and even some mainstream press outlets. For example, in 1891 the Washington Post optimistically declared, "The working world is rapidly coming to apprehend the justice of giving equal remuneration to women who do as much and as good work as men." 

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Tags: Equal Pay, Wage Gap, Equal Pay and the Wage Gap, Employment | Add new comment

NY Times Columnist Gail Collins Encourages Support for Early Learning

Posted by Cortnay Cymrot, Intern | Posted on: June 10, 2013 at 02:00 pm

Gail Collins' column "Power to the Preschoolers", published last Thursday, emphasized the importance of investing in prekindergarten while noting the challenges that the President's Early Learning Initiative may face moving forward. Collins alluded to the previous day's "Tweetchat" generating support for prekindergarten, which was organized by National Women's Law Center. She was not the only one following the Tweetchat — it successfully placed "#PreKForAll" on the computer screens of 40 million Twitter users. The hashtag (#PreKForAll) trended nationally for almost an hour, garnering tweets from Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a number of members of Congress, and President Obama. 

Collins' column prompted an overwhelmingly supportive response among her readers on the issue of early education. The feedback in the Times comments section was largely positive, with commenters citing the benefits that early learning opportunities grant children and society. Commenters fondly recalled their own experiences with early education, suggested strategies to fund the investment, and struggled to make sense of the opposition’s concerns. 

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Tags: Child Care, Child Care, Child Care & Early Learning, Prekindergarten | Add new comment

77 Cents Makes a Grown Woman Holler!

Posted by Liz Watson, Senior Advisor | Posted on: June 10, 2013 at 01:22 pm

Too many managers today still bring a 1950s mindset to the 21st century workplace. In the 50s and early 60s, shows like Leave it to Beaver taught Americans that “a woman’s place is in the home and I guess as long she’s in the home she might as well be in the kitchen.” Seriously, that comes straight from the mouth of The Beav and Wally’s dad. Check it out:

In fact, the ‘men bring home the bacon/women fry it up in the pan’ trope wasn’t even true in 1963 when the Equal Pay Act became law – 37% of women were in the labor force back then. (Coincidentally 1963 is the same year that Leave it to Beaver’s run ended.)

But it wasn’t until the 1970s that women in professional jobs were shown on t.v. When Mary Rhodes (a.k.a. Mary Tyler Moore) found out she was being paid A LOT less than her male predecessor in her t.v. news producer’s job, she was furious. She confronted her boss, Lou. He admitted Mary was better at her job than the guy paid more, but tried to justify his higher salary on the grounds that he had a family to support. Mary told Lou: by that logic you’d be paying single guys less too, but you don’t! Mary was quick on her feet.

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Tags: Employment, Equal Pay, Equal Pay Act, Wage Gap, Equal Pay and the Wage Gap, Employment | Add new comment
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