Remembering Ellen Pence, Women’s Abuse Crusader

On Jan. 6, Ellen Pence, the “mother” of domestic violence intervention, died after a long battle with breast cancer. Her advocacy efforts for victims, however, live on.

Pence was a co-founder of Duluth’s world-renowned Domestic Abuse Intervention Project and is also credited with establishing the Duluth Model of intervention in domestic violence cases, which uses an interagency approach involving police, probation, courts and human services with the goal of protecting victims from ongoing abuse.

Her work changed the lives of many women. “In short, there are women alive right now that statistically wouldn’t have been if Ellen hadn’t done her work,” said state Sen. John Harrington, DFL-St. Paul, and a former St. Paul police chief, in an article published in The Star Tribune.

Pence’s advocacy began in the 1960s, as an activist in the housing, antiwar, civil rights and feminist movements. In 1975, she turned her focus to the battered women’s movement, which remained the primary focus of her work throughout her lifetime.

Pence is an example of a woman who blazed a trail and woman whose shoulders many women and men stand on today. Remember her efforts and remember to thank those you know who are making a difference in the lives of women today.

Ask and You May Not Receive: Gender Pay Gap Persists

“Women don’t get raises or promotions because they don’t ask for them.” That sentence has been said many times to many groups of women. However, Catalyst’s Nancy Carter and Christine Silva are saying women do ask for raises and promotions, but they simply aren’t seen a good return on their requests.

In Catalyst’s recent report “The Myth of the Ideal Worker,” the research focused on career paths of high-potential women and men who are MBA graduates from top schools. Catalyst found there was no significant difference in the proportion of women and men who asked for increased compensation or a higher position, among those women and men who had moved on from their first post-MBA job.

As it turned out, women who had moved on from their first post-MBA job had slower growth in compensation than those who stayed at their first jobs. Men who changed jobs, on the other hand, experienced higher compensation growth than those who stayed, according to the Catalyst report.

Carter and Silva write in The Washington Post that the issue needs to be reframed: “If women are asking, but are still not advancing as quickly, maybe we need to frame things differently. Perhaps it’s not that women don’t ask—but that men don’t have to.”

How can we close the gender wage gap? Vision 2020 wants to hear your suggestions. Email csoltis@drexelmed.edu with your ideas. You may see them here on the blog!

Patents Secured by Women on the Rise, Study Says

The number of women obtaining patents has been growing over the past three decades, with numbers that are higher than previously reported, according to a study commissioned by the National Women’s Business Council.

There has been a dramatic increase of patents filed by women in the last few years. In 2010, 22,984 patents were granted to women, a 35 percent increase from the previous year and in 2009, women received 17,061 patents, a 4.5 percent increase over 2008, the NWBC study noted.

The NWBC study is the first of its kind to explore this issue in depth and it will also examine trademarks registered for by women.

The encouraging news from the study is that patents go hand-in-hand with starting businesses, which may lead to more women-owned and operated businesses. “Patent and trademark ownership often is an indicator of entrepreneurial activity – and historically, women have not been a large segment of this group. A bump in IP ownership could indicate strong growth in women-owned companies,” NWBC Chair Donna James said in a press release.

Full details of the study will be released at an NWBC event in March, during Women’s History Month.

Tech Fields Still Lag in Women Employees

New findings released by Stanford University says that women engineering students perform as well as men but are more likely to switch to a different major, often because they don’t believe that their skills are good enough and they don’t feel like they “fit” in engineering, according to an article by Joanne McGrath Cohoon, an associate professor at the University of Virginia published in U.S. News and World Report.

Cohoon writes that the Stanford findings reinforce other studies that note gender stereotypes “create false expectations that men are naturally better engineers and computing professionals than women are.”

There is a need for women in technology fields. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts more job openings by 2018 for computer systems analysts, software engineers, and network systems and data communications analysts.

The Daily Trojan, the student newspaper of the University of Southern California, noted in November that there has been a recent increase of women in the fields of biology and medicine but that it is not an across-the-board change.
So how do we encourage women to pursue technical fields? Cohoon suggests starting in the classroom: Give women opportunities to succeed at technical tasks and encourage them.

USC is following this model by offering a variety of programs geared toward women in its math department. There is a summer program for all undergraduates thinking about applying to the graduate program as well as one for women who have been accepted to the program, and a Women in Science and finally an Engineering Program developed to increase the number of women in tenured and tenure-track faculty STEM positions.

Starting the New Year Right

Vision 2020 is concentrating on turning resolutions into a national revolution for women’s equality. Since January is the month for New Year’s resolutions, Vision 2020 has set a New Year’s resolution for the next eight years: to expand efforts to achieve women’s equality by the year 2020. Vision 2020 needs you to be part of the action to fulfill this resolution.

This month Vision 2020 urges you personally to adopt one of the following resolutions for 2012:

• Resolved, that on every one of the 366 days of 2012 I will tell someone new about Vision 2020 and its goal of women’s equality, as part of nationwide outreach effort.
• Resolved, that I will write a letter to the editor on issues related to Vision 2020′s national goals, in each case seeking a local point of emphasis.
• Resolved, that I will become a Vision 2020 member or recruit 5 new Vision 2020 memberships.

Every step you take, you bring women’s equality closer.

Girls’ Rights to be Recognized on First International Day in 2012

In 2012, girls’ rights will be recognized on an official day, thanks to a resolution the United Nations adopted on Dec. 19. Oct. 11, 2012, will mark the first “International Day of the Girl Child” to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.

By establishing the International Day of the Girl Child, the UN affirms its commitment to end gender stereotypes, discrimination, violence, and economic disparities that disproportionately affect girls, according to a press release.

While the term “girl child” doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily in the United States, the term is in frequent use internationally to distinguish the unique challenges faced by those under age 18 from those faced by women.

Interested in shaping what the first International Day of the Girl Child looks like? Join the discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/dayofthegirl?pli=1

The Gender Revolution: Stalled or Finished?

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article by Nancy Folbre, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, about the uneven success of the feminist movement. Folbre points out that in the past 20 years the “pace of change in attitudes, labor force participation and relative earnings has slowed, leading to speculation about the ‘end of the gender revolution.’”

Folbre doesn’t believe the revolution has ended but does think it has stalled. In looking at compensation, women are earning about 81 cents for every dollar earned by a man for the same work. While that’s an increase from the 77 cents of previous years, equal pay is still a goal that has not been achieved.

There are also pay discrepancies between socio-economic classes of women that leave lesser-educated women suffering. Northwestern University sociologist Leslie McCall said, “Absolute gains among women as a whole, and visible absolute gains among more highly educated women in particular, came at the expense of the worsening situation of low-skilled women, whose real wages have been falling.”

Equal pay is one of Vision 2020’s five national goals for 2020, and the focus is on equal pay for all—not just certain populations.

But the road to equal pay will be difficult. Folbre writes that “Demographic and economic differences among both women and men in the United States make it difficult to mobilize support for such policies here. And in the absence of such policies, inequality is likely to intensify.”

Join Vision 2020’s Campaign for Equality and find out what you can do in 2012 to show your support for pay equity.

G.I. Jane and PTSD

Women have been an important part of the military since the American Revolution.  In the past, they served in medical, intelligence, and clerical roles.  In more recent military operations, women have moved into supporting roles–providing protection, searching women for weapons and other non-combat roles.

Called “battle fatigue” and “shell shock” until formally recognized in 1980, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has been recognized in servicemen since World War II.  Originally studied in men, it is now apparent that women are twice as likely as men to suffer from PTSD, while men are more likely to develop substance abuse issues.  Regardless of those facts, statistics on the men and women returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan show that the number of veterans returning from war with PTSD is increasing.

Women compose 20% of the current military and experience traumatic stress, just like men.  Women are being wounded and killed, just like men.  They are developing PTSD, just like men.

PTSD is defined as an anxiety disorder experienced following a traumatic event.  Combat is one of the publicized causes of PTSD; others are sexual assault and rape, all things women are exposed to in the military. 

A recent CNN article chronicles the story of a female soldier returning from Iraq in 2003 and the struggle she has had with PTSD since she gone through.  For her, it is a constant battle against the emotions of the situations she experienced while in Iraq, situations that are unlikely to occur in the United States.  It is a constant battle with no cure.

As the debate is over the role of women in the military continues in the government, articles are being published about the merits of opening up combat roles to women and how the rules are being bent to allow women to do jobs outside of the current restrictions.  All of this is working toward gender equality for GI Jane.

The reality of gender equality in the military is coming, and with that equality we can expect more servicewomen to suffer from PTSD upon return to civilian life.

Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Wo(men)

As we are in the midst of the holiday season, we hear many songs about peace on Earth and goodwill toward men.  While these ideas are widely accepted, many people are content to be passive supporters of the notion.  In order for peace on Earth to be a reality, the passive need to become active.  The Nobel Peace Prize awards the active men, women, and groups of individuals who have made a commitment to peace or human rights.

Since its inception in 1901, only 12 women have received this prize, including the 3 women who received the Nobel Peace Prize this year.  These women have fought sexual violence, oppression, and injustice in Liberia and Yemen.  Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the first democratically elected woman president in Africa.  Leymah Gbowee is a leader in Liberia’s fight against warlords and rape and fighting for women’s rights.   Tawakkul Karman, the first Arab woman to receive the prize, has been a leader in the fight against the autocratic leaders of Yemen.

These women, like the peace prize recipients before them, are an integral part of the fight for social justice and humanity.  If we think about the advances made in peace over the past 100 years, many women will come to mind.  So why have so few women won the Nobel Peace Prize?

Actress Helen Mirren, a host at the Nobel Peace Prize concert, was vocal in her disappointment over the scarce number of female winners.  “’In my personal experience, wherever there was a force for the positive, for creativity, it was almost always led by women and they are doing it with no recognition and under very difficult circumstances,” Mirren said in an interview with The Telegraph.

Regardless of the unequal recognition, all of the women and men around the world who are fighting for peace and justice deserve recognition for their work, especially during a season when we think so much about peace.  Remember to thank those you know who continue to work for peace and equality during this holiday season and throughout the year.

The Marathon of Gender Equality in Executive Leadership

The race to gender equality in the business world is a marathon, not a sprint, according to a recent study from UC Davis.  The study looked at the top 400 public companies in California and examined how many of the top leaders in those companies were women.  The study found that less than 10% of the top executives were female and one-third of the companies had no women executives.  These numbers show a 0.2% increase from last year.  At this rate, it could take 100 years to reach equality—Vision 2020’s finish line.

When preparing for a marathon, one needs to train carefully, slowly building up the distance in each training session, ensuring good nutrition, and learning from experts and other runners.  For the past 100 years, women have been preparing for company leadership positions, graduating from college in increasing numbers, learning from executives, and becoming a significant portion of the workforce. They are prepared for the race.  However, women are attaining upper-level positions at an incredibly slow rate, the proverbial plateau in marathon training. 

How can women move past this plateau?

In marathon training, you could find a training partner. In the business world, it isn’t much different.  Watermark, a community of women leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area, has started the Watermark Institute Board Access program, whose goal is to increase the number of women in board positions.  The program assesses the initial status of the participants, coaches the participants, holds board simulations, and helps them to make contacts.  All of these things combined make the perfect training partner.  In fact, 25% of the women in last year’s class have obtained board seats. 

Like Watermark, Vision 2020 has its eye on increasing the number of women on boards.  One of Vision 2020’s National Goals is to increase the number of women in senior leadership positions and women across the country are developing State Initiatives to achieve this goal.

The number of training partners is increasing, the educational foundation is intact, and women have been preparing for these positions for many years.  Together, women may be able to finish our marathon in less than 100 years.