Legal Momentum In Brief, October 2010

Legal Momentum Convenes Roundtable Discussion to Promote Enforcement of Rights of Women in Construction

Legal Momentum hosted a roundtable discussion of tradeswomen, policy experts, and researchers to discuss the revision of federal construction regulations and strategies to increase the number and retention of women on federally-funded construction sites. Equality Works Program Manager Françoise Jacobsohn and Legal Momentum Interim President Rachael N. Pine were pleased to welcome Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCCP) Director Patricia Shiu, Women’s Bureau Director Sara Manzano-Diaz, and other representatives from the Department of Labor to the discussion. Participants emphasized the importance of early regulations and enforcement in reducing barriers to women’s employment in non-traditional jobs.

  • To learn more about the Roundtable, click here.
  • To learn more about Legal Momentum’s Equality Works Program, click here.

Legal Momentum Partners with Allied Organizations to Launch Resource Center on Workplace Policies to Address Violence Against Women

In collaboration with the Family Violence Prevention Fund and other partners, Legal Momentum developed Workplaces Respond, a resource center that provides tools for employers to obtain information and assistance in creating workplace policies addressing domestic, sexual, and dating violence and stalking. The Resource Center was created and funded as a result of Legal Momentum’s advocacy during and after the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 2005.

  • To learn more about Workplaces Respond, click here.
  • Visit the Workplaces Respond resource center here.
  • To learn more about Legal Momentum’s Victims of Violence and Employment Program, click here. 

Legal Momentum Attends First-Ever White House Roundtable on Sexual Violence

National Judicial Education Program Director Lynn Hecht Schafran recently attended the first-ever White House national roundtable on sexual violence, sponsored by the Office on Violence Against Women and the White House Council on Women and Girls. The discussion centered on strategies to educate the public about the realities of sexual assault as opposed to the myths, prevent sexual violence, ensure that victims have access to effective service providers, and hold perpetrators accountable.

In conjunction with the event, President Obama announced a national campaign to reduce sexual violence and increased funding for the Sexual Assault Kit Backlog Action Research Project.

  • Learn more about the first-ever White House Roundtable on Sexual Violence here.
  • Read about OVW’s national campaign to reduce sexual violence in the United States click here.
  • Learn more the National Judicial Education Program’s sexual assault resources here.
  • Learn more about the National Judicial Education Program here.

White House Releases Report on Jobs and Economic Security for Women

On October 21st, the White House’s National Economic Council released Jobs and Economic Security for America’s Women, a report that details the Obama Administration’s efforts to promote economic opportunity and employment for women since President Obama took office in 2009.

Many of the President’s policies discussed in the report have benefited women. Small business loans, investments in education and health care jobs, promoting opportunities for low-income workers (many of whom are women—these efforts have created and/or saved millions of women’s jobs.

But the White House must go further to ensure women’s long-term economic security.

  • Read more from Legal Momentum on Jobs and Economic Security for America’s Women here.
  • Read Jobs and Economic Security for America’s Women here.

Legal Momentum and Vision 2020

Legal Momentum is a National Ally for Vision 2020, a national project that seeks to launch an action agenda to move the United States toward gender equality by 2020, the centennial celebration of the 19th Amendment. On October 21-22, 2010, Vision 2020 sponsored "An American Conversation about Women and Leadership" in Philadelphia, featuring panels about increasing women’s leadership in all fields, from Law to Finance to Arts and Culture.

Lorelie Masters of Jenner & Block LLP served as a Vision 2010 Delegate from Washington, DC. She reflected on the conference in a series of blog posts for Legal Momentum, contributing pieces on the panels related to women and leadership in Business, Law and Finance; Health; Education; Media and Communications; and Engineering, Science, and Technology. She also contributed a piece on Gender Inequality in the Media.

  • Read all of Lorelie’s posts on Legal Momentum’s blog here.
  • Learn more about Legal Momentum’s role in Vision 2020 here.
  • Learn more about Vision 2020 here.

Don’t Cheer the U.S. for Gender Equity Yet

According to the World Economic Forum’s 2010 Global Gender Gap Index, released October 12th, the United States’ gender gap has narrowed. The U.S. jumped from 31st place in 2009 to 19th place in 2010, a cheerful indication of progress in education and literacy equality.

But the leap from 31 to 19 obscures a systematic workplace problem: gender wage inequality. The U.S. ranked 64th in wage equality for similar work, behind such countries as Kenya, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.

The World Economic Forum attributes the U.S.’s ratings jump to gender equity in literacy and primary, secondary, and higher education. Indeed, much has been made of American women’s educational achievement in the past few decades—as it should be. But the Global Gender Gap Index demonstrates that, in the U.S., advanced degrees don’t translate into increased wages: the pay gap between men and women for similar work still hasn’t narrowed.

  • To read more about the U.S.’s gender wage gap in Legal Momentum’s blog, click here.
  • To learn more about the Global Gender Gap Index, click here.

In France, Gender Wage Gap Persists, Despite Overall Progress in Gender Equality

France prides itself on maintaining remarkable state-run social programs that particularly benefit women. French women are offered free nursery schools for their children, Perineal therapy, tax deductions for each child, family discounts on trains, and substantial family allowances. They are encouraged to return to work after childbirth, a move that seems to defy the age-old choice between work and family.

Despite its progressive social programs, French gender inequality persists. France ranks 46th in the World Economic Forum's 2010 gender equality report. Only one of France’s top companies is run by a woman, and even childless women in their forties earn 17 percent less than men. While eighty-two percent of French women aged 25–49 work, 82 percent of parliamentary seats are filled by men, despite a law complying political parties to have the same number of men and women candidates on their party lists. Parties have typically opted to pay the fines rather than oblige.

  • To read more about France’s gender wage gap at Legal Momentum’s blog, click here.
  • To learn more about the Global Gender Gap Index, click here.

Marital Rape and Historical Accuracy

The Washington Post recently featured a thought-provoking piece by historian Stephanie Coontz concerning television’s critically-acclaimed "Mad Men." Coontz explains that while historians usually deride historical fiction for its inaccuracies, most historians Coontz knows (herself included) adore "Mad Men," particularly for its attention to historical accuracy, down to the smallest 1960s details.

Recently, however, a few non-historian "Mad Men" critics have complained that the show exaggerates 1960s American sexism and the narrow range of choices available to women because of it. The character Joan Harris’s decision to marry her fiancé after he raped her, for example, riled many viewers, who wondered why she would ever marry (instead of prosecute) such a man. One critic complained, "[T]his year’s show takes place in 1965, not the stone age."

Coontz highlights and dismantles this criticism to underscore how few legal rights women had in the 1960s—especially when it came to intimate partner violence.

  • Read more from Legal Momentum on marital rape, historical accuracy, and "Mad Men" here.
  • Learn more about Legal Momentum’s National Judicial Education Program’s efforts to educate judges, attorneys, and other justice system professionals about the myths and misconceptions that undermine the fair adjudication of sexual assault cases here.