Q: Who was the first American First Lady to run for public office?
A: Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first U.S. First Lady to run for office when she ran for U.S. Senate in 2000.
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Women's History Month Q&A of the Day – March 9, 2012
Q: Which celebrated singer began performing at such a young age that she was nicknamed “The Baby Contralto?” One of her most famous performances was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939.
A: Marian Anderson’s musical career began quite early, at Union Baptist Church in South Philadelphia. She joined the choir at age six. Before long, she was nicknamed “The Baby Contralto.” When she was eight, her father bought a piano from his brother, but they could not afford any lessons so Marian taught herself. In 1939, Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Anderson to sing before an integrated audience at Constitution Hall in DC. President and First Lady Roosevelt and Walter White of the NAACP persuaded the Secretary of the Interior to allow Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial instead. An integrated audience of 75,000 attended the concert and millions more listened on the radio.
Women's History Month Q&A of the Day – March 8, 2012
Q: Who is the German Marxist credited with organizing the very first International Women’s Day?
A: Clara Zetkin fought for women’s rights and was active in politics throughout her life. 101 years ago, she organized the first International Women’s Day.
International Women's Day – Celebrating the Impact of Women on the World
It is 5:00 am and one of the largest open markets in Ghana – Makola – is already inundated with hardworking traders. They are mostly women and they all have one big expectation in mind as they embark on their daily journey to this market: economic security. It is their greatest desire to secure a financial framework that will allow them to provide food, shelter, education and other basic necessities of life for their families. In a patriarchal society such as Ghana, where women and girls are constantly marginalized, their ability to exhibit their entrepreneurial skills by engaging in different types of business ventures provides them a level playing field with their male counterparts in society.
In Ghana and many other developing countries across Africa, women are not hesitant to exhibit themselves as savvy business people as they conduct transactions in the market place. On a daily basis, these market women engage in a great deal of advertising and selling of their products. Some women creatively arrange their products on a wooden pallet and carry it on their heads, parading through every corner of the market. You will also find women in shared spaces where they openly bargain with customers, sell their products, and make profits. There is also the category of women that own and manage their own shops within the market area.
My mother is one of the women who owns a shop. Her desire to become an entrepreneur began at an early age. As a teenager, once she got off school, she would stack her wooden pallet with handfuls of roasted groundnuts (peanuts), wrapped in pieces of old newspapers, layered with white paper. She would then navigate her way through the neighborhood, selling them to her loyal customers and other passersby. My grandmother beams with joy and with such great pride every time she recounts stories of my mother’s loyal customers’ adoration of her hardworking spirit and desire to be economically independent at that tender age. In addition to the fact that people were fond of her, she was also known for her fearless attitude towards the bullies who tried to steal her groundnuts or bought on credit and attempted to elude her when it came time to pay. This fearless attitude earned her the nick name asem be si which translates to “no nonsense.” This nickname remained her moniker throughout her adult years as she became a savvy and respected business woman among her peers.
Over the years, my siblings and I saw my mother rise through the ranks, from sharing spaces in the market area to owning her own shop. She eventually became the sole distributor in Ghana of Sure deodorant for a British company. With her economic success came many opportunities for both herself and her family. Her economic security allowed her to be assertive at home, especially when it came to making decisions with my father about the future of my siblings and me. Her invaluable input enriched the choices that she and my father offered me and my three siblings from childhood through adulthood. One very significant example was my mother’s success at convincing my father (who was very protective of us, especially his three girls) to allow us to go study in the West since there were limited options in the universities in our home country. My siblings and I are forever grateful for the opportunity of experiencing the best of both worlds. The experience has molded us into the responsible dual citizens that we are today.
As I write this blog post in celebration of International Women’s Day, I am overwhelmed with a deep appreciation for women like my mother whose persistence to be economically independent has enriched their lives and their family. Her desire, commitment and dedication are replicated all over the world, including here in the DC region. I am strongly convinced that by working for Washington Area Women’s Foundation, which focuses on ensuring economic security for women and girls in the Washington DC area and beyond, I honor my mother and all the women around the world who strive every day to remain economically independent. To all of them, I say AYEKOO! (Well Done!)
Julliet Boye is the development associate at Washington Area Women’s Foundation.
Women's History Month Q&A of the Day – March 7, 2012
Q: Who is the suffragist who wrote the first equal rights amendment presented to the U.S. Congress in 1923?
A: Alice Paul spent her life advocating for women’s rights. She faced incarceration, went on hunger strikes and participated in non-violent civil disobedience campaigns. She was the author of the original Equal Rights Amendment which was finally passed by both houses of Congress in 1972. However, the ERA expired in 1982 because it failed to meet the required number of state ratifications. Paul’s legacy is seen in ERAs adopted into many states’ constitutions and the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Paul is scheduled to appear later this year on a U.S. half-ounce $10 gold coin.
Tipped Over the Edge
More than 20 years ago, the federal minimum wage for workers in tipped occupations was raised to $2.13 an hour. In the two decades since, it has not budged. The cost of living has risen, the economy has reached unprecedented highs and lows, and the restaurant industry has earned billions in profits. But servers employed by those restaurants continue to earn the same abysmally low wages.
A new report from Restaurant Opportunities Center-United (ROC-United) details the “subminimum” wages that servers earn and presents detailed information on additional “unjust conditions” in the industry. “Tipped Over the Edge – Gender Inequity in the Restaurant Industry” was recently unveiled by ROC’s local chapter. ROC-DC is a Grantee Partner of Washington Area Women’s Foundation.
Sixty-six percent of tipped restaurant workers are women, according to the report, and there are a number of additional factors that make this type of work particularly challenging for them. Gender pay inequity, lack of health care and paid sick leave, sexual harassment, and not being able to control a schedule are practices that are accepted throughout the industry that ROC hopes to change.
At the unveiling of the report, ROC staff shared some pretty shocking facts:
- Restaurant servers use food stamps at double the rate of others.
- A woman’s median income in the industry is $17,000/year.
- Black women earn 60% of their male counterparts’ income and earn $400,000 less over their lifetimes because of the gender pay gap.
- More than one in ten restaurant workers are single mothers with children under the age of 18 living with them.
- 70 percent of women restaurant workers reported that they went to work when they were sick.
- Last year, 37 percent of all sexual harassment charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission came from the restaurant industry.
The facts paint a worrisome picture. The women who are serving our food may not be able to afford food themselves. They work long hours and show up even when they’re sick out of fear of losing their jobs. They face gender and racial discrimination and work in an industry where one worker calls sexual harassment “…inevitable. If it’s not verbal assault, someone wants to rub up against you.”
Congress member Donna Edwards (D-MD) participated in the release of ROC’s survey and has introduced legislation in Congress to raise the federal minimum wage for tipped workers.
“We should be embarrassed that we have people working for $2.13 an hour,” she said at the release of the report. “We want the restaurant industry to make all they can, but they can’t do it on the backs of workers.”
According to ROC, there are many successful restaurants that offer employees higher wages, paid sick leave, and other benefits. Joining ROC-DC at the local release of the report was Barbara Sibley, the owner of New York City’s La Palapa Cocina Mexicana. La Palapa is recognized by ROC as a “High-Road Restaurant” for promoting sustainable best practices that positively impact the wages and benefits of employees. There are a number of DC-area restaurants that are also High-Road members.
But restaurant owners aren’t the only ones who can have an impact on the industry. In fact, all diners can use the power of their voices and wallets to ensure that their favorite eateries are treating their employees well. ROC suggests contacting your representative in Congress about supporting the wages act. The organization also recently released a Diners’ Guide that will give you an idea of the pay and benefits that employees of specific restaurants receive. And you can click here to familiarize yourself with industry standards and conditions outlined in ROC’s report.
When you go out to eat, are you aware of the working conditions in the restaurant? Would more knowledge change where you eat or how you tip? Share your answers in the comments below!
Photo credit: Star5112 via Creative Commons
Women's History Month Q&A of the Day – March 6, 2012
Q: Which Russian-born writer is credited for developing the philosophical system known as “objectivism?” It was the subject of one of her two best-selling novels.
A: Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, screenwriter and playwright best known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. The latter novel was Rand’s final work of fiction and the start of her role as a philosopher. She created Objectivism, a philosophy grounded in reality and aimed at defining human nature and the world in which we live, according to Wikipedia.com. Rand died on this date in 1982.
Women's History Month Q&A of the Day – March 2, 2012
Back by popular demand: the Women’s History Month Q&A of the Day. Check us out every weekday morning during Women’s History Month for a new question. The answer will be posted in the afternoon. Leave your guess in the comments section (no Googling!).
Q: This healthcare professional and statistician was nicknamed “The Lady With the Lamp” because she made her rounds at night. Who was this pioneer who saved wounded soldiers through nursing and advocacy?
A: Florence Nightingale believed her career in nursing was God’s calling. Known as “The Lady With the Lamp” because she tended wounded soldiers at night during the Crimean War, Nightingale laid the foundation for professional nursing.
Women's History Month Q&A of the Day – March 2, 2012
Back by popular demand: the Women’s History Month Q&A of the Day. Check us out every weekday morning during Women’s History Month for a new question. The answer will be posted in the afternoon. Leave your guess in the comments section (no Googling!).
Q: This healthcare professional and statistician was nicknamed “The Lady With the Lamp” because she made her rounds at night. Who was this pioneer who saved wounded soldiers through nursing and advocacy?
The Not-So-Secret Life of the Montgomery County Teenager
Adults like to reminisce about being teens. We get all nostalgic about high school and social events and old classmates. And then we shake ourselves out of our nostalgic day dreams and promise current teenagers that, as hard as those transformative years are, they’ll be adults soon enough. That promise of teen age survival was the beginning of a conversation earlier this week that was presented by Crittenton Services of Greater Washington, a Washington Area Women’s Foundation Grantee Partner. Part of Crittenton’s “Talk With a Teen Girl Today” campaign, the dialogue featured young women from Montgomery County high schools who were discussing the results of a recent survey.
NBC4’s Pat Lawson Muse moderated the conversation and opened it up by telling the young panelists, “good news: you’ll survive your teens.” It was a reassuring note to start on, but the more I listened to the young women speak, the more I got the impression that they wanted to do more than simply survive being teens; they seemed to view their high school years as an opportunity to build a solid foundation to become thriving adults.
About the Survey
The survey participants (all between the ages of 13 and 19) were given 15 topics and were asked to rate them as being a “very big problem,” “somewhat of a problem,” “not much of a problem,” and “not a problem at all.” Here are the topics in the order of most problematic to least problematic based on the survey results:
1. Not being able to eat healthy at school
2. Fights among young people
3. Getting pregnant before graduating from high school
4. Not being listened to by adults at home
5. Being considered unattractive unless you look like a supermodel
6. Being thought of as a sexual object
7. Not being valued by adults
8. Teachers not caring about you
9. Getting Sexually Transmitted Infections or HIV
10. Not having anyone to care what happens to you
11. Being labeled or put down because of your race/ethnicity or color
12. Teen dating violence
12. Being frightened at school or on the street
12. Teachers or counselors thinking you are going to be a failure
13. Violence at home
The “Talk With a Teen Girl Today” panelists weren’t able to get to every topic, but they were able to enlighten the audience on some of the points.
On Eating Healthy at School
Some of the young women agreed that the food served in their school cafeteria is worse in quality than fast food restaurants. They want more salad options at school, although they admitted that they didn’t often eat salad at home. One teen said that she often eats breakfast and lunch at school, and if both of those meals are “bad,” she feels weak before the school day is over.
On Violence Among Young People
Physical altercations between girls was a major concern for all of the panelists. They agreed that fighting was not a good way to work out problems, but some said they were lacking opportunities to resolve conflicts before they escalated to fights. One person said fighting was a way to relieve stress, another said classmates often instigate fights. They agreed that girls are more likely to fight one another than boys are.
When the moderator asked them about dating violence, the panelists identified it as a major concern and said they needed adults to be more open to explaining how to be a good partner in a relationship. They told us that many parents don’t talk about relationship problems unless they’re asked, and some won’t answer questions because they don’t think that their daughters should be in relationships.
“Parents aren’t ready to accept that their little girl is dating,” one panelist said.
On Sex, STIs and HIV
One young woman advocated for abstinence, no matter how girls might want boys to feel about them. “If you wanna be respected, no is the right answer,” she said. “Boys are always gonna come at you… just say no.”
Another young woman said that, too often, the responsibility for making decisions related to contraception, protection and sex falls on the shoulders of girls. “I believe it’s better to talk to both sides [about safe sex],” she said. “Guys play a role in it, too!”
On Pregnancy and Sexuality
In Montgomery County between 2007 and 2010, the birthrate for girls was 40 per 1,000 for Latinas; 15 per 1,000 for African Americans; and 11 per 1,000 for whites. One panelist worried that not enough young women have access to programs like Crittenton Services. She believes that similar programs focused on support, enrichment and health would bring the teen pregnancy rate down.
The discussion on pregnancy led to one on sexuality, and the young women had some disheartening things to say about how they’re portrayed by the media, especially in songs and music videos. “The music industry has a big impact on girls and their sexuality,” one panelist said.
She added: They treat women like sex objects – like we’re property.
The depth and breadth of this conversation are an indication that our community has a lot of work to do. It’s time for adults to learn what it’s like to be a teenager in 2012, and figure out how to support teens so that they can become successful leaders in the coming years. According to Crittenton Services, we can all help by being “NICE” (Notice her. Interact. Connect. Every day.).
You can learn more about the Talk With a Teen Girl Today campaign by clicking here.
What did you think of the teens’ biggest concerns? Were you surprised by any of the survey results? If you’re a teen, what’s your biggest concern? Let us know in the comments below!