>>Women's Work

"Never doubt that a small number of committed people can change the world; indeed it's all that ever has." Margaret Mead, Anthropologist

When discussing the topic of Women's Issues, there are limitless subjects upon which one could choose to focus. There are the social, political, spiritual, and economical aspects; just to name a few. Additionally, there are local, regional, national, and global perspectives. The most trying task is deciding what absolutely must be included, and what can reasonably be left out.

One area of great concern is the matter of financial equity. There are often repeated statistics that seem to indicate a wage disparity, between males and females. While figures do vary, the US Census Bureau reports that, women earn approximately 71.4 cents for every dollar that a man earns. (1) Reasons that have been advanced, in an effort to explain the seeming discrepancy, include: women gravitate to lower paying fields, such as teaching; women are less likely to be college educated, though now, more women are entering and completing college; and women have disruptions in their careers due to bearing children.

Even jobs with comparable requirements for responsibilities, skills, and education tend to pay women in the same field less than the men. On the AFL-CIO sponsored web site cited below (2), the case is exemplified by the pay differential between the predominantly male dominated position of stock and inventory clerk, which pays $470.00 weekly and the female dominated general office clerk who is likely to earn $361.00 weekly.

"The public world continues to be a place where men are most obviously in charge, holding most of the visible positions of eminence and high status. Despite many years of challenges and resistance to this pattern of male dominance, stubborn interlocking patterns of our social and economic lives continue to conspire to reinforce it and keep it in place…According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics women make up two-thirds of all minimum wage-earners, and during 1998, women in the United States earned 76 cents for every dollar earned by men. At the managerial level, the wage gap is greater and most noticeable for women of color. At this level, white women earned 74 cents for every dollar earned by men, Asian-American women earned 67 cents, African-American women earned 58 cents, and Hispanic women earned 48 cents." (3)

For women of color, the issue appears to be even more acute, as evidenced by the following graphic representation:

(4)

It would seem patently obvious that the social and economic disparity produced by an aberrant "rising tide" economy exacts a human toll far in excess of its benefits. To consider the economic payoffs of surefire moneymakers such as: child labor, slavery and indentured laborers, a devastated eco-system, scapegoating, ad nauseam, is to wonder at the folly of humankind. One of the more unfortunate rationalizations for maintaining the status quo is the unlikely hope that a majority is better off because of the unrestrained profit motive; this despite the fact the World Bank estimated that in 1998 1.2 billion people world-wide had consumption levels below $1 a day - 24 percent of the population of the developing world - and 2.8 billion lived on less than $2 a day. Women and children are, of course, disproportionately represented among the world's poor.

(1) Retrieved from the World wide web, on June 24, 2002, at:
http://www.aflcio.org/women/f_around.htm.

(2) Retrieved from the World Wide Web, on June 24, 2002, at:
http://www.aflcio.org/women/why_less.htm.

(3) From a Keynote Address, by Hilary M. Lips, presented at the Northern Regional Seminar, National Council of Women of New Zealand. Theme: "Women and Economic Development" Mid-Term Council Meeting of the New Zealand Federation of University Women Auckland-March, 1999.

(4) Retrieved from the World Wide Web, on June 24, 2002, at:
http://www.aflcio.org/women/f_color.htm.