The 2013 presidential inauguration was a progressive call to action.
Our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on earth.
It's an ambitious agenda, but what will it take just to close the wage gap?
I'm Susan Barnett, and this is 51% the women's perspective.
When President Barack Obama took the oath of office for the second time,
he followed it with an address that signaled a clear focus on progressive issues.
It is now our generation's task to carry on what those pioneers began.
For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal
to their efforts.
Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.
For if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.
Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.
Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants
who still see America as a land of opportunity.
Until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.
Our journey is not complete until all our children from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the
quiet lands of Newtown know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.
That is our generation's task to make these words, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American.
Gun violence, gay rights, climate change, voting reform, immigration and equal pay.
It is a list of priorities that got the attention of conservatives across the country.
But let's break it down and look at just one issue, wage equity.
It is still an issue in America in 2013, 50 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act.
This year's Equal Pay Day is April 9th, symbolizing how far into 2013,
women have to work to earn what men earned in 2012.
A new study indicates women make just $0.77 to a dollar made by men and the numbers are even worse for women of color.
Sarah Crawford is director of Workplace Fairness at the National Partnership for Women in Families, which commissioned the study.
In fact, the gap has been stalled at $0.77 on the dollar for the last decade.
What we recently took a good heart look at is the particular pay gap for women of color in this country.
Latinas may be paid just $0.60 for every dollar paid to men.
$0.55 if you compare pay for Latinas to every dollar paid to white non-Hispanic men.
And for African-American women, they're bringing home just $0.70 on the dollar.
When you compare it to white non-Hispanic men, it's actually $0.64 on the dollar.
We also broke out the data for African-American women and Latino women in terms of the number of households
who may be affected. We found that more than 4 million African-American households are headed by women
and sadly nearly 40% of those households live below the poverty level.
So eliminating the pay gap would help to bring millions of families out of poverty.
We found that the pay gap of $14,000 each year for African-American women translates to
more than two years worth of food or 10 months worth of mortgage and utilities payments.
Three years worth of family health insurance premiums or 4,000 plus additional gallons of gas.
So this money could really make a difference for millions of working families.
So can you give me a little bit more background on how you come up with these numbers?
How do you compare to when I'm sure there's a huge disparity simply in the jobs that are available
to these women of color? That's right. And really we are just looking at Census Bureau data that
compares earnings of men and women in this country. And certainly there are a number of factors
that can explain that gap including job segregation which is a real problem in this country.
Women and women of color segregated in jobs that tend to be lower paying. But there's also
a significant part of the pay gap that really just can't be explained away by factors that you
might think would explain it like job or industry or education. And that's what particularly
concerns us and suggests that pay discrimination against women is alive and well.
And yet it's something that most people don't seem to get a handle on. People will get outraged
over certain injustices and this one is a clear there's an injustice here. What is it that doesn't
connect with people? The gap is so wide. Men in this country are at make a median salary of about
$48,000 compared to the median salary for Latinas is about $29,000 a year.
Is there a geographical element to this? Are there areas of the country where the gap is not as
big of a problem or is this endemic? Well what we found is that the pay gap is really endemic.
We did break out the pay gap for women of color in the states with the largest populations of
Latinas and African American women and we really found unfortunately that there are significant
pay gaps in those states. So for example for Latinas we found that in the states of Washington
and New Jersey women there bring home just 51 cents for every dollar paid to men in their states.
So they're making just about half of men for African American women we found that in Louisiana
Mississippi are the states with the largest gaps where women in those states African American women
bring home just 55 cents in Louisiana and 61 cents on the dollar in Mississippi. So those are the
states with the largest gaps but we found significant gaps in all of the states we looked at unfortunately.
And it doesn't seem like it's a problem that can be solved with one piece of legislation. I'm
sure there's an educational element in this training element there's there's a question of
what can you do for the the upcoming generation and then how do you make the current generation many
of these women I'm sure are the sole breadwinners in their homes and yet they're bringing in so little.
Is there is there a magic bullet for this or is this it's got to be a multi-pronged approach?
Well you're right there certainly is no one magic bullet here we certainly are emphasizing the
importance of the Paycheck Fairness Act but there are certainly many aspects of the problem education
as you mentioned is important but we certainly are advocating in support of the Paycheck Fairness
Act which provides a number of important provisions some people would be surprised to learn that
not all workers are protected from retaliation when they discuss pay in the workplace and
we find that employers that enforce pay secrecy policies are contributing to the problem of
of disparate pay in this country. And I know that there has been discussion that the president is
apparently going to try to push through things in an executive way in places where Congress may
not cooperate is there any kind of an executive order that can help this situation.
We certainly would like to see the administration take action to do what it can to address the
problem the president has put together an equal pay task force to study the problems and determine
what could be done. We believe that an executive order that ensures that taxpayer dollars are not
used to subsidize a lawful pay discrimination would help to address the problem.
The federal government ensures non-discrimination by federal contractors and we think pay
discrimination is certainly one important aspect of that mission. We think that employees of
federal contractors should not have to fear being fired for discussing their pay level with a
coworker to ensure that they are not being paid in a discriminatory manner.
We also broke out the data for African-American women and Latino women in terms of the number
of households who may be affected. We found that more than four million African-American households
are headed by women and family nearly 40 percent of those households live below the poverty level.
So eliminating the pay gap would help to bring millions of families out of poverty.
And we also studied the impact of the law's pay in terms of
of facility to pay their bills. So we found that the pay gap of of $14,000 each year for African
American women translates to more than two years worth of food or 10 months worth of mortgage
and utilities payments. Three years worth of family health insurance premiums or 4,000 plus
additional gallons of gas. So this money could really make a difference for millions of working
families. Sarah Crawford is director of workplace fairness at the National Partnership for Women
and Families. Want to educate yourself on the wage gap? Go to the National Committee on Pay
Equities website at pay-equity.org and also go to the National Partnership for Women and Families
website at nationalpartnership.org. Coming up a mission to understand the history and the impacts
of feminism. If you missed part of this show or want to hear it again, visit the 51 percent
archives at WAMC.org. This week's show is number 1230.
Women for Women International estimates that 70 percent of the world's poor are women.
70 percent of the casualties in recent global conflicts are women both during and after wars.
The World Health Organization reports that in 10 developing countries anywhere from 15 to 71
percent of women between the ages of 15 to 49 reported having experienced physical or sexual
violence by an intimate partner. In the US women are more likely to finish school and get a college
education, yet they will earn less than men. So why wouldn't you be a feminist? And yet it's a
term that makes many people uncomfortable. Film maker Jennifer Lee created her new film,
Feminist, Stories from Women's Liberation to try to understand.
As if it was something I should be ashamed of. And I was taken aback by it, but then when I answered
her to my surprise, I said, yes, I am a feminist and I whispered to because I kind of didn't want
people around me to hear. And I thought, now why is that? Why am I hiding from this word that
symbolizes a movement that did so much for us and for me personally. As a woman growing up in the
United States of America, I should be proud of this movement and proud of this word. So I started
to talk to her about why it was so important to be called a feminist, to call oneself a feminist,
and I realized I didn't have any examples to tell her. I had this vague idea in my head about
some marches in the 1970s and a few prominent feminists from the 60s, but I couldn't really tell her
exactly what had happened. And I thought that was a problem. I called up my mother and I said,
you know, just give me one example of what life was like before the women's liberation movement.
And she said, well, I remember having to look in the classified sections of the newspapers
under the female help wanted ads. And I had a vague recollection of that. And that was another kind
of click moment as feminists say that I realized I shouldn't have a vague memory of that. That should
be something that I know very well because it's a part of the history of the United States as it
applies to women specifically. And why the feminist movement or the women's liberation movement
happened. I think it's really important that we all feel proud to be a feminist, proud of
feminists from the past and proud of the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s
because like that movement, which is commonly called the second wave, the right to vote struggle
being the first wave, it never dies. But sometimes there are these peaks that come up where huge
shifts happen. And the women's liberation movement of the 60s and 70s was definitely a huge shift.
So when I look at women today, it's wonderful because they've inherited that revolution.
So we've taken all of these successes such as no more sex-segregated help wanted ads
in the newspapers. We now have rovers as way. We have reproductive rights. We have the right to
be a lawyer and wear pants in the courtroom. And we go to colleges and universities and we don't
expect to hear somebody from admissions say, well your grades are really great, but we've brought
in all the women we need for this class. And that was perfectly legal before the women's liberation
movement. We should be 51% of the power or at least 50%. You know, women absolutely have to be
represented in our Congress and in the Oval Office. And we have to be represented because women bring
a different perspective to the power table. We bring different ideas. And right now we're only 20%
of the Senate, which is a big jump. And it's been a huge success in this last election. And we are
17.9% in the House. But change happens at board tables and in politics when women are more
than 30%. 30% is the tipping point. That's where the debate starts to shift.
Jennifer Lee is a filmmaker. Feminist stories from women's liberation will be released this year.
Finally, we're all familiar with ninjas. Women we know lived by the samurai code in feudal Japan
just as men did. But did you know there were female ninjas? Jial Malkeen joins us with the story
of a mysterious woman who organized a secret female army 500 years ago. The Japanese have ancient
traditions revolving around many types of martial arts. From the samurai, the warrior class of the
old caste system, many of these arts have flourished into hundreds of schools of combat. Beyond any doubt,
the most secretive and underhanded of all was surely the Kinoichi, the sisterhood of secret
underworld female agents that plied the trades of intelligence, subversive multitasking, and designated
termination. The person who developed the idea of female agents did it simply because she found
herself in a particular position, was offered the job, was convinced it was legitimate and important,
and because hey, she turned out to be really good at it. From old Japan, in a time known as the
Warring States period, the tale of this figure, now faded in mystery, can be extrapolated from
stories and testimonies of a scant few sources, and perhaps the obscurity helps to send chills
up our spines. Her name was Chiomi, descended from the Koga clan, and lived in the period of the late
1500s. She was the wife of the samurai warlord of the Takeda clan who was killed in battle in 1561.
Chiomi was left in the care of his uncle, Shingen Takeda. He approached her with the idea of creating
a secret army of females who would gather information and report back what they overheard in places
they could penetrate as spies. Chiomi agreed and set out to make it happen. These Kinoichi agents
were female ninja, rigorously trained to stay anonymous and carry out secret work for their
masters while working in various menial positions. Due to the ravages of the civil wars of the
era, many young women and girls had been left destitute, lost, orphaned, abandoned,
some had become prostitutes, many were homeless. Perfect recruits for Chiomi's minions,
they were rescued and taught to cleave to her and remain her lifelong loyal servants.
They were kept close and continually reminded of their origins, keeping their perspective
upon gratitude to Chiomi. Locals assumed Chiomi simply ran a school for wayward girls and they
were totally unaware of the purpose to which these girls were acidiously being prepared.
At the height of her power, Chiomi is said to have amassed a force of 250 Kinoichi agents that
reported to her and to Uncle Shingen. Chiomi's agents were concealed in the guise of Miko,
religious shrine attendants, nuns or priestesses assumed to be totally harmless and given
passage into all sorts of situations. They were taught the religious rights and texts,
so as to be able to pass as the genuine article. They were also taught disguise and the arts
of charming men into divulging their secrets, no matter how far they had to go.
The primary skill of the Kinoichi was that of stealth. They could report on the state of food
provisions or silently slit the throat of a sleeping general. They delivered messages,
spread rumors and quietly wreaked havoc using the subtle ways in which women can disguise their
purposes with the illusion of weakness in which they were also taught and trained. They could infiltrate
enemy populations, recogniter and report on defenses. They ghosted in and out of enemy strongholds
and carried out gory midnight missions. Under the guise of ordinary citizens, they came and went
as they wished through castle walls or straight in through the gates. Their credo was one of ingenuity
and resourcefulness in the field, carrying tools that could serve as weapons and weapons that
could serve as tools. They had expertise in their various professional skills like medicine and
pharmacy, including the use of poisons, and in all facets of survival skills and could improvise
ways of staying undetected in any situation. They were characterized as able to walk on water,
and they actually did so using broadened shoes made of light wood that provided a certain degree
of buoyancy. They worked alone or in teams as directed by their masters, and in battle were
sometimes known to fight in the enemy's own garb to cause confusion. One good trick was to
replicate the enemy's particular design of lanterns so as to pass as friendly at night.
As they were women, Chiomis rates were able to infiltrate families as well as villages,
and come and go as unnoticed as the breeze. Their success was unparalleled and served the clan
effectively until Schingen's death in 1573. Thank you for listening. For 51% and women in history,
I'm Zeal Malkeen. Zeal Malkeen is a writer and musician. He lives in New York's Cat Skill Mountains.
That's our show for this week. Thanks to Katie Britain for Production Assistance. Our theme
music is by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio. Our
executive producer is Dr. Alan Shartock. If you'd like to hear this show again or visit the 51%
Archives, go to our website at wamc.org. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll be back next week
with another edition of 51% the Women's Perspective.
