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State of Women Summit
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Companies Pledge to Review Pay to Address Inequalities
Jun 13, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Janet Adamy
More than two dozen companies including Amazon.com Inc., PepsiCo Inc. and Dow Chemical Co. have signed a White House pledge to conduct an annual gender pay analysis aimed at eliminating inequitable compensation, the Obama administration said Monday. The 28 companies agreed to review their hiring and promotion processes and embed equal-pay efforts in other workplace initiatives. -
Bloomberg Go Alex Gorsky Interview
Jun 14, 2016 | Bloomberg
View clip here: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/23066196?token=acb87744-9130-4d3d-b058-a1fbf5f19dbe -
28 Companies Sign On White House Equal Pay Pledge
Jun 14, 2016 | RttNews
By Staff Writer
Tuesday, highlighting the critical role that businesses must play in reducing the national gender pay gap, the White House will announce a new private sector engagement, called the White House Equal Pay Pledge, for companies who share this commitment. -
Another Study Shows Little Progress Getting Women on Boards
Jun 14, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Rachel Feintzeig
WASHINGTON—More than two dozen companies including Amazon.com Inc., PepsiCo Inc. and Dow Chemical Co. have signed a White House pledge to conduct an annual gender pay analysis aimed at eliminating inequitable compensation, the Obama administration said Monday. -
L'Oréal, Gap, and Amazon Sign the White House Equal Pay Pledge
Jun 14, 2016 | Racked
By Adele Chapin
Today is the United States of Women White House Summit, a rallying cry for gender equality. There's a huge list of speakers, including famous faces like Oprah Winfrey, Kerry Washington, Shonda Rhimes, Amy Poehler, and Mariska Hargitay. President Obama gave an inspiring speech in which he referred to himself as a "feminist"; and later on today, Michelle Obama and Oprah will join in conversation on the topic (follow along here with the live stream). -
PAY GAP: These 28 companies just made a big commitment to equal pay
Jun 14, 2016 | Denver Business Journal
By Mary Johnson
Twenty-eight high-profile companies — including Amazon, PepsiCo and Dow Chemical — have signed a White House pledge to tackle pay inequity within their own organizations. -
Message from women's summit: More needs to be done
Jun 14, 2016 | USA Today
By Ryan W Miller
Despite progress made on gender equality, much work remains: That was the bottom line from a first-ever women's summit held Tuesday. -
Amazon, Airbnb and Dozens of Other Companies Pledge to Address Gender Pay Gap
| Time
By Alicia Adamczyk
Over the past eight years, the Obama administration has fought aggressively against the persistent gender pay gap in the country, contending that women should no longer earn just 78 cents, on average, for the man’s dollar for the same work. Now, some of the largest companies in the U.S. are taking it upon themselves to address the pay gap in their own ranks. -
Obama says women and girls have made great strides in the nearly eight years he's held office, but more to do
Jun 14, 2016 | Associated Press
By Darlene Superville
President Barack Obama said Tuesday that women and girls have made great strides in the nearly eight years he's held office, but asserted that they can claim even more progress if society would cast aside long-held stereotypes about the way men and women should behave. -
Equal Pay Pledge signed by two cosmetics and personal care companies
Jun 15, 2016 | Cosmeticsdesign.com
By Deanna Utroske
Yesterday The White House announced the initiative, “highlighting the critical role that businesses must play in reducing the national gender pay gap” and encouraging private sector companies to commit to steps that will ensure women and men earn equal pay for equal work. -
REBECCA MINKOFF, STELLA MCCARTNEY AND MORE SIGN EQUAL PAY PLEDGE
Jun 15, 2016 | The Hollywood Reporter
By Kathryn Romeyn
Rebecca Minkoff and Stella McCartneyare standing up for women. The fashion designers are two of the boldfaced names who with their brands have signed the White House Equal Pay Pledge, an initiative announced at the United State of Women Summit. -
Post Politics In push for gender equality, Obamas host United State of Women Summit Tuesday
Jun 14, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
More than two dozen companies — including Airbnb, Amazon, American Airlines, Dow Chemical and Pepsico — have agreed to undertake a yearly company-wide gender pay analysis as part of Tuesday’s first-ever United State of Women Summit in Washington. -
Glass ceiling: Women hold only one of five board positions
Jun 14, 2016 | USA Today
By Kimiya Manoochehri
The 2015 Catalyst Census is being presented for the first time on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. at the U.S. of Women. The summit is rallying together women to celebrate past achievements and future opportunities related to key gender equality issues. -
We Need A New Approach To The #StateofWomen
Jun 14, 2016 | Forbes
By Carrie Lukas
Today, the White House is holding a summit to discuss the challenges facing women in the United States, and encouraging the public to use the #StateofWomen hashtag to follow the events. Certainly, there is plenty to talk about: Too many American women are struggling to make ends meet as prices for everyday necessities rise. Too many can’t find jobs that put them on their desired career path and have trouble balancing work and family. Many would-be female entrepreneurs are finding their dreams snarled in red tape before they can even get started. -
Women’s Rights Groups Criticize Obama For ‘Excuses And Silence’ On Abortion Policy
Jun 14, 2016 | Huffington Post
By Laura Bassett
As President Barack Obama celebrated his legacy on women’s rights at the United State of Women White House summit on Tuesday, reproductive and human rights advocates gathered outside the event to demand his action on abortion access for women raped in conflict. -
Kerry Washington to domestic violence victims: 'There is a way out'
Jun 14, 2016 | CNN
By Chloe Melas
Kerry Washington has a message for women who feel trapped in an abusive relationship: "There is a way out." The star of ABC's "Scandal" is partnering with the Purple Purse campaign, sponsored by Allstate Insurance, to launch their #FreetoWalk initiative. Today Washington is taking her message to the White House where she will speak at the United State of Women Summit, and meet with First Lady, Michelle Obama. Violence against women and the importance of female financial independence are the primary focus the summit. -
The preschool pay gap
Jun 14, 2016 | Politico
By Michael Stratford
Only relevant portions included--politico morning roundup on the issue of the preschool pay gap as women are often preschool teachers and are paid very little. -
Anti-discrimination rule out today
Jun 14, 2016 | Politico
By Marianne Levine
This is Morning Shift, POLITICO's daily tipsheet on labor and employment policy: only relevant portions included -
It Doesn't Pay To Be An Early Childhood Teacher
Jun 14, 2016 | NPR
By Elissa Nadworny
Why would she teach preschool when she could make a heck of a lot more money teaching kindergarten? It's a question I've heard over and over again reporting on education. In some places, we pay early childhood education less than fast food workers, less than tree trimmers. As a country, we've acknowledged the importance of early learning and yet, when you look at what we pay those educators, it doesn't add up. -
At White House staff picnic, Biden says, seven women told him they’d been raped
Jun 14, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
Speaking at the United State of Women summit in Washington on Tuesday, Vice President Biden said that seven women he met on a rope line at a White House picnic Monday told him they had been raped. -
These eight major companies still have no women on the board
Jun 14, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Jena McGregor
The White House is convening its United State of Women Summit on Tuesday morning to rally attention around gender equality issues. But when it comes to corporate boards of directors, the state of women isn't all that encouraging. -
Watch Live: President Obama and Michelle Obama Speak at United State of Women Summit
Jun 14, 2016 | Time
By Emma Ockerman
The United State of Women Summit will be live-streaming from The White House Tuesday, with speakers ranging from President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama to advocates for women and celebrities such as Amy Poehler. -
Biden calls for cultural change to halt violence against women
Jun 14, 2016 | USA Today
By Ryan W Miller
At the inaugural White House Summit on the United State of Women on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden called for a cultural change to address the underlying societal issues that promote violence against women. -
See What Life Was Once Like for Women in Washington, D.C.
Jun 14, 2016 | Time
By Eliza Berman, Liz Ronk
When Gayle Quisenberry arrived in Washington, D.C. in the early 1960s, she had already lived through a minor scandal: during her junior year at Goucher College, the Long Island native had moved to Lagos, Nigeria, under the auspices of the Experiment in International Living. As her daughter Leyla Sharabi tells TIME, “The whole social circle [her family] moved in—this was just not done. She was in the newspaper.” -
Joe Biden: ‘Sex without consent is rape. Full-stop.’
| CNN
Vice President Joe Biden delivered an impassioned speech on rape culture and violence against women on Tuesday at the White House’s first-ever United State of Women Summit. -
Joe Biden to Men: If You Do Nothing to Stop Rape, You're an Accomplice
Jun 14, 2016 | Fortune
By Valentina Zarya
Kicking off a plenary on violence against women at the White House’s United State of Women summit on Tuesday morning, the U.S. Vice President urged the audience to “get men involved!” -
Michelle Obama hints at post-White House plans
Jun 15, 2016 | Politico
By Louis Nelson
Michelle Obama gave a rare hint at her future plans during a women’s summit on Tuesday night, saying she intends to extend her global advocacy for girls’ education beyond her husband’s stay in the White House. -
Microsoft feels burned by joint employer standard
Jun 15, 2016 | Politico
By Brian Mahoney
Relevant Material: EEOC ISSUES FACT SHEETS ON EQUAL PAY, PREGNANCY DISCRIMINATION: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released documents Tuesday that outline equal employment rights for women in the workplace, coinciding with the White House United State of Women summit. The documents detail equal pay rules and the EEOC’s new proposal to collect compensation data from companies; pregnant workers’ legal rights under federal law; and tips for healthcare providers on helping patients deal with pregnancy-related issues at work. -
OFCCP Finalizes Federal Contractor Sex Bias Rules
Jun 15, 2016 | Bloomberg BNA
By Jay-Anne B. Casuga
June 14 — The Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has finalized revisions to federal contractor sex discrimination rules that haven't been updated in more than 40 years, the agency announced. -
Feds recommend death penalty for for-profit college accreditor
Jun 15, 2016 | Politico
By Michael Stratfrd
Relevant Material: LET GIRLS LEARN CONTINUES TO EXPAND: First Lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday announced more than $20 million in new commitments to Let Girls Learn, which aims to increase girls' access to education worldwide. The new commitments came during the White House's first-ever United State of Women Summit, where community leaders and activists met to talk about educational opportunity as a key gender-equality issue. -
Michelle Obama Has The Best Advice For Shutting Down The Haters
Jun 15, 2016 | Huffington Post
By Sam Levine
During a conversation with Oprah Winfrey at the United State of Women summit in Washington on Tuesday, the first lady said she’s learned to tune out people who criticize her online. -
Michelle Obama Reveals That Yes, President Obama Has Always Been ‘Swagalicious’
| Huffington Post
By Sam Levine
Even though she’s been in the White House for a while, there are still moments when first lady Michelle Obama can’t believe what she’s experiencing. Those moments have included watching her daughters and mother meet Pope Francis, having dinner with the Queen of England and watching Prince and Stevie Wonder perform at the White House, she told Oprah Winfrey at the United State of Women summit in Washington on Tuesday during a conversation focused on gender equality. -
Warren Buffett Advocates For Women In Business At White House Summit On Women
Jun 15, 2016 | Forbes
By Emma Goldberg
Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B +%, whose net worth Forbes estimates at $66.3 billion, is widely known for his philanthropy. Tuesday’s United State of Women Summit, organized by the White House, brought into focus Buffett’s work on women’s issues, especially opening economic opportunities for women. -
Kerry Washington Had To Block A Lot Of Twitter Trolls After Abortion Episode Of ‘Scandal’
Jun 15, 2016 | The Huffington Post
By Laura Bassett
When Kerry Washington’s character on the primetime political drama “Scandal” chose to have an abortion without shame or regret last year, the actress says she faced a backlash on social media. But she doesn’t put up with trolls for very long. -
Obama: "This is what a feminist looks like"
Jun 14, 2016 | Reuters
View clip here: http://www.reuters.com/video/2016/06/14/obama-this-is-what-a-feminist-looks-like?videoId=368920743
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Companies Pledge to Review Pay to Address Inequalities
Jun 13, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Janet Adamy
WASHINGTON—More than two dozen companies including Amazon.com Inc., PepsiCo Inc. and Dow Chemical Co. have signed a White House pledge to conduct an annual gender pay analysis aimed at eliminating inequitable compensation, the Obama administration said Monday.
The 28 companies agreed to review their hiring and promotion processes and embed equal-pay efforts in other workplace initiatives.
The companies also include Accenture PLC, American Airlines Group Inc., Cisco SystemsInc., Deloitte, Expedia Inc., Gap Inc., Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal USA and Staples Inc.,the White House said.
“The pledge is to actually take action,” said Tina Tchen, executive director for the White House’s Council on Women and Girls.
The Labor Department also is updating guidelines for federal contractors on protecting against sex discrimination for the first time since the 1970s. The changes included adding protections for transgendered individuals.
The efforts are part of a major White House summit on women and girls Tuesday that is drawing thousands of people to Washington.
The summit will frame President Barack Obama’s two terms as a time of notable progress for women because the president expanded health-care coverage, signed a pay-equity bill and campaigned against sexual violence toward women, among other things.
Officials will emphasize that more progress needs to be made to lift women economically and socially, playing into one of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s primary messages to voters this year.
Mr. Obama has made improving women’s financial standing a key plank of his White House agenda, emphasizing in speeches that he wants a fairer workplace for his two daughters. Economists and policy makers who support him say his repeated calls for workplace flexibility helped to drive a wave of cultural change inside offices nationwide. The impact of that campaign may exceed that of his few legislative victories on women’s issues.Advertisement
“President Obama was the first president that came into office understanding the relationship between women and work and families, and work fundamentally changed,” said Betsey Stevenson, who served as chief economist at the Labor Department and an economic adviser to the Obama White House. She recalls opting out of a trip with the president so she could take her kindergartner daughter trick or treating-on-Halloween, a decision made easier by Mr. Obama’s call for more family-friendly schedules inside a White House that demands long hours.
Broad measures of women’s economic success remain stubbornly low. Female labor-force participation, which peaked in 1999, has declined further since Mr. Obama took office, falling to 57% in 2014 from 59.2% in 2009, Labor Department figures show. Women working full time on average earn 79% of what men do, just slightly more than at the start of this administration.
A handful of female-friendly policies were part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, including a ban on insurers charging women higher premiums, and a requirement that employers cover contraception without charging a copayment. The first bill Mr. Obama signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which widened the time window in which to file gender pay discrimination complaints.
The administration also extended the minimum wage and overtime pay to nearly two million workers in the home health-care industry, a boost for women since they hold most of those jobs. It raised the minimum wage for workers at federal contractors to $10.10 an hour, part of a broader campaign aimed at lifting the federal minimum wage, which is earned by more women than men.
Many of the administration’s legislative efforts on the workplace and economy–such as expanding paid family leave and raising the minimum wage for all workers–died as Republicans took control of one, then both, chambers of Congress. The White House turned to executive actions, such as a recent rule that will require large employers to report salary data by gender.
“Even using all the tools at their disposal, the administration alone can’t get things done,” said Victoria A. Budson, executive director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, who gives the administration an “A” grade for its progress.
Asked why fewer women are working today, Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said women’s lagging pay and the lack of paid leave continue to dissuade them.
Ms. Stevenson, now an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, said that women bore the brunt of post-recession state and local government job cuts that accelerated at the beginning of this decade. Others noted that men’s wages and employment as well haven’t fully rebounded since the recession.
Republicans say that the administration’s moves to expand health care and promote equal pay saddled employers with regulations that work against women. Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said that when she travels her state talking to women, some tell her they are taking second jobs selling cosmetics because they can’t get a raise at the office. “I don’t think that they’ve made any significant changes” to improve women’s financial standing, Ms. Blackburn said of the White House.
Liberals are critical of the Obama administration for not going far enough on some issues, including advocating for abortion rights, said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women.
But Ms. O’Neill is already looking ahead to the implications of a potential victory by Mrs. Clinton. “She is unabashedly pro-woman,” she said. “We need someone who looks at economic issues with a gender lens.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-pledge-to-review-pay-to-address-inequalities-1465855517?cb=logged0.16482641485311067
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Bloomberg Go Alex Gorsky Interview
Jun 14, 2016 | Bloomberg
View clip here: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/23066196?token=acb87744-9130-4d3d-b058-a1fbf5f19dbe
Rough Transcript: let's get to david westin and two of his special guest. david: we do have two special guest. valerie jarrett and alex gorsky. thank you both for joining us. valerie, let a start with you. it strikes me this is the first ever white house council on women. why now and why is this important? valerie: women and girls are important to society and we wanted to make sure from day one that we were focusing all of our projects and policies on ways that we could improve the quality of life for women and girls. seven and a half years in we thought it would be an important opportunity to reflect back on our progress and look at the work that lies ahead. we have six months left in the obama administration and we want to galvanize many of the folks who have been working for us. they have been terrific partners , and focus on what more we can do to provide every young girl the equal opportunity to compete and achieve her dreams. david: take us back over the last seven years or so of the obama administration. what are the things you have accomplished that you think are most important and what is left to be done? valerie: in march of the president's first year in office he created the presidential council. it has representatives from every federal agency charged with focusing on women and girls. the first bill he signed was the lily ledbetter pay act to make sure women are each key -- making equal pay. women are still only earning $.79 on the dollar and we want to focus on how to continue to close that gap working with country -- companies such as johnson & johnson, equal pay, raising the minimum wage, paid leave and sick days, affordable childcare, these are all issues that are so important to working families so we will put this light on that. we have done an enormous amount to reduce violence against women, focusing particularly on our college campuses where one in five women are assaulted. on the world platform there is the first lady and president launched an initiative to ensure that the 62 million girls who are out of school have a chance to go to school, because we know that is the pathway to success. we will be touching on a whole range of issues that affect the lives of women and girls from education to sexual assault to innovation, health care. obviously the affordable care act has been tremendously important for women and girls, and puts the spotlight on evidence-based practices that we know works, and the work that lies ahead. david: j&j has become the most respected company in the country according to barron's. congratulations. alex: thank you, david. david: if you can ask alex why is this issue of benefit so important to their business? valerie: david said why is this issue of benefits, investment in the working family so important to you and your company? alex: it comes down to this -- it is good business and the right thing to do. if you think about the millennial family, 80% will say their family life is critical in maintaining balance with their job. about 70%, both parents are working so if you want to attract, retain, and get the very best you have to make sure you have progressive policies. we tried to take a hard look at work and family leave, flexible work hours, other parental benefits to make sure we are not only more innovative and productive but also more competitive. david: valerie, you mentioned the equal pay issue. what about equal pay within the administration itself, within the federal government, and specifically within the white house? valerie: we are very mindful of what we are paying. we have equal pay for equal work in the white house and the white house pay scale is transparent. we are able to look at our pay and determine if there are any inequities. one of the stories we will tell today is mark benioff of salesforce presumed he was paying everyone equally because he has never examined it. a couple of his workers, women, came to him and said, we talked to the guys and we are not getting the same pay. he took a look at it and determined they were right, and there was a $3 million pay gap discrepancy which he closed immediately. we have been calling on congress to pass the paycheck fairness act which would require companies to not retaliate against their employees who share compensation. lilly ledbetter had no idea for decades she was not receiving equal pay because her company prevented people from sharing pay. we are really interested in figuring out what we can do not just at the white house but throughout the administration, and to be able to encourage the private sector or to do the same. the department of labor has a new regulation requiring companies to provide that information. david: we were talking about why this is important to your company as a business. your company is very international. brexit is the big issue right now. what would happen to johnson & johnson if rex it occurred? -- if brexit occurred? alex: i think the whole topic of brexit whether it is in the u.k. or the united states, it has to do with this broader issue of what are we going to do to ensure as we have these aging demographics, increasing demands on entitlement systems and health care, how can we make sure we have a balance approach to resolve them? it is going to be essential for the u.k. to do this in a thoughtful manner, to think about the long-term implications. we are hopeful by working with the government in the u.k. and europe we can find a good path forward.
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28 Companies Sign On White House Equal Pay Pledge
Jun 14, 2016 | RttNews
By Staff Writer
Tuesday, highlighting the critical role that businesses must play in reducing the national gender pay gap, the White House will announce a new private sector engagement, called the White House Equal Pay Pledge, for companies who share this commitment.
As part of this announcement, 28 companies have signed on to the pledge, the White House said Monday. They include Accenture, Airbnb, Amazon, American Airlines, BCG, Buffer, Care.com, CEB, Cisco, Deloitte, the Dow Chemical Company, Expedia, Inc., Gap Inc., Glassdoor, GoDaddy, Jet.com, Johnson & Johnson, L'Oréal USA, PepsiCo, Pinterest, Popcorn Heaven, PwC, Rebecca Minkoff, Salesforce, Slack , Spotify, Staples, and Stella McCartney.
The White House also announced that Tuesday, ahead of the first-ever United State of Women Summit, the Obama administration, private-sector companies, foundations and organizations are announcing $50 million in commitments, along with new policies, tools and partnerships that will continue to expand opportunity for women and girls.
These announcements include a pledge by more than two dozen leading companies to take actions to continue to close the gender pay gap, new resources to empower community college students to negotiate their first salaries, new campaigns to change how our country values caregiving and improve portrayals of women in media, and enhanced global efforts to promote gender quality worldwide.
The President and Vice President will participate in the United State of Women Summit to highlight the progress that has been made over the course of this Administration, and discuss public and private sector solutions to the challenges that still lie ahead. The First Lady will join Oprah Winfrey for a conversation aimed to inspire the next generation of women.
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Another Study Shows Little Progress Getting Women on Boards
Jun 14, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Rachel Feintzeig
The number of women on corporate boards is barely budging.
Women hold less than one-fifth of board seats at S&P 500 companies, according to Catalyst, a research group that tracks executive women. Catalyst’s annual board census found that 19.9% of board seats were held by women last year, compared with 19.2% the year prior.
Progress toward boardroom parity is “painstakingly slow,” said Trina Gordon, the chief executive of executive search firm Boyden World Corp.
And the pace doesn’t appear to be picking up much. Just more than a quarter of open director positions last year went to women, with the remaining 73.1% going to men.
Some companies have increased female representation on their boards. Microsoft Corp.added Sandra Peterson, group world-wide chairman at Johnson & Johnson, to its directors in December, and Twitter Inc. last month announced that BET Networks CEODebra Lee was joining its board. Fitbit Inc. earlier this month named women executives from Williams-Sonoma Inc. and Whole Foods Market Inc. to its previously all-male board.
Other firms, however, remain resistant. Shareholders of Restaurant Brands InternationalInc., which owns Burger King and Tim Hortons, recently voted down an investor proposal meant to boost diversity on its all-male board.
“RBI values its diverse and dynamic workforce and promotes a culture of equality and inclusion,” the company said in a statement, adding that the board believes its practices “support board diversity.”
Catalyst cautions that it can be hard to draw trends across years. For this year’s report, it analyzed the makeup of boards at the time of a company’s 2015 annual meeting. For the 2014 data, it looked at where companies stood that October.
According to Catalyst’s most recent analysis, fewer than one in six companies have boards with 30% women or more; about one in four boards have a lone female director. Boards without any women directors are becoming slightly less common. In 2015, 2.8% of firms’ boards were all male, as compared with 3.6% in 2014.
Ms. Gordon said that virtually every list of candidates her firm compiles for companies looking to fill board seats includes women.
“There are absolutely more women on the slate. Are they always getting selected? Clearly not,” she said.
Some companies truly are committed to diversifying their directors, but others just “give it a good lip service,” she added.
The state of women in corporate management isn’t much better than in the boardroom. Catalyst found that women held 4.2% of CEO jobs last year and represented just more than a quarter of executives and senior managers, barely up from a year earlier.
Having a female CEO usually means more women directors, too. A recent report from advocacy group 2020 Women on Boards analyzing 2015 Fortune 1000 companies found that 88% of companies with a female CEO have boards with at least 20% women directors. Some 42% of the total pool of firms in that analysis have reached that level of representation.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/another-study-shows-little-progress-getting-women-on-boards-1465876862
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L'Oréal, Gap, and Amazon Sign the White House Equal Pay Pledge
Jun 14, 2016 | Racked
By Adele Chapin
Today is the United States of Women White House Summit, a rallying cry for gender equality. There's a huge list of speakers, including famous faces like Oprah Winfrey, Kerry Washington, Shonda Rhimes, Amy Poehler, and Mariska Hargitay. President Obama gave an inspiring speech in which he referred to himself as a "feminist"; and later on today, Michelle Obama and Oprah will join in conversation on the topic (follow along here with the live stream).
But beyond conversation, there's some real action being taken: 28 companies are taking the Equal Pay Pledge, including several fashion, retail, and beauty companies. Gap Inc., L’Oréal, Johnson & Johnson, and Amazon are among companies that have committed toward closing the pay gap between men and women.
That includes conducting an annual gender pay analysis, review hiring and promotion processes and procedures to reduce unconscious bias. The goal is to help close the national wage gap and ensure fairness for all workers, with concrete results.
"The pledge is to actually take action," Tina Tchen, executive director for the White House’s Council on Women and Girls, told the Wall Street Journal. FollowJohnson & Johnson ✔@JNJNews
Women hold 43% of manager and executive positions combined at #JNJ, and represent 30% of our Board of Directors. - Gorsky#StateOfWomen3:56 PM - 14 Jun 2016 2626 Retweets 3232 likes
View image on Twitter FollowThe White House ✔@WhiteHouse
"I may be a little grayer than I was eight years ago, but this is what a feminist looks like." —@POTUS2:49 PM - 14 Jun 2016 1,9141,914 Retweets 4,5264,526 likes FollowUS Labor Department ✔@USDOL
"Imagine the economic power that women will have when they are paid the same as men doing the same job." -@MaryKayHenry on the #StateOfWomen3:25 PM - 14 Jun 2016 2525 Retweets 3535 likesView image on Twitter FollowKatharine Zaleski ✔@kzaleski
Along with amazing panels, the fashion at #StateOfWomen is ON POINT3:24 PM - 14 Jun 2016 · Washington, DC, United States 33 Retweets 1010 likes
That's especially meaningful at companies where women are at the focus — as leaders and as customers. Speakers at today's White House summit included SoulCycle CEO Melanie Whelan, Nicole Baldwin of Biao Skincare, Miki Agrawal of underwear brand THINX, and Carol's Daughter founder Lisa Price.
Even in the fashion and beauty worlds, however, women are the customers but not always the powerful leaders at the helm. That applies to high fashion(think of the biggies: Dior, Saint Laurent, Chanel, Gucci...) as well as mainstream retail: According to a October 2015 report by Mic, all 15 mass-market apparel companies on the Fortune 500 list have male CEOs.
For the women who do make it to the top, the least they can hope for is payment equal to their male counterparts.
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PAY GAP: These 28 companies just made a big commitment to equal pay
Jun 14, 2016 | Denver Business Journal
By Mary Johnson
This is big.
Twenty-eight high-profile companies — including Amazon, PepsiCo and Dow Chemical — have signed a White House pledge to tackle pay inequity within their own organizations.
Along with the commitment to action, there will be a commitment of funds. The Obama administration, private companies and several foundations and organizations will announce Tuesday a $50 million investment in expanding opportunities for women and girls.
All this is happening as part of the White House’s first-ever United State of Women summit, taking place Tuesday.
In addition to Dow Chemical, Amazon and PepsiCo, the companies that signed the equal pay pledge include: Accenture, Airbnb, American Airlines, BCG, Buffer, Care.com, CEB, Cisco, Deloitte, Expedia, Gap, Glassdoor, GoDaddy, Jet.com, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oreal USA, Pinterest, Popcorn Heaven, PwC, Rebecca Minkoff, Salesforce, Slack, Spotify, Staples and Stella McCartney.
As part of the pledge, those companies agree to conduct annual company-wide gender pay analyses across occupations, to review their hiring and promotion processes and to embed equal pay efforts across their organizations.
When it comes to what will be done with that $50 million, the plan calls for “new resources to empower community college students to negotiate their first salaries, new campaigns to change how our country values caregiving and improve portrayals of women in media and enhanced global efforts to promote gender equality,” according to Whitehouse.gov.
As if that weren’t enough, the Department of Labor has announced it will update its sex discrimination guidelines for the first time since the 1970s, to address a variety of sex-based barriers to equal opportunity and fair pay in the workplace.
Talk about a strong start to what should be an empowering day for women, not just in the U.S. but around the world.
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/bizwomen/news/latest-news/2016/06/pay-gap-these-28-companies-just-made-a-big.html?page=all
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Message from women's summit: More needs to be done
Jun 14, 2016 | USA Today
By Ryan W Miller
WASHINGTON – Despite progress made on gender equality, much work remains: That was the bottom line from a first-ever women's summit held Tuesday.
The inaugural White House United State of Women Summit did not shy away from hot-button topics such as campus sex assault, which has been in the national spotlight with high-profile cases at Stanford University and beyond.
"We have to take off the social blinders that make it so easy for people to overlook violence rather than confront it,” Vice President Biden said.
Annie Clark, executive director and co-founder of End Rape on Campus, a non-profit that works to prevent campus sexual violence and support survivors, said that rape cannot be viewed in a vacuum, separate from the societal conditions that lead to sexual violence.
Clark, speaking on a panel, noted the need to change the adage “boys will be boys” and to promote education for boys about consent, instead of simply teaching girls how to protect themselves. Biden went a step further, saying bluntly that men must play a role in stopping violence against women – and that when they don’t, they are “accomplices.”
On the issue of pay equity, discussion centered on accurate and transparent collection of businesses’ data on salaries and bonuses. But panelists said discrimination continues to play a major role.
President Obama, who announced a pay initiative at the summit, touched on the need to break away from stereotypes. “If we are going to truly change our policies and our politics, then we’re also going to have to change something else,” Obama said. “We’re going to have to change the way we see ourselves … we’re still boxed in by stereotypes about how men and women should behave.”
The White House’s Equal Pay Pledge has already been signed by 28 major businesses, including Amazon, PepsiCo and Johnson & Johnson. Its goal: to work toward company-wide pay equality throughout the U.S.
Sunday's massacre at a gay Orlando nightclub was also on the minds of summit attendees. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch encouraged solidarity with the LGBT community and stressed the need for tolerance and acceptance.
“It is clear even today, as we gather together as women from different regions and different backgrounds, from different generations and different traditions, to discuss how we can draw our nation closer to the fulfillment of our fundamental belief, that all men and all women are created equal,” said Lynch, the first African-American woman to hold that office.
The inaugural summit in downtown Washington, attended by more than 5,000 politicians, actors, businesspeople and activists, drew some marquee names who are supporters of women’s equality such as Kerry Washington, Warren Buffet, Patricia Arquette, Billie Jean King and Amy Poehler.
In her conversation with Oprah Winfrey, first lady Michelle Obama told women that their primary goal ought to be to get to know themselves and like themselves so that they can continue to push for equality.
“We’re never done,” she said. “We can never be complacent and think that we’ve arrived now as women.”
http://www.wwltv.com/news/nation-now/message-from-womens-summit-more-needs-to-be-done/244429214
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Amazon, Airbnb and Dozens of Other Companies Pledge to Address Gender Pay Gap
| Time
By Alicia Adamczyk
Over the past eight years, the Obama administration has fought aggressively against the persistent gender pay gap in the country, contending that women should no longer earn just 78 cents, on average, for the man’s dollar for the same work. Now, some of the largest companies in the U.S. are taking it upon themselves to address the pay gap in their own ranks.
Twenty-eight companies, including Amazon, Airbnb, and PepsiCo, signed the White House Equal Pay Pledge, just ahead of the United State of Women summit, which began today and will address economic issues including pay inequity. By committing to the Equal Pay Pledge, the companies have agreed to analyze company-wide pay across occupations, review the hiring and promotion processes, and institute “equal pay efforts into broader enterprise-wide equity initiatives.”
“We believe that businesses must play a critical role in reducing the national pay gap,” the pledge reads.
The 28 companies that signed the pledge include: Accenture, Airbnb, Amazon, American Airlines, BCG, Buffer, Care.com, CEB, Cisco, Deloitte, the Dow Chemical Company, Expedia, Inc., Gap Inc., Glassdoor, GoDaddy, Jet.com, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal USA, PepsiCo, Pinterest, Popcorn Heaven, PwC, Rebecca Minkoff, Salesforce, Slack, Spotify, Staples, and Stella McCartney
The Obama administration’s efforts to close the pay gap began almost as soon as the president took office. The first bill he signed as president was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which epands the window of time people have to file an equal-pay lawsuit. In January 2016, the White House and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission put forth a proposal that would require companies with 100 or more employees to annually report summary pay data by gender, race, and ethnicity. Obama also extended minimum wage and overtime benefits to over 2 million home healthcare workers, the vast majority of whom are female.
Still, more can be done. While equal pay is a critical step for many working women, others would like to see paid parental leave policies and subsidized child care implemented. Right now, the United States is one of two countries—the other is Papua New Guinea—that do not offer paid leave to parents (currently, parents can take 12 weeks of unpaid leave if they work for companies with 50 employees or more, a criteria that more than 40% of U.S. workers do not meet). A report published by the White House Council of Economic Advisers in 2014 concluded that paid leave policies would help women get back into the labor force. That would in turn help close the wage gap, since women typically start seeing their pay plateau around age 35(men, on the other hand, don’t experience a pay plateau until age 50 to 55), due in part to gaps in employment and time off to have children.
The White House also reported it will finalize rules updating its sex discrimination guidelines for federal contractors for the first time since the 1970s. The Department of Education and Harvard Law School’s Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program also have developed a toolkit to help community college students negotiate their salaries.
http://time.com/money/4368143/airbnb-amazon-white-house-gender-pay-gap-pledge/
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Jun 14, 2016 | Associated Press
By Darlene Superville
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Tuesday that women and girls have made great strides in the nearly eight years he's held office, but asserted that they can claim even more progress if society would cast aside long-held stereotypes about the way men and women should behave.
He also urged consumers to patronize more than two dozen U.S. corporations that have pledged to close gender pay gaps.
"Women are leading America at every level of society, from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, from the C-suite to the federal bench to the Federal Reserve," Obama said in remarks at a daylong, White House-organized summit on the state of women.
"And that is progress. It's real and we have to celebrate it. But we also have to remember that progress is not inevitable," he said, adding that society is still "boxed in" by stereotypes.
"We need to keep changing the attitude that raises our girls to be demure and our boys to be assertive, that criticizes our daughters for speaking out and our sons for shedding a tear," Obama told thousands of administration officials, activists, celebrities, business leaders and others attending the summit.
"We need to keep changing the attitude that prioritizes being confident, competitive and ambitious in the workplace — unless you're a woman," he said.
Obama called for more family friendly policies, including equal pay for equal work, paid family and sick leave, a higher minimum wage, affordable child care, and paid maternity and paternity leave. He also said consumers should support American Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, Staples and other leading corporations that have taken a pledge to ensure "wage fairness" between its male and female employees.
"We should encourage more businesses to join them. We should shop and frequent those companies that are doing the right thing because the truth is most folks agree with each other on this," Obama said. "We don't have to have Congress agree with us. We can go ahead and make progress without waiting for them."
At the summit, which was held as residents of the District of Columbia voted in the final Democratic presidential primary, Obama couldn't help but make an observation about one woman in particular. He said Democrat Hillary Clinton, the first woman to become the presumptive presidential nominee of a major political party, has "raised the expectations of our daughters and our sons for what is possible."
Obama endorsed Clinton last week. He put in another plug for her before leaving the summit.
"If we really want workplace policies that work for everybody, I will say, though, it would help if we had more women in Congress. It would help if we had more women in the corner suite," he said, adding: "I have a corner suite, by the way. Just making that connection for you."
http://www.tribtown.com/view/story/6bda61244e85469da0da209c5d6c40ee/US--Obama-Women-Summit
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Equal Pay Pledge signed by two cosmetics and personal care companies
Jun 15, 2016 | Cosmeticsdesign.com
By Deanna Utroske
Yesterday The White House announced the initiative, “highlighting the critical role that businesses must play in reducing the national gender pay gap” and encouraging private sector companies to commit to steps that will ensure women and men earn equal pay for equal work.
SEE FULL ARTICLE HERE
http://www.cosmeticsdesign.com/Business-Financial/Equal-Pay-Pledge-signed-by-two-cosmetics-and-personal-care-companies
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REBECCA MINKOFF, STELLA MCCARTNEY AND MORE SIGN EQUAL PAY PLEDGE
Jun 15, 2016 | The Hollywood Reporter
By Kathryn Romeyn
The White House initiative promises to close the pay gap that plagues American women.
Rebecca Minkoff and Stella McCartneyare standing up for women. The fashion designers are two of the boldfaced names who with their brands have signed the White House Equal Pay Pledge, an initiative announced at the United State of Women Summit.
This official promise of equal wages comes as it’s become clear that women make up nearly half the U.S. labor force, according to the White House, yet they earn only 79 percent of what the typical man makes consistently working full-time. What’s more, African American women earn only 64 cents and Latina women just 56 cents for every dollar earned by a white non-Hispanic male.
Thus far, according to the White House, 28 companies have signed this empowering pledge, including L'Oreal USA, Gap Inc., PepsiCo, Johnson & Johnson, Pinterest, Spotify and Airbnb. The Rebecca Minkoff statement states, "As an organization conceived and led by a female entrepreneur, we understand the importance of supporting women early in their careers … We will continue to support our female employees by ensuring that they earn 100% of men’s wages within our company."
According to their statement at Stella McCartney, women make up 67 percent of the leadership team, with a higher number of female employees across the brand. "We place gender equality as a strategic imperative across our talent pipeline," says the statement. It turns out the green label is already on the forefront of this issue, having been awarded the EDGE certification, which is a standard for gender equality in the workplace. Go girl.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rebecca-minkoff-stella-mccartney-sign-903056
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Post Politics In push for gender equality, Obamas host United State of Women Summit Tuesday
Jun 14, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
More than two dozen companies — including Airbnb, Amazon, American Airlines, Dow Chemical and Pepsico — have agreed to undertake a yearly company-wide gender pay analysis as part of Tuesday’s first-ever United State of Women Summit in Washington.
Tina Tchen, executive director for the White House Council on Women and Girls, said in an interview Monday that while “there’s been a continued sense of frustration at not getting a national paycheck fairness act,” the 28 firms’ adoption of the White House’s equal pay pledge shows that companies are willing to take steps ranging from reviewing their hiring and promotion processes to identifying other ways of ensuring that women and men in similar occupations are paid at comparable rates.
Tchen, who also serves as chief of staff to the first lady, said the inaugural event will examine what the administration has done so far and will also explore “what needs to be done.”
Other commitments include a tool kit that Harvard Law School’s Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program will develop for community college students across the country, so women can become better prepared to negotiate for higher salaries when they enter the workforce, and a $15 million pledge by the nonprofit group CARE to help educate 3 million adolescent girls in six countries.
The federal government will also finalize a Labor Department rule Tuesday on what constitutes sex discrimination among federal contractors and subcontractors, the first update to the regulations since the 1970s. The rule addresses everything from pregnancy-related accommodations to prohibitions on discrimination based on a person’s gender identity.
“This is a rule that HR professionals will look at for their guidelines,” Tchen said, adding that while much of the rule just reflects the latest case law on these topics, “when you look at what HR officers are reading, they’re not reading case law.”
The summit will draw more than 5,000 women to Washington, including Oprah Winfrey, who will participate in a conversation with Michelle Obama on Tuesday afternoon titled, “Trailblazing the Path for the Next Generation of Women.”
Vice President Biden and President Obama are scheduled to speak. Biden will focus on sexual violence, a longstanding policy priority of his, while Obama will speak more broadly about the push for gender equality.
Tchen said the White House allotted extra tickets to groups so that “a fairly strong contingent of young women” could attend along with more senior leaders of organizations.
And the youngest official participant of all is introducing the president: Mikaila Ulmer, the 11-year old founder of the company Me & the Bees Lemonade, based in Austin. “Talk about the power that young people have,” Tchen said. “Her lemonade got picked up by Whole Foods Market.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/14/in-push-for-gender-equality-obamas-host-united-state-of-women-summit-tuesday/
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Glass ceiling: Women hold only one of five board positions
Jun 14, 2016 | USA Today
By Kimiya Manoochehri
Women continue to have a tough time when it comes to being appointed to a corporate boards, a new survey finds.
Men land four of every five board seats, finds the survey by Catalyst, which specializes in finding ways to promote women within organizations. It’s even worse when it comes to female CEOs. They hold only 4.2% of the elite top jobs.
“Men continue to be over-represented, holding more than their fair share of board seats and, in some cases, all the board seats” says Deborah Gilli, CEO of Catalyst, in a statement.
The 2015 Catalyst Census is being presented for the first time on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. at the U.S. of Women. The summit is rallying together women to celebrate past achievements and future opportunities related to key gender equality issues.
“Out new Census shows little progress has been made at the board level, and even less progress has been made in the pipeline for women officers and directors – suggesting women are nowhere near the path to parity with men,” says Gillis, who will be a featured speaker at the United States of Women event.
“There’s a lot of missed opportunity to do things differently.” Said Brande Stellings, a Catalyst vice president.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2016/06/14/glass-ceiling-women-hold-only-one-five-board-postions/85857166/
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We Need A New Approach To The #StateofWomen
Jun 14, 2016 | Forbes
By Carrie Lukas
Today, the White House is holding a summit to discuss the challenges facing women in the United States, and encouraging the public to use the #StateofWomen hashtag to follow the events. Certainly, there is plenty to talk about: Too many American women are struggling to make ends meet as prices for everyday necessities rise. Too many can’t find jobs that put them on their desired career path and have trouble balancing work and family. Many would-be female entrepreneurs are finding their dreams snarled in red tape before they can even get started.
Unfortunately, these problems persist and have in many ways gotten worse under this Administration. This Summit promises to double down on the government-knows-best approach to public policy that has been the hallmark of the past seven years. Yet what women reallyneed is a fresh approach to their challenges with a focus on providing women with more opportunity, true flexibility and greater control of resources.
Women’s labor force participation rate is now at the lowest level since 1988. Many women aren’t working because they can’t find jobs that pay enough or offer the hours they need. Government overregulation contributes to this problem. From unnecessary state licensing regimes to expensive Obamacare health insurance mandates and our complicated tax code, government policy is making it increasingly difficult for businesses to get started and, ultimately, to offer people job opportunities. A true pro-woman agenda would start by modernizing these laws and sweeping away unnecessary red tape so that women have more and better job options.
Unfortunately, this Administration has been pushing in the opposite direction. While technology has created new paradigms for combining work and family life—a tremendous boon, particularly to working parents—outdated laws and rigid government bureaucracies impede innovation and discourage people from being able to take advantage of these new flex-opportunities. The Department of Labor, for example, has been trying to limit independent contracting. These arrangements can enable women to decide to work when, where, and how they want. Even when caring for family members, women can still bring in money while retaining valuable skills, even if they can’t commit to a traditional, full-time position. This type of flexibility should be applauded, rather than seen as a problem to crack down on by our administrative bureaucracies.
The Department of Labor has also recently advanced new overtime rules that would force more employers to closely monitor more employees’ hours, which will discourage the use of telecommuting or at-home work. The Administration sells such regulations and requirements as necessary so that those lucky enough to have regular, full-time jobs will have the benefits and compensation that Washington thinks should be the bare minimum. Yet this attitude ignores that making employment more expensive results in fewer jobs—particularly for those with the fewest skills and less education. It also ignores that people have different preferences when it comes to work and compensation. Some workers may welcome more benefits, but others would rather take that compensation as take-home pay. Such decisions should be up to individuals, not the government to decide for everyone.
Before tuning into the Summit, women should take a hard look at the results of the last seven years. Has their situation really improved? Are family members or neighbors better off? Or are we seeing even less opportunity today? The government insists that inflation isn’t a problem, but women should ask themselves if that’s consistent with their own experience. Doesn’t it seem that so many necessities — our groceries and rent and service calls – keep becoming more and more expensive?
Women frustrated with today’s economy should know that there is a different approach to helping women succeed. It rejects the idea that government always knows what’s best and instead would seek to create more options and greater flexibility. Conservatives are dedicated to reducing barriers to job creation, removing complicated rules that prevent innovative, flexible work arrangements, and returning resources and control to individuals.
Conservatives want to modernize laws like the Depression-era Fair Labor Standards Act to give workers the freedom to choose more time off, rather than overtime pay, and the flexibility to consider scheduling alternatives to the 40 hour work week. Conservatives oppose sweeping new government benefit mandates, and would instead make it easier and more affordable for business and workers to determine mutually beneficial compensation and leave packages. Women are more likely than men to take advantage of savings opportunities when they have them, and conservatives want to give people the chance to save for critical needs, including to make up for lost income when someone needs to take time off from work.This White House Summit will almost certainly be inspiring. We all want to celebrate women’s achievement and to continue to break down barriers so that women can do even more. Yet it’s time to recognize that ill-conceived government policy is often one of those barriers, and opening the doors to more success requires modernizing our laws and empowering people, not government, so we can see what all is possible.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carrielukas/2016/06/14/we-need-a-new-approach-to-the-stateofwomen/#266f982f2e60
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Women’s Rights Groups Criticize Obama For ‘Excuses And Silence’ On Abortion Policy
Jun 14, 2016 | Huffington Post
By Laura Bassett
WASHINGTON — As President Barack Obama celebrated his legacy on women’s rights at the United State of Women White House summit on Tuesday, reproductive and human rights advocates gathered outside the event to demand his action on abortion access for women raped in conflict.
Several groups, including the Center for Health and Gender Equity and Amnesty International USA, are calling attention to the president’s failure to change the Helms Amendment, a longstanding policy that blocks United States foreign aid money from being used for safe abortion care for women raped in conflict. Obamacould use executive action to add exceptions to the anti-abortion law that would permit funding in the cases of rape, incest and a woman’s life being in danger. He hasn’t done so, despite mounting pressure from women’s rights advocates,Democrats in Congress and the United Nations.
“As long as President Obama continues to walk away from women raped in conflict, his legacy on gender equality is incomplete,” CHANGE president Serra Sippel said. “To remain silent and fail to act is unconscionable, deadly and damages his legacy.”
The advocates also placed a full-page ad in The Washington Post on Tuesday, criticizing the president for failing to act on Helms and for neglecting to address abortion rights directly at his summit.
“We have grown weary of years of excuses and silence,” the ad reads. “Women would benefit greatly if President Obama took leadership to break barriers to abortion.”
Until the president reconsiders his stand on foreign aid for abortion, especially for women who have been raped or whose lives are in danger, humanitarian aid groups won’t be able to use U.S. donations to provide the full range of medical options to pregnant women and girls who have been rescued from groups like the self-described Islamic State and Boko Haram.
The schedule for the White House event doesn’t include any speakers or discussions specifically addressing abortion, but there is a session about unplanned pregnancy. The summit is also supposed to cover such topics as violence against women and women’s economic empowerment, educational opportunity and health.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said that if Obama doesn’t change Helms and she wins November’s general election, she will reinterpret the abortion restriction to have exceptions for rape, incest and saving the life of the mother.
“Yes, Hillary Clinton would fix the Helms Amendment,” a campaign spokeswoman told The Huffington Post. “She believes we need to take a close look [at] this. The systematic use of rape as a tool of war is a tactic of vicious militias and insurgent and terrorist groups around the world. She saw first hand as Secretary of State the suffering of survivors of sexual violence in armed conflict during her visit to Goma [in the Democratic Republic of Congo] in 2009. She believes we should help women who have been raped in conflict get the care that they need.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-helm-amendment-abortion-rights_us_575f5be5e4b053d433061ef5?ir=Politics§ion=us_politics&utm_hp_ref=politics
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Kerry Washington to domestic violence victims: 'There is a way out'
Jun 14, 2016 | CNN
By Chloe Melas
(CNN)--Kerry Washington has a message for women who feel trapped in an abusive relationship: "There is a way out."
The star of ABC's "Scandal" is partnering with the Purple Purse campaign, sponsored by Allstate Insurance, to launch their #FreetoWalk initiative. Today Washington is taking her message to the White House where she will speak at the United State of Women Summit, and meet with First Lady, Michelle Obama. Violence against women and the importance of female financial independence are the primary focus the summit.
"I have known more than one person [that was] the victim of domestic abuse," Washington told CNN. "The reality is most of us have ... whether that's in the public eye or someone close to us."
Washington has been an ambassador for the Purple Purse campaign for three years. Purple Purse works to remove financial barriers that can prevent women from leaving an abusive relationship. The foundation has raised more than $5 million for community organizations that work to support victims of domestic abuse.
"The most important thing to know is there is a way out," Washington said. "That there is a way to learn how to become financially self-supporting and take care of yourself so that you can make decisions for yourself that are empowering."
One in four American women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, according to the CDC.
"Beyond cuts and bruises, financial abuse is the silent weapon that allows perpetrators to maintain power and control in relationships," spokesperson for the Purple Purse foundation, Vicky Dinges told CNN. "Without money or access to financial resources, even transportation, victims feel trapped in homes that feel more like prisons.
"Individuals can donate to this campaign by going to PurplePurse.com. Any woman who needs immediate help should call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/14/entertainment/kerry-washington-domestic-violence-purple-purse/index.html
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Jun 14, 2016 | Politico
By Michael Stratford
THE PRESCHOOL PAY GAP: The national median annual wage for preschool teachers is $28,570 — roughly half of what elementary school and kindergarten teachers earn in a year. That’s according to a new report from the Obama administration that highlights the pay gap for preschool teachers, the vast majority of whom are women. Preschool teachers who work in elementary schools might earn slightly higher wages, the Education Department notes, but it’s hard to differentiate because the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t separate out salaries by preschool type. The report, released this morning by the Education and Health and Human Services Departments, also found that education and training requirements for preschool teachers have increased while pay has remained stagnant. “Wage parity across settings is critical to attracting and retaining a high-quality workforce, essential for a high-quality program,” said Linda Smith, deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development at the Administration for Children and Families. The report: http://1.usa.gov/1OmixDi.
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— Other highlights: Preschool teachers earned less than half of the annual wages earned by kindergarten teachers in 13 states, including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. In six states — Arizona, Idaho, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin — annual wages for preschool teachers were less than the 2015 poverty threshold for a family of four. Annual wages for Head Start teachers were less than the 2015 poverty threshold for a family of four in nine states: Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Utah.
— The report comes as Education Secretary John B. King Jr. is scheduled to shadow a preschool teacher in Clifton, N.J., this morning. He’s visiting Clifton Early Learner Academy, a Preschool Development Grants site, at 11 a.m. ET
— New Jersey is scheduled to receive as much as $17.5 million a year for as long as four years through the Preschool Development Grants program, NJ.com reports. King is also visiting as state officials are calling for more funding to be allocated to public preschool programs: http://bit.ly/1rmzMt5.
INCREASING WOMEN'S ACCESS TO EDUCATION — The White House is convening its first-ever United State of Women Summit today to gather community leaders and global activists in talks about key gender equality issues — and educational opportunity is at the top of the list. The all-day summit, hosted at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, will feature sessions on early childhood education, STEM education, free community college and international girls education. President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are all slated to speak. The full agenda: http://bit.ly/22YdBqQ
— As part of the summit, the Education Department plans to announce a new toolkit for community college students that helps them successfully negotiate their first salary. The toolkit, which is a collaboration with Harvard Law School’s Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program, is aimed at arming new workers — especially women — with the negotiation training they need to succeed as they enter the job market.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education/2016/06/the-preschool-pay-gap-214814 -
Anti-discrimination rule out today
Jun 14, 2016 | Politico
By Marianne Levine
TODAY: ANTI-DISCRIMINATION RULE: The Labor Department will update its anti-discrimination guidelines for federal contractors with a final rule clarifying that Title VII’s prohibition of employment discrimination based on sex encompasses discrimination based on gender identity. The rule also updates guidelines to prohibit contractors from granting child care leave to women but not men. According to the Labor Department, these guidelines have not seen a major update since 1970.
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Today’s release coincides with the White House’s “United State of Women” summit, which will address topics like equal pay, minimum wage, paid sick leave, paid family leave, and labor force participation. The White House will invite private companies to take an equal pay pledge. So far, 28 companies have agreed to conduct “an annual company-wide gender pay analysis across occupations,” according to a fact sheet.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-shift/2016/06/anti-discrimination-rule-out-today-214808
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It Doesn't Pay To Be An Early Childhood Teacher
Jun 14, 2016 | NPR
By Elissa Nadworny
Why would she teach preschool when she could make a heck of a lot more money teaching kindergarten? It's a question I've heard over and over again reporting on education. In some places, we pay early childhood education less than fast food workers, less than tree trimmers. As a country, we've acknowledged the importance of early learning and yet, when you look at what we pay those educators, it doesn't add up.
On average, preschool teachers were making $28,570 in 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a little more than half of what kindergarten teachers were making: $51,640.
We get a fresh look at these numbers in a report today from the Obama Administration about the gap in pay for early education teachers, part of the White House's United State of Women Summit.
Qualifications to be a preschool teacher are often different than those to be a kindergarten or first-grade teacher, depending on the state and the type of preschool program. But even in states that require a Bachelor's degree for preschool teachers at state-funded programs — a pay gap exists.
Preschool teachers tend to make more money when they work for a public school system, and in places where the state funds pre-kindergarten. In fact, the report points out, if an individual with a Bachelor's degree works in a public school sponsored program, on average they'd make $6.70 more per hour than if they worked in a community-based program. That's about a $13,000 difference per year.
Still, in all 50 states, preschool teachers earned significantly lower salaries than kindergarten teachers and other elementary school teachers.
And that's not it:If preschool teachers in 13 states were instead teaching kindergarten, their annual wages would double.Louisiana and Oklahoma teachers have the smallest gap in wages between preschool and kindergarten, with a difference of about $7,000 in each state.Washington D.C. and Louisiana preschool teachers have the highest median salaries: $39,940 and $39,970, respectively.In six states (Arizona, Idaho, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin), preschool teachers earned less than $24,000 — a salary below the 2015 poverty threshold for a family of four.That's also true for Head Start teachers in nine states: Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Utah.As of 2015, 73 percent of Head Start teachers have a Bachelor's or higher.24 state preschool programs require a Bachelor's degree for the main teacher in the classroom.45 percent of preschool teachers working with children age 3-5 have a Bachelor's degree.
We've made progress with preschool in this country, says Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. Early learning standards have risen in nearly every state and more students are enrolled in preschool than ever before.
But if the goal of early childhood education is to close the readiness gap — especially among low-income, often non-white students, Barnett points out, then the group of people we're relying on to do that, aren't adequately prepared.
"If we're just hiring the lady next door, they're not going to have those capabilities," he says.
A 2015 report from the Institute of Medicine came to the same conclusion: If we want preschool to be high quality, we need preschool teachers to have four-year degrees and specialized training.
When Marcy Whitebook started as an early childhood teacher in the '70s, she was astounded at her salary. "I thought, 'Are you kidding, this is all they're going to pay me?' " She's now the director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, where she's been studying the low wages of early childhood workers for 25 years.
"We have 20th century earning for our 21st century hopes," she explains. "Right now if you graduate from college with a degree in early childhood education, you have the lowest projected earnings of all college graduates. This is not a recruitment strategy."
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/06/14/481920837/it-doesnt-pay-to-be-an-early-childhood-teacher
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At White House staff picnic, Biden says, seven women told him they’d been raped
Jun 14, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
Speaking at the United State of Women summit in Washington on Tuesday, Vice President Biden said that seven women he met on a rope line at a White House picnic Monday told him they had been raped.
Biden, who has made sexual violence a longstanding policy priority of his, cited that incident as an example of how assault survivors now feel empowered to talk about their experience in an effort to change U.S. culture more broadly.
"It’s critical to free the voices of survivors across the country, but most of all, let them know that we are listening," Biden said, adding that in the course of greeting administration staffers at the picnic, "seven young women pulled me close and said, 'Thank you, I’ve been raped. I didn’t think anybody listened.' Seven. Yesterday."
"The reason I tell the story, it’s not about me," the vice president said. "It’s about women getting to the point where they feel somebody [will] listen to them."
Biden was introduced by Megan Yap, a White House Champion of Change honoree who conducts research on how college and university campuses address sexual assault. Yap, who was raped as an undergraduate at the University of California San Diego, said she now works to ensure schools use trauma-informed research to craft their policies "so that survivors do not suffer any more than they already have."
"While I was powerless against the man who attacked me, I am not powerless in ending rape culture," she said, as the crowd at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center applauded. "I realized I could do something about it."
In a nearly hour-long address Biden spoke extensively about the need to hold rapists, the institutions where sexual misconduct occurs and bystanders to sexual assault more accountable. The vice president has led the administration's "It's On Us" effort, a public awareness campaign aimed at preventing sexual assault on college and university campuses by enlisting the support of men as well as women.
"This has literally been, not figuratively, the cause of my life," Biden said, adding that issues such as sexual violence and denying women and girls opportunities stems from a broader, systemic bias in our shared culture. "It’s ultimately about the abuse of power. It’s all about power."
Noting that he had been able to change both federal and state law on these issues -- including with the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, which was authorized in 1994 and reauthorized in 2013 -- Biden noted that these changes have been insufficient.
"I got it changed, but it didn’t change our culture," he said, referring to a Delaware law that carried a more serious charge for rape by a stranger than by an assailant whom the victim knew.
If a fraternity member sees someone else at a party taking a woman who is incapacitated upstairs, Biden said, "If you don’t have the courage to say, 'Hey Jack, not in my house,' you are an accomplice. You are an accomplice."
Biden predicted he would be "roundly criticized' for making those remarks.
The large audience at the convention center gave Biden, as well as the rest of the speakers at the event, an enthusiastic reception. The first-ever summit of its kind, the gathering aims to promote gender equality in the United States and abroad.
More than two dozen companies — including Airbnb, Amazon, American Airlines, Dow Chemical and Pepsico — agreed Tuesday to undertake a yearly company-wide gender pay analysis as part of the summit.
Tina Tchen, executive director for the White House Council on Women and Girls, said in an interview Monday that while “there’s been a continued sense of frustration at not getting a national paycheck fairness act,” the 28 firms’ adoption of the White House’s equal pay pledge shows that companies are willing to take steps ranging from reviewing their hiring and promotion processes to identifying other ways of ensuring that women and men in similar occupations are paid at comparable rates.
Tchen, who also serves as chief of staff to the first lady, said the inaugural event will examine what the administration has done so far and will also explore “what needs to be done.”
Other commitments include a tool kit that Harvard Law School’s Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program will develop for community college students across the country, so women can become better prepared to negotiate for higher salaries when they enter the workforce, and a $15 million pledge by the nonprofit group CARE to help educate 3 million adolescent girls in six countries. Oracle pledged to spend $3 million worldwide to help girls learn in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
The federal government will also finalize a Labor Department rule Tuesday on what constitutes sex discrimination among federal contractors and subcontractors, the first update to the regulations since the 1970s. The rule addresses everything from pregnancy-related accommodations to prohibitions on discrimination based on a person’s gender identity.
“This is a rule that HR professionals will look at for their guidelines,” Tchen said, adding that while much of the rule reflects the latest case law on these topics, “when you look at what HR officers are reading, they’re not reading case law.”
The summit will draw more than 5,000 women to Washington, including Oprah Winfrey, who will participate in a conversation with Michelle Obama on Tuesday afternoon titled, “Trailblazing the Path for the Next Generation of Women.”
President Obama is also scheduled to speak more broadly about the push for gender equality.
Tchen said the White House allotted extra tickets to groups so that “a fairly strong contingent of young women” could attend along with more senior leaders of organizations.
And the youngest official participant of all is introducing the president: Mikaila Ulmer, the 11-year old founder of the company Me & the Bees Lemonade, based in Austin, Tex.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/seven-women-at-administration-staff-picnic-tell-biden-they-had-been-raped/2016/06/14/8e1e8626-325a-11e6-95c0-2a6873031302_story.html
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These eight major companies still have no women on the board
Jun 14, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Jena McGregor
The White House is convening its United State of Women Summit on Tuesday morning to rally attention around gender equality issues. But when it comes to corporate boards of directors, the state of women isn't all that encouraging.
As part of the summit Tuesday, the nonprofit group Catalyst, which works to promote women in business and leadership, released its annual count of the women sitting at the boardroom tables of America's biggest companies. It found that in 2015, 19.9 percent of these powerful positions leading companies in the S&P 500 index were female, up marginally from the 19.2 percent of female directors the year before. Women held less than 10 percent of top-earner positions. And just over a quarter of new board members were women, meaning the potential for gender equality on boards -- or even numbers approaching parity -- remains far off.
"That means almost three-quarters [of seats] are now filled by men," said Brande Stellings, vice president of corporate board services for Catalyst. "That's a lot of missed opportunities to change the status quo."
Yet there is a small piece of good news. Catalyst's data also showed that last year, just 2.8 percent of S&P 500 companies, or 14, had no women on the board. But because Catalyst pulled data from the board makeup at each company's 2015 annual meeting, those numbers have improved. In August, after many of those annual meetings took place, The Post had S&P Global Market Intelligence run the number of S&P 500 companies with no women on the board, and it found just 12. We had them run the numbers again this week, and there now appear to be eight in that group of large companies.
Stellings agreed that was good to hear, but tempered her enthusiasm. "We have tried to look for bright spots," she said. "There are fewer and fewer companies with zero board members -- but it’s pretty sad that that’s where the floor is."
Kevin Kelly, director of publications for S&P Global Market Intelligence, notes that their data does not include gender as reported by companies, but he conducted a keyword search of director biographies in the database. We checked their list against company web sites. Currently, the eight companies are:
Concho Resources
Delphi Automotive
Dentsply Sirona
Diamond Offshore Drilling
Discovery Communications
Linear Technology
Qorvo
TransDigm Group
At least one company on the list wouldn't have been just months ago. Last year, Delphi appointed Ixia CEO Bethany Mayer to its board, but she resigned in April due to personal and professional reasons, a spokesperson said in an email. "Diversity is a core value at Delphi and we are committed to a diverse board of directors as we search for a suitable candidate to replace Ms. Mayer," the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Discovery shared an emailed statement from its chairman, Bob Miron, saying that "we are engaged in a robust process to identify diverse board candidates, and we continue to develop a slate of diverse candidates that will best meet our board's needs." The company has faced recent scrutiny from shareholders over its all-white, all-male board.
A Qorvo spokesman pointed to a recently adopted resolution by the board to "take meaningful steps" to add one or more women to the nominees at its next annual meeting. Other companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yet even as there are fewer companies without female directors, one-quarter of companies in the S&P 500 have only one female director, according to Catalyst's report. Stellings said it published that statistic because "we want to make sure one doesn't become the new zero," she said. "Is one woman on a board really satisfactory progress? We’d say no, and have some concern companies feel like [they add] one and done -- they've done their duty."
That's in part because research has shown that adding one woman to the board, or even just two, can leave women with "token" status, and the diverse viewpoints they bring to the group don't have much of an impact until they reach a "critical mass" of three or more.
"When there’s fewer of a group -- in this case women -- your view becomes much less salient," Stellings said. "You're speaking as a woman rather than all the other expertise and background you can bring."
Catalyst's report finds that just 14 percent of companies had women filling 30 percent or more seats. Only a small number of companies have reached gender parity on their boards, with equal numbers of men or women.
Last week, Etsy's stockholders elected another woman to its board, bringing its numbers to three men and three women, one of the few publicly traded companies to reach gender parity. General Motors is another, with six men and six women on its board. A few companies that actually have more women than men on the board are American Water Works, Navient Solutions and TEGNA.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/06/14/these-eight-major-companies-still-have-no-women-on-the-board/
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Watch Live: President Obama and Michelle Obama Speak at United State of Women Summit
Jun 14, 2016 | Time
By Emma Ockerman
The United State of Women Summit will be live-streaming from The White House Tuesday, with speakers ranging from President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama to advocates for women and celebrities such as Amy Poehler.
Speakers will present on topics such as educational equality, economic empowerment, preventing violence against women, female leadership and other issues related to gender equity. Programs will run until 7 p.m. EST.
The First Lady revealed the initiative earlier in June in a launch video that included Oprah Winfrey, Kerry Washington and Tina Fey, who argued forpay equality and reproductive rights. Events relating to the United State of Women are happening nationwide today.
“We are the United State of Women,” Michelle Obama said in the video. “We stand stronger when we stand together.”
http://time.com/4368290/united-state-of-women-white-house-barack-michelle-obama/
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Biden calls for cultural change to halt violence against women
Jun 14, 2016 | USA Today
By Ryan W Miller
WASHINGTON — At the inaugural White House Summit on the United State of Women on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden called for a cultural change to address the underlying societal issues that promote violence against women.
“We have to take off the social blinders that make it so easy for people to overlook violence rather than confront it,” he said.
Biden said men who do not speak up when they see violence against women or hear misogynistic messages are accomplices, perpetuating the thought that women do not deserve the same respect as men.
“There is never a cultural justification for dehumanizing another human being,” he said.
Biden also addressed the issue of sexual assault on college campuses, calling on administrators, coaches and students to take responsibility for changing their universities’ cultures around violence. He called it unacceptable when schools worry more about their reputation than protecting students.
Biden cited several areas of progress as a result of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which he wrote, such as increased protection for survivors of sexual assault in the courtroom. Still, he said, more needs to be done.
Speaking on the global issue of violence against women, Bidensaid that if societies do not protect women from violence, ongoing progress that promotes economic equality for women will not matter.
Overall, Biden said changing the culture around violence must be a community-wide effort.
“We aren’t going to end violence,” he said. “But we can end the attitude that somehow violence against women is of a different nature.”
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See What Life Was Once Like for Women in Washington, D.C.
Jun 14, 2016 | Time
By Eliza Berman, Liz Ronk
When Gayle Quisenberry arrived in Washington, D.C. in the early 1960s, she had already lived through a minor scandal: during her junior year at Goucher College, the Long Island native had moved to Lagos, Nigeria, under the auspices of the Experiment in International Living. As her daughter Leyla Sharabi tells TIME, “The whole social circle [her family] moved in—this was just not done. She was in the newspaper.”
After returning from Nigeria to work for the humanitarian organization CARE in New York City and then moving on to D.C. to work for the monthly journal Africa Report, Quisenberry was one of several young women photographed by LIFE’s Art Rickerby for a 1962 story titled “How Nice To Be a Pretty Girl and Work in Washington.” Their place in the capital city wasn’t quite a scandal, but these women working with senators and diplomats were unusual enough to warrant a photo essay, with language that reads today as patronizing—their looks are mentioned as much as their brains—but which was, at the time, characterized by a sense of wonder at their decision to forgo settling down in favor of “glamor, excitement and romance.”
Recent conversations about women in Washington have tended to focus on a particular woman making history in our nation’s capital. And for the last eight years, Americans have had a First Lady who has made a point of bringing issues affecting women to the forefront, as she’s doing on Tuesday with the United State of Women summit. Back in the 1960s, the women making history in the city were, to the general public, largely nameless. They were a cohort that often lived and ate and socialized with one another. The young women held jobs ranging from lawyer to stenographer to, as in Quisenberry’s case, right-hand woman to one of the nation’s leading experts on Africa—who just so happened to also be a woman, a specialist named Helen Kitchen.
The LIFE story told of women with “eyes full of stardust,” drinking in their proximity to power and enjoying the favorable ratio of 1.8 men for every woman. After work they taught dance classes or played co-ed football, juggled dates or sorted placecards for fancy state dinners. For some of these women, this chapter would be short-lived. For Quisenberry, it would end after she married Hisham Sharabi, a Palestinian-American author, intellectual and professor, and had Leyla, her first and only child, at the relatively advanced age (for those times) of 32. “Even though she was a relative powerhouse by 1950s and ‘60s standards,” says the younger Sharabi, “by the time she was a mother, we were right back to the 1950s. She was a housewife.”
Still, the kind of woman who at 20 eschews all expectations placed upon her isn’t apt to let her life get boring. Sharabi confirms that her mother (who changed her name to Gayle Sharabi) wasn’t content to limit her tasks to her homemaking duties. She became an expert horticulturist, maintaining an impressive garden of exotic plants. Each morning, she left no page of the New York Times or the Washington Post unturned. Each night, she watched the evening news.
But as a woman of few words, Quisenberry rarely spoke of her working days to her daughter. “That’s the thing about moms,” says Sharabi. “Once they become moms to their children, they’re moms. I didn’t know about her life and her career.” As Rickerby’s photos of her had not actually been published in the LIFE photo essay, it wasn’t until after her mother died at 58 in 1995 that Sharabi came across his images of her, offering a glimpse of a young Washington woman at work.
The LIFE story didn’t quite have the language to describe the exploits of these career-oriented women. It often described them in terms of the way their presence affected those around them: “A pretty young girl for some reason,” it read, “seems to improve everyone’s mood.” But it did venture a prognostication about the generations to follow this group of “Washington girls” which, more than 50 years later, could well come true:
“One day,” the magazine said, “a woman will be President.”
http://time.com/4196768/women-washington-politics-gender/
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Joe Biden: ‘Sex without consent is rape. Full-stop.’
| CNN
“Sex without consent is rape. It is, full-stop, rape.”
Vice President Joe Biden delivered an impassioned speech on rape culture and violence against women on Tuesday at the White House’s first-ever United State of Women Summit.
The summit, held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, is addressing everything from the pay gap to education to family-friendly policies in the workplace.
It kicked off with the topic of violence against women.
“If you cannot consent because you are unconscious, it is rape. Period,” Biden said to a room filled with policymakers, academics, business leaders and activists. “The answer isn’t to shame women for drinking. Consent isn’t, ‘Well I didn’t hear ‘no.'”
The speech was particularly timely given the outrage over convicted rapist Brock Turner’s six-month sentence just last week.
For Biden, though, the issue is far from new. He’s been a vocal advocate against sexual assault for decades. As a senator, Biden drafted the Violence Against Women Act, which was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton.
In 2014, he and President Obama announced “It’s on Us,” a public awareness campaign for sexual assault.
Biden said seven young girls separately pulled him aside at a White House picnic Monday to thank him for his efforts and share that they’d been raped.
“We have to give women and girls a greater voice. They have to be assured that their voices will be heard,” said Biden, adding that the act of violence against women is “ultimately about the abuse of power.”
Biden called on men to step up and play an important role in changing the culture.
He referred to the “spiral of silence,” a dangerous phenomenon when others don’t speak up.
“Those of us who find this action reprehensible, you have to be heard,” he said, noting that change is a necessity for everyone. “This isn’t just about freeing women. If we free women … we free men, we make it all better. That is not hyperbole. That is a fact.”
He added that his passion for the cause is because his father taught him that the “cardinal sin” was to raise a hand against a woman or a child.
As part of the summit, the Obama administration, companies and foundations pledged $50 million to support women around the world.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/14/news/joe-biden-united-state-of-women/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom
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Joe Biden to Men: If You Do Nothing to Stop Rape, You're an Accomplice
Jun 14, 2016 | Fortune
By Valentina Zarya
"Violence against women is a crime, pure and simple."Joe Biden believes sexual assault is not just a women’s issue.
Kicking off a plenary on violence against women at the White House’s United State of Women summit on Tuesday morning, the U.S. Vice President urged the audience to “get men involved!”
Men, he said, can be potential change agents of what he referred to as America’s “rape culture”:
You guys in the audience, we’ve got to overcome this social discomfort of calling out the misogyny that happens when no women are present: the locker room talk, the bar banter, the rape jokes. As a man, maybe it makes you uncomfortable, but if you let it pass because you wanna become of the one guys, you become an accomplice.
Biden, who first introduced the Violence Against Women Act in 1990 while a Delaware senator, called this work “literally the cause of [his] life.” While the bill passed in 1994, it will be up for re-authorization in 2018, and he asked the Washington D.C. audience for their support.
Still, said Biden, legislation is not enough; “It’s about changing our culture.”
Last week, the VP penned a letter to the victim of the Stanford sexual assault case, in which he described what needs to change:
You were failed by a culture on our college campuses where one in five women is sexually assaulted—year after year after year. A culture that promotes passivity. That encourages young men and women on campuses to simply turn a blind eye.
http://fortune.com/2016/06/14/joe-biden-rape-culture/
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Michelle Obama hints at post-White House plans
Jun 15, 2016 | Politico
By Louis Nelson
Michelle Obama gave a rare hint at her future plans during a women’s summit on Tuesday night, saying she intends to extend her global advocacy for girls’ education beyond her husband’s stay in the White House.
Speaking at the first-ever United State of Women summit dinner, Obama said she was “just getting started” in her work on getting girls into classrooms around the world.
Story Continued Below
“I am so excited to continue working on this issue not just for the next seven months as First Lady, but for the rest of my life,” she said at the White House-hosted event. “And it’s going to be good work, because there are a lot of good partners in this room. And I am so looking forward to really diving in.”
As part of her address at the summit’s dinner, Obama announced $20 million in new commitments to the Let Girls Learn initiative, which promotes education for adolescent girls around the world. The first lady also announced plans Wednesday to travel to Liberia, Morocco and Spain later this month as part of her Let Girls Learn initiative. She will be joined throughout the trip by her daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, as well as by actress Meryl Streep in Morocco.
She is expected to visit a Peace Corps training facility in Liberia and hold discussions both there and in Morocco on girls’ education. In Spain, she will deliver a speech and meet with Queen Letizia.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/michelle-obama-first-lady-224392#ixzz4BksKhBEZ
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Microsoft feels burned by joint employer standard
Jun 15, 2016 | Politico
By Brian Mahoney
EEOC ISSUES FACT SHEETS ON EQUAL PAY, PREGNANCY DISCRIMINATION: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released documents Tuesday that outline equal employment rights for women in the workplace, coinciding with the White House United State of Women summit. The documents detail equal pay rules and the EEOC’s new proposal to collect compensation data from companies; pregnant workers’ legal rights under federal law; and tips for healthcare providers on helping patients deal with pregnancy-related issues at work.
The document on equal pay is here: http://1.usa.gov/1sFlBAw; on rights for pregnant workers here: http://1.usa.gov/1USt0CQ and the guide for healthcare providers is here: http://1.usa.gov/28CO3DK
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-shift/2016/06/microsoft-feels-burned-by-joint-employer-standard-house-gop-leaders-block-lgbt-vote-new-eeoc-fact-sheets-214827#ixzz4BktmbczJ
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OFCCP Finalizes Federal Contractor Sex Bias Rules
Jun 15, 2016 | Bloomberg BNA
By Jay-Anne B. Casuga
June 14 — The Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has finalized revisions to federal contractor sex discrimination rules that haven't been updated in more than 40 years, the agency announced.
“We need to bring the rules against sex discrimination into the 21st century,” Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said June 14 during the White House's United State of Women Summit. “We are clarifying for federal contractors that they must provide pregnancy-related accommodations and equal access to jobs and workforce development opportunities, and prevent sexual harassment and protect transgender workers’ access to bathrooms consistent with their gender identity.”
Management attorneys and consultants, including a former OFCCP official, generally commended the OFCCP for the final rules. They told Bloomberg BNA June 14 that although the rules are largely unchanged from their January 2015 proposed form, they do contain revisions and clarifications indicating the OFCCP took into consideration contractor concerns during the rulemaking period.
For example, the final rules make clear that a contractor's use of targeted female recruitment efforts as part of its affirmative action obligations won't be a violation, said Lynn Clements, director of regulatory affairs for Berkshire Associates Inc. in Columbia, Md.
“For the most part, the rules codify well-established sex discrimination principles that have developed since OFCCP first issued sex discrimination guidelines for contractors in the 1970s,” said Clements, acting and deputy director of OFCCP's Division of Policy, Planning and Program Development during the George W. Bush administration.
“In many cases, contractors will have to make few, if any, changes to their current practices in order to comply with these new regulations,” she said.
The OFCCP said it conformed the final rules (RIN:1250-AA05) under Executive Order 11,246 to amendments to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act enacted since 1970, as well as U.S. Supreme Court decisions interpreting that law. Generally, the OFCCP relies on Title VII principles to enforce the executive order.
Among other things, the OFCCP's final rules include provisions addressing compensation discrimination, pregnancy accommodations, discrimination based on gender identity, sex stereotypes and family caregiver bias.
The final rules (41 C.F.R. part 60-20) will be published in the June 15 Federal Register and go into effect Aug. 15.
They apply to covered federal supply and service contractors and subcontractors, as well as federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors.Compensation Reviews, Pay Discrimination
David Fortney, a management attorney with FortneyScott in Washington, told Bloomberg BNA that the final rules codify the OFCCP's Directive 307 “almost verbatim.”
Released in 2013, the directive provided the agency with broader and more flexible investigation procedures for pay discrimination.
Fortney said the final rule generally restates the agency's case-by-case approach to evaluating contractor pay systems during compliance reviews.
David Cohen, president of DCI Consulting Group Inc. in Washington, commended the OFCCP for not adopting the proposed rule's language that contractors must pay equal wages to similarly situated employees. The final rules instead focus on prohibiting discriminatory wages.
Mickey Silberman, a management attorney with Jackson Lewis in Denver, made a similar observation.
Silberman, who leads the firm's affirmative action compliance and OFCCP defense practice group, said the final rules make a “critical” distinction between equal pay for equal work and fair pay for comparable work.
He said the rules explicitly state that pay doesn't have to be equal. They allow for differences in pay based on neutral, job-related factors such as tenure, he said.
That language “aligns the regulations with governing law and case law that exists under Title VII” and “sets a reasonable expectation for employers,” Silberman said.
Cohen said the final rules also codify that the OFCCP can use a disparate-impact theory of sex discrimination as it relates to compensation practices.
The rules recognize that pay or other employment practices, including selection criteria, that have a disparate impact based on sex are unlawful unless shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity.
Gretchen W. Ewalt, a management attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Raleigh, N.C., said the rules provide specific examples of selection criteria that might have a disparate impact based on sex, such as strength and agility testing, or height and weight qualifications.
Additionally, Ewalt said the rules clarify that sex-based pay bias can result from job segregation or classification, such as when an employer disproportionately steers women into lower-paying jobs because of sex stereotypes.
Alissa Horvitz, a management attorney with Roffman Horvitz in McLean, Va., told Bloomberg BNA that the examples provided by the OFCCP throughout the rules are culled from court cases and other adjudicated resolutions and are the “best part of the regulation for government contractors.”
Horvitz said contractors can use these examples as part of their compliance self-evaluation practices.Pregnancy Discrimination, Accommodations
The OFCCP's final rules adopt the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which amended Title VII and prohibits sex bias on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions.
Fortney said the rules also broadly adopt the U.S. Supreme Court's decision inYoung v. United Parcel Services, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 1338, 126 FEP Cases 765 (2015).
The rules require contractors to provide workplace accommodations to pregnant employees, such as extra bathroom breaks and light-duty assignments, if the employer grants comparable accommodations to other employees who are unable to perform their regular job duties because of work injuries or disabilities.
Clements said she still hears stories of contractors that deny such accommodations for pregnant workers but provide it for other employees who are similarly situated in their inability to work.
“This is a practice that employers should carefully examine to see if it can still be justified, and in what circumstances,” Clements said.Rules Prohibit Transgender Bias
The rules also reiterate that prohibited sex bias under EO 11,246 includes discrimination based on gender identity or transgender status.
The OFCCP already memorialized this position in an August 2014 agency directive, as well as a final rule prohibiting discrimination based on transgender status and sexual orientation that went into effect in April 2014.
The rules require contractors to allow workers to use bathrooms, changing rooms and similar facilities that are consistent with their gender identity.
Fortney said contractors in states like North Carolina, which requires individuals to use public restrooms based on their biological sex at birth, may face a “Hobbesian choice” between complying with the OFCCP's rules and those state laws.
“How that gets sorted out remains to be seen,” Fortney said, observing that the OFCCP's rules don't address how contractors should make accommodations based on that conflict.
With respect to fringe benefits, the final rules require employers to provide equal benefits regardless of sex assigned at birth, gender identity or recorded gender.
According to the agency, fringe benefits include “medical, hospital, accident, life insurance, and retirement benefits; profit-sharing and bonus plans; leave; and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment.”
On the topic of benefits, Clements, Ewalt and Silberman all observed that the rules state that explicit, categorical exclusion of medical coverage for care related to a worker's gender dysphoria or gender transition are facially discriminatory.
They said contractors should review their health-care policies and benefit plans to determine if changes need to be made.
“Not all health benefit plans will likely satisfy all of the standards set forth in the new rules,” Clements said. “Recognizing that such changes may not be able to be made immediately, OFCCP noted it will consider a contractor’s good faith progress in this area when deciding whether enforcement action is warranted.”
Additionally, the final rules provide that contractors may invoke the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a basis for an exemption to the rules.Sex Stereotypes, Harassment, BFOQs
The OFCCP said its final rules reflect the principle established by the Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 49 FEP Cases 954 (1988), that employment decisions based on sex stereotypes are a form of sex discrimination.
In other words, the rule prohibits stereotyping “based on an employee's nonconformity with norms about how people with the employee's assigned sex at birth should look, speak, and act,” the agency said.
In addition, the rules bar contractors from making employment decisions based on stereotypes related to the “proper roles” of women and men regarding caregiving.
The OFCCP said its final rules also address workplace harassment or hostile work environments based on sex, pregnancy, childbirth or gender identity.
The rules acknowledge that sex can be a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) if it is “reasonably necessary to the normal operation” of an employer's “particular business or enterprise.”
However, the rules prohibit sex-based job classifications and state the “underlying principle that, absent a job-specific BFOQ, no job is the separate domain of any sex.”
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Feds recommend death penalty for for-profit college accreditor
Jun 15, 2016 | Politico
By Michael Stratfrd
LET GIRLS LEARN CONTINUES TO EXPAND: First Lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday announced more than $20 million in new commitments [http://1.usa.gov/1U7MnbA] to Let Girls Learn, which aims to increase girls' access to education worldwide. The new commitments came during the White House's first-ever United State of Women Summit, where community leaders and activists met to talk about educational opportunity as a key gender-equality issue.
— Among the companies and organizations contributing: Oracle has committed more than $3 million to fund educational events and support conferences, summer computing camps, and code fests for girls around the globe. International Rescue Committee has also created new programs, worth $1 million, that foster safe spaces and discussion groups for girls in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
— Meanwhile at the summit, President Obama stressed his goal of increasing the number of women, and particularly women of color, involved in STEM education. “It's hard to be what you can't see,” he said.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education/2016/06/feds-recommend-death-penalty-for-for-profit-college-accreditor-214832#ixzz4BkvPKgw2
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Michelle Obama Has The Best Advice For Shutting Down The Haters
Jun 15, 2016 | Huffington Post
By Sam Levine
WASHINGTON — When it comes to haters, first lady Michelle Obama just doesn’t listen to them.
During a conversation with Oprah Winfrey at the United State of Women summit in Washington on Tuesday, the first lady said she’s learned to tune out people who criticize her online.
“Well, when it comes to social media — there are just times I turn off the world, you know. There are just some times you have to give yourself space to be quiet, which means you’ve got to set those phones down,” she said. “You can’t be reading all that stuff. I mean, that’s like letting somebody just walk up and slap you, you know? You would never do that. You would never just sit there and go, slap me in the face and I’m good with it. No. So why would you open yourself up to that?”
Last year, Obama admitted the way she was stereotyped during her during her husband’s first presidential campaign got to her.
“I had a lot of sleepless nights, worrying about what people thought of me, wondering if I might be hurting my husband’s chances of winning his election, fearing how my girls would feel if they found out what some people were saying about their mom,” she said in a commencement speech at Tuskegee University. She said at the time she moved past the anxiety by focusing on who she really was.
The first lady also shared on Tuesday that she strives to overshadow criticism of her with her actions.
“The other thing that I have found, particularly in this job, that it’s — people won’t remember what other people say about you, but they will remember what you do,” she said. “So my strategy — and I’ve always been like this. When a teacher would come and tell me that I couldn’t do something, I would get so much satisfaction proving them wrong. I’d be like, ‘okay, all right, oh, you don’t think I’m going to do X, Y and Z, well I’m going to be the best X, Y, Z you can imagine.’”
“So when it came to this role, I just said, you know, let me just be First Lady. Let me wake up every day and work hard to do something of value, and to do it well, and to do something consequential, and to do something that I care about,” she continued. “ And then let that speak for itself. And that would shut up the haters, because I would have a whole portfolio of stuff that defined me because it’s what I did, not what you called me. So the best revenge is success.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michelle-obama-haters_us_576165a3e4b05e4be8604e06
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Michelle Obama Reveals That Yes, President Obama Has Always Been ‘Swagalicious’
| Huffington Post
By Sam Levine
WASHINGTON — Even though she’s been in the White House for a while, there are still moments when first lady Michelle Obama can’t believe what she’s experiencing.
Those moments have included watching her daughters and mother meet Pope Francis, having dinner with the Queen of England and watching Prince and Stevie Wonder perform at the White House, she told Oprah Winfrey at the United State of Women summit in Washington on Tuesday during a conversation focused on gender equality.
Another thing the first lady also hasn’t gotten over is the president’s frequent walk back to the White House from Marine One.
“Good lord. Watching my husband walk off of Marine One and go to the Oval Office, it’s like, mmm, mmm, mmm,” she said. “And you know he’s got that walk, right?”
The exchange prompted Winfrey to ask whether or not President Obama has always had so much swag or whether he’s gotten “swaggier.”
“No, he was very swagalicious,” the first lady said. “Look, I told people this from the very start, when I — started running — Barack Obama is exactly who he says he is. We both are. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell people. Ain’t no surprises. We’re telling you who we are, and no tricks up our sleeves.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michelle-obama-barack-obama_us_57616f11e4b05e4be860565d
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Warren Buffett Advocates For Women In Business At White House Summit On Women
Jun 15, 2016 | Forbes
By Emma Goldberg
At a Tuesday summit in Washington, D.C., billionaire Warren Buffett offered a piece of advice to young entrepreneurs.
“Delight your customers,” Buffett told the audience. “If you’ve been delighted by the person you’re doing business with, you’re going to return to that person.”
Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B +%, whose net worth Forbes estimates at $66.3 billion, is widely known for his philanthropy. Tuesday’s United State of Women Summit, organized by the White House, brought into focus Buffett’s work on women’s issues, especially opening economic opportunities for women.
Buffett spoke on a panel moderated by Dina Habib Powell, the head of impact investing for Goldman Sachs. When asked why he considers himself “bullish” on women’s issues, Buffett said he sees female involvement in the economy as key to the country’s prosperity. Without financially empowering women, he continued, America would be effectively “playing with one hand tied behind its back.”
Buffett wants to change societal perceptions of what a business leader looks like. That’s why he’s fought to bring more women onto the board of Berkshire Hathaway. He confessed that when he first put a woman on the board in 2003, it was his wife who had suggested Charlotte Guyman as a candidate.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmagoldberg/2016/06/15/warren-buffett-advocates-for-women-in-business-at-white-house-summit-on-women/#58ff178d5322
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Kerry Washington Had To Block A Lot Of Twitter Trolls After Abortion Episode Of ‘Scandal’
Jun 15, 2016 | The Huffington Post
By Laura Bassett
When Kerry Washington’s character on the primetime political drama “Scandal” chose to have an abortion without shame or regret last year, the actress says she faced a backlash on social media. But she doesn’t put up with trolls for very long.
“A lot of the people that may have reacted negatively are probably blocked on my Twitter, because I tend to be a pretty outspoken person when it comes to all kinds of human rights — women’s reproductive rights, immigrants’ rights, workers’ rights, rights for people of color, voting rights,” she said in an interview with The Huffington Post at the United State of Women White House summit on Tuesday. “I have no problem with people expressing a difference of opinion ... but I do block people who express violence, sexism, racism — that’s inexcusable to me.”
In the abortion episode, Washington’s character, Olivia Pope, unceremoniously skips a political event to have the procedure. Washington said that while she didn’t help write the episode or have any say in how the abortion was portrayed, she was proud to play a character who exercised her reproductive rights without apology.
“I just think it’s important that we remind ourselves that we live in a country where choice is important, and I was grateful to be able to portray a character who makes a choice and doesn’t have shame about it,” she said.
Washington has been involved in politics since long before she played Pope, a character whose job it is to clean up political scandals in Washington, D.C. Washington campaigned for Secretary of State John Kerry when he ran for president in 2004, and then for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. She also serves on the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. On Tuesday, she spoke about gender-based violence at the White House summit, a celebration of the Obama administration’s legacy on women’s rights.
Washington also speaks out often about feminism and racial politics. She told HuffPost that she has been turned down for certain roles in the past because she didn’t fit someone’s idea of the kind of African-American woman she needed to be.
“I think there were expectations of how I was supposed to look and act as a woman, or a woman of color, a black woman, a woman from the Bronx,” she said. “I think I did one role that was pretty well-known in [the 2001 film] ‘Save the Last Dance,’ where I played a girl who was from an urban community, and from that point on that was the only kind of black woman that people wanted me to play.”
Since that film, Washington has proven that she can play many “kinds” of black women, including attorney and academic Anita Hill, who famously accused then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. Washington said that playing that role, in the 2016 HBO film “Confirmation,” “was one of the first times I really became aware of the intersectionality of my identity as a woman and a person of color.”
The very first time she felt that way, however, was when she had to choose between Obama and Hillary Clinton during the Democratic presidential primary in 2008. She chose to campaign for Obama at the time — but now she has a second chance to support Clinton. “I felt like, well, I am a woman and I’m a person of color, so I can’t just rely on identity politics,” she said. “But I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, and just as I felt that he was the right person at that time, I feel like she’s the right person at this time.”
Washington endorsed Clinton in March and has taped political ads for her. She said while she is very excited for the possibility of the first female president, and proud of having helped elect a man of color to the Oval Office, she’s not sure the country will be ready for a woman of color to be president anytime soon.
“We’re in a really challenging place as a country right now,” she said. “Some of the rhetoric around women and immigrants and people of color is breathtaking to me.”
But when the time does come, Washington said, she already has her eye on a candidate.
“Somebody that I’m a huge fan of, but she’s running for Senate right now, is [state Attorney General] Kamala Harris in California,” she said. “I think she’s extraordinary. I do think she could be president one day.”
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Obama: "This is what a feminist looks like"
Jun 14, 2016 | Reuters
View clip here: http://www.reuters.com/video/2016/06/14/obama-this-is-what-a-feminist-looks-like?videoId=368920743
ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) STORY: U.S. President Barack Obama pointing to himself as he addressed the White House Summit on the United States of Women said, "I may be a little grayer than I was eight years ago, but this is what a feminist looks like." Obama highlighted progress nothing that for the first time a presidential candidate of a major political party is female. He also spoke about change stat are needed the difference in expectations for girls and boys. "We need to keep changing the attitude that raises our girls to be demure, and our boys to be assertive," Obama said, adding, "that criticizes our daughters for speaking out and our sons for shedding a tear." He also said, "We need to change the attitude that punishes women for their sexuality but gives men a pat on the back for theirs." . The President said that the good news is that there is a different attitude among younger women like his daughters Sasha and Malia. He said they believe every door is open to them, "They think it weird that we haven't already had a woman President."
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