Unknown Speaker 00:00 A nation of the scholar and the feminist conference. We haven't lasted this long by thinking small or being modest. And so once again, we tackle a topic of enormous contemporary significance, women work and family in a changing economy. The first to have a go at it this morning is the acting president of Barnard College, Katherine Rogers, a graduate of Smith and long the General Counsel at Barnard, Kathy has been a strong advocate for women's education, women's students, and particularly for women's colleges. She has also been a good friend to the Center for Research on Women. And to me, it's my pleasure to introduce Katherine Rogers. Unknown Speaker 00:51 Good morning, Unknown Speaker 00:53 and good morning. It is I hope you appreciate the weather that Leslie has ordered up for us. And she's done it again in other important ways at this 20th scholar and feminist conference, she's assembled a wonderfully informed and able cast to address a set of urgent issues. And she has gathered an audience ready to examine such issues critically and fervently. And we all thank you, Leslie. Many of you know that the Barnard Center for Research on Women was founded in 1971, with the mission of looking both theoretically and practically, at any and all issues concerning the status and condition of women. Since then, with the strong backing of the college and a friends and foundations, the center has offered myriad programs directed to the most provocative questions of our time. And the center has been both an important support and resource for those who engage in research on women. I do little empirical research of my own from time to time. And I don't know if you keep count of these things. But according to my newspaper, women went to for three this week. On Sunday, it was the pope versus the little girls and the girls one. And perhaps only those of us who are Catholic appreciate the earthshaking importance of the announcement that girls may now be altar servers. But until last Sunday, the reason that they couldn't be was because girls couldn't eventually become priests. So I leave you to make a logical extension of that. A day later, the Supreme Court ruled on gender in juries and the women won. And this too, is profound, not necessarily because it will radically change jury verdicts. I remember that the jury that acquitted the St. John's University students who were accused of gang rape had women on it, and the jury that convicted Mike Tyson had men on it. But it is a major step toward putting gender on the same high level of constitutional protection that race enjoys. So that's two in the wind column. But later in the week, Admiral Carol Kelso was awarded his four stars by the predominantly male US Senate. Despite his failure to prevent, to control or to properly investigate the tailhook incident. One senator actually argued that this result was a benefit to women, because it assured the admirals wife of a higher pension. Now there are some of us who may have thought that the added pension benefits should go to the Naval officers, the working women who had the courage to expose the tailhook scandal. That one's a clear loss. And the topic for this year's conference is women work and family in a changing economy. How does my scorecard relate to the subject? It relates because the one we lost this week happened in the workplace. And it relates because a woman's ability to take adequate care of her family, growing children and aging parents, and a woman's ability to become the whole person that she wishes to be that is to follow the pursuits and the careers that she chooses, have a direct and positive correlation to her ability to work at a job or in a field, which provides the wages and the benefits and the support systems necessary to do so. And many of us who have experienced and benefited from the second wave of the women's movement since the 1960s. Thought we had accomplished so much that the end goals of equal pay for equal work were within grasp that gender discrimination on the job could and would be eliminated. But it wasn't ever easy. And then the boom and the bust of the 1980s came the glass ceiling dropped evermore firmly in place. Women and their Children bore the brunt of the recession 1000s upon 1000s being plunged into poverty. And now in the spring of economic recovery, the expanding job opportunities look very different and much less attractive than the ones we envision before the collapse. Unknown Speaker 04:59 Why did they These upheavals have such a disproportionately adverse impact on women. I suggested intentional and open exclusion. An easy target for reform has given way to more subtle discrimination, to heel dragging and just playing failure to act, think of Admiral Kelso to reliance on traditional institutional structures and old habits. Think United States senators. The changing economy provides the perfect backdrop and excuse for this veiled but powerful discrimination to flourish. Layoffs across the board, new job descriptions that lower pay part time and temporary work replacing full time jobs, reductions and benefits, especially including health care and pension benefits. You will be hearing today about all the complexities of the economy and being a working woman of entrepreneurship, and harassment and the family policies of corporations. You will consider the issues involved in caring for dependent children and parents of starting a business being lesbians in the workplace. You will discuss welfare reform very much a woman's issue, as well as our growing underground economy. These issues and problems do not affect all of us at this in the same way, even at the same stages in our lives, but they are vitally important to all of us. Clearly, our work is cut out for us today. And we'll have to keep at it. Even though at times it seems hopelessly tiring and boring and repetitious. It's as Joan Rivers of Barnard alumna, noted about housework, I hate housework, you make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later, you have to do it all over again. Today, while you're going head on at the every day and the every six month realities of women's lives, I trust you will consider also the subtle in nearly invisible influences which can have as much significance in our economy and our lives as the clearly visible issues. Those harder to grasp problems of attitude and institutional resistance to change, and perhaps are perhaps the most immediate of our challenges, as well as the most difficult and long lasting. So once again, I welcome you to a day of work, enlightenment and camaraderie at Barnard. And Leslie, please take over. Unknown Speaker 07:24 I just want to let folks in the back know that there are plenty of seats up here on the sides, if you like an unusual state of vision. I'm going to start this morning by quoting Sigmund Freud. He's not my usual source of expertise on women. But every now and then although his questions might leave something to be desired, he gets off a good question. And here it is what Freud asks, do women want? Well, I've taken lots of tests, I can do this. I'll assume the question is an essay question. Here goes. Women want to have healthy, loving, well cared for families, which may be configured in a number of different ways. And they want the time to enjoy their families. That's not all 30 years into this wave of the women's movement. It's clear that women want to work at tasks that are intellectually and physically fulfilling, that are personally challenging and socially productive. Some women find such work within the family most want or need something in addition, for the work they do, women want to be adequately and fairly paid. comprehensive health care, and an assured retirement would also be nice. Oh, yes. And since I know how interested Dr. Freud is in sex, the man was obsessed. Let me not fail to mention that most women would like to have enough energy left after doing all the above to enable them to have sex. That too, could be configured in a number of different ways. So Dr. Freud is that too much to ask? Some of our panelists today may take issue with or expand upon these goals. And there'll be thinking today, and we will about these essay questions. What can our government and our economic and social structures do to facilitate these goals? What is presently standing in the way of our meeting them? What should we be asking of business and of government, not to mention our domestic partners? And once we have figured out what it is we want them all to do? How do we get them all to do it? Strangely, that women do not yet have all that I have suggested we want and need is blamed by some commentators not on government. Not on patriarchy, not on a shrinking economy, and not on Ronald Reagan. Although all of these would be on my list that women don't have at all isn't even blame entirely on Hillary Clinton on whom everything is blamed. But you guessed it that women don't have it all is often blamed on feminism. It's feminists who have pressed our way into the workforce and thus denied both our essential natures to quote Marilyn Quayle and our children. I got a letter a couple of weeks ago from an alumna of this college, angered by the brochure advertising the conference. Why because she wrote, the conference omits, quote, a significant category of working women stay at home mothers, are we she asked rhetorically, less scholars because we consult the work of Penelope leach more often than Simone de les feminist because our work is unpaid. Penelope leach for those of you who don't know as a child rearing expert, Dr. Spock for the new generation, Simone vai is a philosopher who apparently was much assigned here at Barnard. My correspondent continues this time less rhetorically, I know many well educated women who believe their children need more of their time than the typical corporate maternity leave permits more of their attention than a full time professional position will allow more energy, creativity and commitment than they could possibly have left over from an eight or 10 hour workday. I've written back to her that with respect to this paragraph or her letter, I agree with her completely. Indeed, corporate leaf policies are by and large, inadequate, indeed children's parents, and not just their moms have too little time to spend with their families. My correspondence solution to this problem has been to become a full time mother, I assured her that this conference would neither demonize nor deride that choice. But I asked her to understand this, that one of the impacts of the changing economy is that most American women just can't afford that choice. For it isn't only feminism, or some abstract thought of liberation that has brought American women into the workforce, its economic need, most of us have to have paying jobs, to be sure we seek employment that is personally fulfilling. But even if we can't get it, most women have to work anyway. Unknown Speaker 12:18 Particularly for those who have children or parents or others who need our care. This combination of work and family leads to many frustrations to many companies still create jobs and work hours with the assumption that workers are men, and that men have no families, the care of families, their health and education, their well being is left to individual adults. And often it is indeed one adult, a single woman who must patch it all together. The alumna who wrote to me said that she'd like to see a revolution that would value child rearing equally with paid labor. Yes, I'd like to sign up for that one myself. It's my hope that today's conference will help us find a way to get from here to there. Let me introduce those who will shed some wisdom on these and other problems this morning. We'll begin with Fran Cessna Rogers, who is in a sense coming home. Fran is a graduate of Barnard College and also of Tufts University. She's the founder and chief executive officer of work family directions, the country's leading provider of corporate Work and Family Services. She and her staff of work family experts advise some 225 national companies on management practices aimed at creating and keeping a diverse workforce. Additionally, work family directions has created LifeWorks a Family Resource Program offering assistance and support to over 2 million employees. The role of women in the workforce, the effectiveness of leave policies and flexible hours, the demands of child and elder care, and strategies for reducing employee stress are but some of the areas in which work family directions and Francis and Rogers are in the forefront of change. Welcome back. Next, we'll hear from Linda Faye Williams, who is Associate Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. She is also the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Education at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. A native of Texas, she attended Rice University and the University of Chicago, which are of course, not women's colleges. Somehow she has triumphed nonetheless. Indeed, Linda Williams is recognized throughout the country as a leading analyst of African American political behavior. In 1992. She was one of the principal investigators for the women's voices project, a project sponsored by the MS Foundation and the Center for Policy Alternatives. This project was designed to evaluate women's values and needs across race and class lines with an eye to generating the policy initiatives that we all need. Linda Williams also keeps busy being interviewed on all the major evening network news programs as well as the Today Show CNN C span and MacNeil Lehrer. I'm delighted that she's enhancing her resume still more by being here with us today. Unknown Speaker 15:18 Excuse me, Sheila Wellington. There you are. Sheila Wellington assumed the presidency of catalyst in July of 1993. Through its research and advocacy, over three decades, Catalyst has impressed upon business leaders and public policymakers the importance of developing women's leadership, not only in the interest of equity, but in the interest of business success. Prior to joining catalyst, Sheila Wellington worked both in higher education and in the field of mental health. With that all of us in higher education were in mental health. Most recently, she was the secretary of Yale University Yale's third highest ranking position. In that job, she worked with great success to enhance Gail's relationship to the city of New Haven, including facilitating a $5 million investment from the Yale Corporation for urban economic development. Previously, she was the director of the Yale psychiatric institute, and prior to that, the director of the greater Bridgeport community mental health center, turning that center into a model for other such institutions in the country. She is the graduate of another fine sister college Wellesley and I'm delighted to welcome her here. Our final speaker this morning will be Dolores Crockett. Ms. Crockett is the Acting Deputy Director of the US Department of Labor women's bureau. Congress created the women's bureau in 1920. In order to promote the welfare of wage earning women how nice the Congress thinks of us from time to time. I suspect that in the course of today's events, you'll hear cited some statistics on women in the workforce, a lot of us get the information that makes us sound so knowledgeable from the Women's bureau. Prior to taking her current position with the National Bureau. Ms. Crockett was the Regional Administrator based in Atlanta for the eight southeastern states. There she led programs to help women advance in the workplace, to acquire training, and to become familiar with their rights on the job. She is the graduate of still another great women's institution, Spelman College, where her daughter is currently enrolled. I'm delighted you could join us finally, in the interests of symmetry, since I started with Freud, let me end with another male authority William Shakespeare. It's his birthday today. And I do love a good celebration. My plan was to honor Mr. Shakespeare by citing an appropriate couplet or a passage that would shed light on the issue of women in work. After an extensive search using the Barnard Library's computerized up to the minute thoroughly exhaustive, carefully annotated complete works of Shakespeare. I couldn't find a quote on women and work. But Mr. Shakespeare did say this. I see a woman may be made a fool, he wrote, If she has not a spirit to resist. In the spirit of women's resistance, then Happy Birthday. Well. Our first panelist today is Franz Cessna Rogers. Unknown Speaker 18:25 Well, Leslie, you're right. It does feel like coming home coming to Barnard and coming to New York City. And I feel very, it feels very special to me to be here today. And I guess it does to everybody in this room, because why else would we get up on a Saturday morning, and be here at nine o'clock and I need my, Unknown Speaker 18:41 with these ones, or these ones, I Unknown Speaker 18:43 need my glasses. And that reminds me that as I stand here, it really is shocking to me and sort of am overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed with the feeling that it's been 27 years. This June since I left this institution, and began for what me for what for me is a both a personal and professional, you can't hear there's at it everybody can hear. Okay. What I said was, it's hard for me to believe as I stand here that it's been almost 27 years since I left Barnard and began for what for me is a personal and professional journey. On the subject of this conference, women work and family in a changing economy, and it has changed a lot in 27 years. I left Varner 27 years ago with two great interests and passions. Like everybody else I didn't I left here a strong feminist with a great interest in women's progress in their quest for economic and social equality. But I also left you with something that was somewhat unusual for my time. I had a deep interest in the status of children And I was very eager to learn what would happen to them as the changing family was accelerating so greatly around me. For most of my early career, these were thought of as two separate and unrelated US interests. So for like the first 10 years of my career, I would do the meetings or conferences, about the status of women. And we would talk about sending women to boot camps, teaching them to be more aggressive, figuring out how to get rid them, this workplace of the most egregious of sexual harassment issues, and then never mentioning, never mentioned anything to do with family, then I would go to conferences or meetings about children and their status or daycare. And there was never a word about what was happening to the mothers, there was never a word about how they were faring. During this whole period, I thought there was a real central challenge. For women as they moved ahead in the economy, I thought the central challenge was to figure out how it was going to be possible to do our best at work to the to exercise our ambition to exercise our talents and skills. At the same time, we did reproduce and we did care for our families and had full lives. Since seeing this topic together today makes me feel great that Ford, and since I feel somewhat nostalgic, being here after so many years, although I have been back several times. What I thought I would do today is just briefly talk to you, and paint you a picture of the experiences of my generation. What I think we've learned in these years and how we've changed our views over the years of how work, family and women all work together. Again, I'm a first year baby boomer born in 1946. My class at Barnard was the first class I believe we're about half the women applied to professional schools. Upon graduation, my class read The Feminine Mystique and freshman orientation, we were totally surrounded by the beginnings of the women's movement. When we left here, we really felt like we were going to make we really felt like we were equipped well, to compete with men on an equal basis. And if you had asked us, then I think we said the major challenge of our generation would be to prove that we could be more than mothers. So we sort of neglected even thinking about the mother part. So much so that when I think back, what I realize is, we just assumed somehow, many of us just assumed somehow that the marriage or the children would somehow happen along the way. And we certainly to a person, I'm quite sure, assume things like National daycare system would happen. Nobody thought that it was even conceivable that if we looked 25 or 20 years out, we would be working in a society that did not, for example, take childcare, fair childcare for granted. Unknown Speaker 23:17 The world was so different than I always remember that. In fact, when I went when I finally did somehow decide to get married about four years after I left Barnard. And I remember telling, calling up and telling my friends while I'm getting married. I remember clearly the most common reaction is why are you doing that. And I was so embarrassed to be doing this. I had to really it was really a hard leap to take. And we know in the last and it's very funny because you know, my kids look at me. And when I've spoken at barn and people kind of look at people my age. I think we're sort of old world fogies with conservative views. And it's so interesting to realize that our ideas, then I mean, I did not go to a wedding shower for 20 years after barn, i Nobody I know ever had a wedding shower. And now that I now that I'm running a company with lots and lots of young women who are getting married, I go to like showers and pig weddings. And it had nothing to do whatsoever with with my personal experience in that era. And the other thing I think we assumed was that by now all of us would have husbands that had shared pretty much equally at home along the way, it was kind of a given in the way we thought. And for me, personally, this belief that this stuff would just happen together, was very consistent with the way I was brought up. I was a child of New York City of New York City immigrant family, where there was no divide between work and family. I had onsite childcare at my father's upholstery store because my mother and father work together, and I was brought to work every day. My parents at dinner, you know, such as we had dinner together, there would be talk one moment about what's going on at school the next minute that was going on in work. And for me, this fluidity was just the given. And for me, there was no divide, there was no divide in the world, I lived in between what was working what was family. So it's interesting, because I, when I'm going to share with you, what I sharing with you, in terms of most of my experiences have to do with my experiences in the corporate world, as somebody has tried to work in male institutions to say these things don't have to be divided. But my passion for this issue really comes from an immigrant childhood. And when we in a particular kind of childhood, and I say this, because mostly when we think about these issues, and when we look at what's happened over the past 20 years, we look to the examples of my generation of women who are poor, mostly professionals, who are trying to make it in worlds that previously were dominated by men and still are dominated by men. And mostly we think about this as and this is the generation that previously did not work. But we all know that women lower income women always worked. And sometimes I think instead of looking for role models, and those women, we should believe it's possible to do both, we should believe it's possible to have work and family go together. And we should maybe not look at role models for the women who, who didn't previously work. But we should look at the energy of women who've always done this. And that I think, has been my inspiration. Because I just know it's possible. I know, it's possible to do both if the rules and the circumstances are right. So when I when I said before that I left, I left college with this great optimism and sense that certainly it'll work out. And actually, for many of us, it has worked out quite well there has been a great deal of progress. But like with everything that's involved with social change, and big, big changes that we're talking about here, one can look at the glass is half full or half empty. And for me, it depends on the day, how I look at it. But actually, we know, for AP, we know for certain that the antagonisms between working and having a family and having a loving, caring for people you love are much greater than they should be. And there are a lot of difficulties in trying to do both. And when I look back over this period, it says though, there's major social, women's working and to the extent women are working represents a major social revolution, a major economic revolution in this country. But if you look over the past 25 years, or 30 years is the I guess Lesley's time period, what you see is that women went to work, this major social revolution happened, and nothing changed around us to support it. Unknown Speaker 28:03 And this fact that women are working, but the other institutions are pretty much the same as they were is the central problem that we have as we try to figure out how all these things can work better together. I think the biggest surprise for me is not so much that it hasn't all happened. But the extent to which other institutions have resisted, accepting women's work is real and adapting to it. And I say, by other institutions, first of all, the government, and not to be disrespectful to Richard Nixon today. But it is 1971 that Richard Nixon vetoed the only comprehensive childcare legislation that was real that this country ever passed. And when he vetoed it, and it has never come up again in this country, and in a way, the significant, he vetoed it because he said a child care child care would destroy the American family. And we know what has happened because of the lack thereof. So the government has resisted in every way, adapting to the change in women's status and the change in women's work. Community Services have resisted. This is nonprofit nonprofits as well as government have resisted accepting that this is a reality that families have changed in women has worked have worked. And that's why the social support is not out there for the new kinds of family. Businesses have changed some but they've basically resisted accepting this as a fundamental change. And men have not changed as much as we expected them to. They are better some of them and I there's many examples anecdotally of men who are truly sharing and certainly they care more about their children and their responsibility for them in a way than they did before. But when you really when the rubber hits the road, man have continued to trade off family time for career, then they have not added very many hours that they help at home. Throughout this whole period, while the changes have been so slow, and again, they're moving in the right direction, but they're so slow. It's been very clear, actually, what would it what it would take. And I think this is the biggest frustration, it is very clear what it would take to make it possible for men and women to produce their best at work and also care for their families. And what is needed is basically three things dependent care support of a very broad nature, much more flexibility in terms of the workplace, and careers, and certain cultural changes that change the way people are managed, how they're treated daily, and how they're evaluated for success. And these things come on the kind of hierarchy for the individual, you can't even get to work, if you don't have basic dependent care. If you have a baby, and you have to go back to work, you can't even walk through the door, if you have no place to put your child. If your mother breaks her hip, Unknown Speaker 31:07 or your mother is hospitalized, and you have to get back to work the next day, you can't even go if she isn't cared for. And I would say the same is true. If you have a child who's having severe problems in school, you can't you might fail to go physically, but every bone in your body tells you that's not where you should be mentally, if you have a problem that you haven't been able to solve with a family member of any age. So basic dependent care structure is like food to a starving person on a hierarchy. If you don't have it, nothing else is you don't even think of it anything else. But even if you have it, even if you manage to figure out how to get basic dependent care, it's not enough. And Leslie mentioned this at the in her introductory remarks, you still are the person who loves your dependents, and you still have responsibilities and must be there. At certain times, you may not be making Halloween Costumes by hand anymore, you may not go to every soccer game, you may only hit the championship, so the playoffs, but you should be there you have to be there. That's the essence of the fabric of what it means to be a family member and someone who's a caregiver. So even if you have your basic dependent care in place, you need flexibility, you might work real hard, but you need to move your hours around. Sometimes you need to be an adult, who can who figures out how to care for all your responsibilities in a way that makes sense for you. And lastly, in terms of how the individual experiences this, let's say you have your dependent care, let's say you're allowed to move your hours around flexibly, let's say you get all the results you would have. If you didn't have a family, you still don't want to be punished, or thought of as less serious or thought of as not a real worker simply because of your family status. And that happens to people all the time. Somehow, if you're a person who's got something else in your life that really matters to you, you're kind of written off or not thought of as very serious. And I want to just focus a minute on this issue as time the issue of time is a central factor in women's success and women's issues with trying to combine work and family. And that's why if you ask well, if you've asked working women for most of this 2530 year period, what's the one thing you need most to be successful at work and also care for your families, other than saying they wish their husband helped more, which sometimes comes up first. The second thing they say over and over again is I need more flexibility. So why is that? The research has been clear again for this whole period, that if you ask people, How many hours are you committed between your work and your personal responsibilities, a woman with a children and elder care would add on top of this. By the way, if you've got both, it's more than what I'm telling you here. A woman with children works the equivalent of two full time jobs. So if you ask people to actually document the hours that they're committed to both work and to really caring in their family, at the lowest it's 87 hours a week if you work full time. With single parents, sometimes it's more sometimes it's less, but it's at least that high as well. If you ask men in when women have men in their in their lives in their households, husbands, mostly. You ask them, How many hours did they work between home and family? They're always at least 15 hours less in terms of their at the amount of time they're committed. And one of the interesting facts on this has not changed. This has not changed. One of the interesting facts is that men whose wives work, only, we only put in about an hour or two more week than men whose wives are home. So the the fact of a woman working does not change all that much the average man's contribution to family work. Unknown Speaker 35:16 So you've got more and more people with more pressure at work to work longer hours more pressure at home to make hours. And if you're ambitious, the very least that you want is some control over when and how the work gets done. That's why there's an enormous demand that's unmet. For less than full time work that's meaningful, people want to work less than full time, it doesn't mean they're not ambitious, it doesn't mean in the long run, they don't care enough as much about their career, what they want is some reduction of the total hours because it's just impossible for them. They want that if they can afford to take by the way the cut and pay if they can't, that isn't even an option. They want more control over where they work. So if you charge me my first child had severe asthma, that's when I became an entrepreneur, I could not call every day and say on I could not leave a child who couldn't breathe, to go to work. On the other hand, I could be up with her at night, I could work when she slept, I could sleep myself and then work at night, as long as I had control over moving my hours of work around, I got a lot done. But if somebody had forced me and did force me into some rigid schedule that actually had nothing to do with my results, it was impossible for me. So this whole issue of controlling place of work time of work. And this is not just the Ghana professional woman's issue. If you look, for example, and I've met many people like this, if you look at a single parent who may be in a backroom operation somewhere, you know, customer service organization, or a backroom insurance company operation, that person, if they're if that person's managed rigidly if every 15 minutes, that person's late, gets punished, if that person has to leave a child that the school bus in the school buses late thrash through no fault of our own, and comes to work 10 minutes later, but wants to make it up at the end of the day, that person could be fired for the behaviors that make perfect sense for no good business reason whatsoever. So this issue of time and how it's managed and how it's judged is critical. And we've made some progress, but surely not enough. And lastly, on this issue of culture, there seems to be a deep feeling in our culture, that if you have something else in your life than work that occupies your mind or your feelings, you're not as serious about your work is absolutely irrational. But it is very deeply held. And it gets in the way of how people judge us if we are people with other things in our lives. The second sort of big issue that is really getting in our way, is that people believe in their hearts. They believe it's because they can't be in their brains, because it's not rational. They believe in an irrational way, that being flexible is inconsistent with getting results, that somehow if you allow somebody flexibility, you're going to give up on results, you're not going to be as successful. There is no evidence that that's true. The evidence points more than the contrary. But it's a deeply held belief that is actually just deeper than we ever realized. And we have to figure out how to get more than the bottom of it. Just to give you just a one piece of data, the documents that we did a study where we asked women with families, and this was a very high power group of women, tell us what you need to be successful work and also meet these responsibilities. Two thirds of the women in the study said, we need more flexibility. Then we asked their bosses, how do you view a person who needs more flexibility? One half of the bosses said a person who needs flexibility is not serious about their career. So if you want to remember one thing from what I'm saying that's kind of the rub, that the very tool we need to be serious and to be successful and to achieve is seen as a sign that we're not serious buy off on the people we work for. And make no mistake of as I said before, this is an irrational set of beliefs. I could there's been research all over the place Catalyst has done research. I'm sure other people in this audience have done research. This isn't even true, but it gets in our way. Not to plan and now just to end on a more positive note because there are always a lot of positive. Unknown Speaker 39:50 This issue of the changing economy represents a lot of both risk and opportunity as well as change always represents risk and opportunity. In the current state of the American Communist economy, which is in tremendous turbulence businesses are in tremendous turbulence represents, it could really be worse. And maybe right now, I think right now, people feel quite discouraged that things aren't very good in terms of people getting more flexibility a women succeeding, but there's a bizarre silver linings in it. And one of the reasons there's Silver Linings is because of some of the research that has come out in the last year, that shows some very surprising results, looking at companies that really respond to family issues, just and just very briefly, let me tell you what they are. It's a group of there's a five or six studies in this group, and they all show the same thing, that companies who really make family responsiveness, a business issue, yield incredible benefits in the following areas, employees take more initiative. And if you want to understand the American economy right now, where people are devastated by all the changes, getting people to take initiative and be committed to their employer, and working hard, through all the turbulence is a central challenge to every business in this country. Well, what do you know, if companies are responsive in this area, people pay them back with more initiative. And if you're interested in health care reform, and if you're interested in what's going to happen to our health care system, you know, what, companies that are responsive to family issues, and I'm sure that's true of universities and professional organizations and nonprofits to it's not just confidence, when you are responsive to people's family issues, you have healthier people working for you and with you. Because a lot of and a lot of the lack of support for families and for people who work ends up dumped in the health care system, because there's no place else for people to go for support. So as we look ahead, and we look at the changing economy, and we look for the silver linings, it's pretty clear that as we move to an economy, that doesn't guarantee people lifelong loyalty anymore, and probably never will, again, like it or not, that can't escalate wages, in a you know, in a global sense, wages have to be, I guess, sort of more consistent with a national and international standard. What we can see in the negative is that what's left is that we still have to make people committed, we have to give people reasons to have initiative, we have to raise morale. And then when we respond to people as human beings and recognize what their lives are like, those are the payoffs and that's the benefit. Let me just end with another little story about Barnard. I had not been back to Barnard for 15 years till about five years ago. Now, I've been events a couple times a year 55 years ago, when I was asked to speak at the feminist club, feminist class, and I also spoke with the college to a broader audience. And I had no idea what this would be like after all these years, and I came to the class and I started to talk and for the first thing I noticed was everything looked exactly the same. I got off the subway and 100 and 16th street and someone, I couldn't believe that someone handed me a flyer about saving the Audubon, the Audubon forum, and I was here when now I was here when mountain when Malcolm X was assassinated. So that's a very, was a very profound thing for me. In a case I missed, oh, my god, the same things, people look the same. I walked into the class, the girls looked the same. They were kind of dressed on black like we were they kind of Unknown Speaker 43:44 and I just, I was like, I couldn't believe it. And then I just had this wonderful dialogue with these girls. And they were mostly these young women, I guess. They were mostly juniors and seniors. And we were talking about what world of work was like. And I realized that they were they had no more clue than I did about how what the barriers were going to be. And I just was like, I was just scratching my head. And I remember on the plane home, I was writing a whether they own further saying How could this be I missed this. I'm worried about this that the girls don't know anymore. And then and I'm the mother of two daughters who are teenagers and I was thinking about my daughters do they know should? And I realized before I got off the plane by the time I got off the plane, I had convinced myself this was a good thing. And and the reason I convinced myself it was a good thing was I said, Well, what's the alternative? Do we want young women to think they aren't going to be able to do at all? Do we want young women to be less optimistic that they can make a difference and then it is possible to do with all and I guess I'm still have two minds about it. But if I had to choose, I would like I would like to believe that young women could at least name I was going to hit them. So they wouldn't take it personally and they would understand. And I think that there was a way in which these women probably were going to do that. I think it's very important that young women understand the dynamics that will hit them. So they're prepared and that they again that they don't blame themselves as individuals for it. But I also think it's so critical. And I certainly want my daughters to feel like sure, there's a lot more to be done. But it's possible, I want them to have a passion that it's possible, I want them to believe it's possible, I want them to fight to make it possible. Because this is a long term revolution. This is a social change that makes people resist and that's very deep. And you can't expect it to be 2027 years, when you look at it in that context, is not a long time, I suppose it's a relatively mid point in the kinds of changes that we need to make. Thank you. Unknown Speaker 46:06 Think before the other two speakers, I say that, because everyone has been so wonderful, who has spoken till they're willing, hard to follow. But secondly, each person has made me think of something else to talk about. Who might be here all day with me rattling on and on if I listened to two more people, but at any rate, they talk top thus far did remind me of starving myself with an anecdote. And I not only went to those male dominated colleges, but I grew up in a family which had, I think, almost by anybody's assessment, a absolute bona fide certified chauvinist pig, for father. And I'll give you just one example. I remember being stunned as a teenager, when my father was griping to me about my mother and said, the biggest thing that he really had against my mother is that she absolutely refused. I didn't mention that book to my father at all, it never occurred to me to talk to him about it. But I went off, and we had discussion during freshman week. And there were all these men and I think we're of the same generation. i There were all these men who stunned me almost as much as my father did, who were actually and I said, me and my fellow freshmen, who were actually sitting there saying they would not allow their wives to work. There was no way there was at work. And this was 1966. Ah, and, and also, I remember going home and telling my father, can you believe it? These guys were sitting there saying they didn't want their wives to work, this chauvinist pig that my father was, he said, absolutely crazy. And what do they mean, they don't want their wives to work. Now, that's because my mother absolutely had to work as in most black families, there was no choice. If our family was to make it financially, my mother had to work. She of course, had to do the 87 hour week, just by coming home and doing all the housework she couldn't force her lazy children to help her with because my father was not going to do it. But as today, when we have 75% of black women with children under six who are married in the workforce, it's been a long term trend in the black community. So my father damn chauvinist, it was you something that I think we all need to remember, as we go through this conference today, that work in and of itself need not be liberating, that it depends on the kind of work, the conditions of work, the choices one has about the work they do, and the rewards that come to them from that work, whether or not that work does deliver independence and a chance for creativity, or it's just a new place for new subordination. And I think that's really important today, because it ties into what I decided to make my focus while looking at the welfare reform debate, and how that really has an effect upon all women to some extent, not just those on and who received AFDC and can have an effect upon the broad working class, depending on how it's done. Because even if one takes the Clinton welfare reform task force, what is in the latest draft, is that women who are on welfare after two years would be required to take it Any job that as long as it met health and safety standards, so this means that if there were patterns of racial harassment, sexual harassment, all kinds of horrible things that go on with women in the work workplace, at least as far as the task force thing is thinking now, these women would actually be penalized if they were to quit these jobs, because it raised as long as it meets health and safety standards. Now that that's a loophole that's too too big. And I think that we need to think about them. In the case. Of these these women. Unknown Speaker 50:39 The issues of is this what what would be the nature of work that women on welfare are being required to do? So I'm going to focus on the welfare debate as a way really to talk more generally about the plight particularly of low income women, and especially low income women of color. Since I think, as I said that it has many implications for women for work and family in a more general way. Another thing that came to me and listening to the previous speakers in this regard, is the ironic situation we find ourselves in, on the one hand, we're saying well from mothers have to work. And we're saying we have to work because women work. Now, all women work, who is going to put up with paying for some women to stay home and rear their children, when your average middle class woman has to work, that's one of the justifications that's given, of course, still, today, the average woman does not work full time. And the average woman does, the average middle class woman does have a husband, to help them off with many of the duties of child rearing. So it's not quite the same as saying the single female head had a family must go out and work full time. But the really thing that's ironic is the essential nature of the argument for middle class women, the fact that they are working then is held against them. So far, a group of the poor was saying your place must be to work. And for the women who say we want to work, we want to have productive careers, they're somehow being blamed for also the breakdown of the family by choosing to work. So no one says that people have to be consistent, I guess, but it certainly is inconsistent. So what I'd like to do is to talk just very briefly, about the broad contours of the welfare debate, because you have a whole session on that. And so people will be going into that more, and then to talk about the implications for the labor market and for family formation. And in both cases, to discuss some things that I think have faulty assumptions, mainly in regards to the labor market, the issue that should be on everybody's mind, where are these jobs for low skilled people to do? And in the case of family formation? Why does one think that you will lift people out of poverty in for some ethnic groups anyway, even if that you will necessarily at least lift people out of poverty, even if you did, quote, reveal the traditional family. And finally, to talk a little bit about what kinds of policies are being left out of this discussion. And chiefly, I'm the only policy that I'm going to bring up that has totally played no role whatsoever yet, in the welfare reform debate, because a lot of other things at least, are have played a role. I mean, the education and training, the childcare assurance, we may not get any six, but at least they're in the debate. But one thing that's almost left out of debate is the idea of comparable work, the idea of equal pay for equal pay for work of equal value. And that this is something that women do support. One of the things on the women's voices project that came out very clearly, was that women are committed to family and work, they don't see it as a choice of giving up either, and that women want to work, women of all races, women of all ages, women of all classes, and that indeed, the people who were most dissatisfied with not working in the voices project were the African American women who were unemployed, and who were including the welfare mothers. So there is a strong commitment to work. But at the same time, we need to think about then what women get back from that work. So to look briefly then at the welfare debate, first and foremost, we need to keep in mind that the welfare debate is about children, even though it's not really expressed in that that way, a roughly seven out of every 10 people who receive a few families with dependent children really are children, and most of the others are adult women. caring for children and generally speaking, caring for very young children, only a very small proportion, I think less than then than 10% Have children even over 12 years old. So the population we're really talking about the people we really want to get punitive with, because that seems to be the sort of general consensus, really, ultimately are children is a small population, we're talking only 5% of the American population. I mean, it seems like huge as much attention as it gets. But really AFDC recipients make up only about 5% of the American population, we're not going to do anything real about cutting the deficit, even if we did what Charles Murray says, ended welfare altogether, because it's less than 1% of the federal budget, and less than 2% of the budgets of most states. But the claims about this small population Unknown Speaker 55:56 run with really wild from time to time, in fact, to listen to most people discussing it, we think that this 5% are actually the end of rest Western civilization, so they can really knock out there. Other 95% were pretty weak, I guess, on the extreme right, then, all the end welfare period people, such as yesterday's New York, New York Times, in fact, he had a very good piece that started out with how when Charles Murray first talked about this, I think in 1974, everybody thought he was crazy. And even he had to pretend it was a thought experiment. But then now we have all of these bills in Congress, not all by Republicans either. So um, by Democrats, saying, let's just add welfare all together, just like that. And we'll keep giving people food stamps, and we'll give them Medicaid. And I will give him subsidized housing, although we should keep in mind that even now, only about 8% of people who receive aid for dependent children actually live in subsidized housing. So we're not giving many people subsidized housing even now. But at any rate, they're saying we'll do that, but just knock out the cash payments all together. Now, in its place, I'm Mary says we could have what he calls the 24 hour daycare. That is orphanages, if these women have these children, and they cannot take care of them, then take the children away. That's our commitment as a nation to children, put them in options are forced transracial adoptions or other forms of adoption were unnecessary. Now forget in reality that I don't think there's any evidence that poverty ever reduced the birth rate anywhere. I don't think the poverty of India made people stop having children there. And we know that in this country, the opposite is the pattern. The more affluent families are the ones with small size families, poor families, historically and currently have larger size family. So just making people totally poor devastated is not necessarily going to have any influence on what is the form of their family and the size of their family. But nonetheless, the claims are that if we do this and we end welfare, we will miraculously end the plight of unwed motherhood, female headed households, and we will begin to encourage the traditional family people will know they have to marry again. Now congressional congressional Republicans really do mirror from this. I mean, they're not that crazy yet. So and in fact, the heritage Foundation's talk Charles Merritt cetera, are actually very critical of the legislation introduced both in the House and the Senate, the key Republican bills, as the congressional Republicans see it, there are three main problems right now. None work. The fact that people aren't AFDC do do not work on Wed pregnancies and single female headed households. And the third, which is caused the most controversy of all giving benefits to legal immigrants. Now remember, the undocumented already don't get any any benefits. But the Republicans are saying people who are actually legal immigrants in this country should not get Unknown Speaker 59:26 any aid from roughly 61 federal programs, everything from Supplemental Security Income, to food stamps to Medicaid, to literally knock them out. Some of these people, of course, work two years in this country and pay taxes, all of them have relatives who are doing so. But at any rate, the sort of take the benefits away from legal immigrants to pay for whatever welfare system we leave in his place. So the solutions in the Republican bill are essentially a very tough two year limit, with very few exists missions, and with very little of a mandate for jobs, for job training and for education, they do say it will be an option for States to pursue education and job training. But the only thing that is mandated for the states to do is to require recipients to do job search. A second kind of of main kind of solution, as the Republicans see it is that those who can't find jobs should be required to take community work experience, and which they would work for their benefit. 35 hours a week, is the carrot proposal. Now imagine, if you were a welfare person in the state of Mississippi, that means you make roughly about 88 cents an hour, a half, because of the welfare benefits for a family of three and Mississippi in 1992, at least were $120 a month for a mother with two children. So somebody working 35 hours would not even be up to really afford minimum wage, to put them in the program to put the family back together. Of course, the Republicans would require strong paternity establishment, and that people would not get benefits until paternity had been established. So even if it was if you as a mother had tried to do everything you could to locate the Father, and the state still hadn't found the father, you would still be denied benefits until your state government found the father, the father's what would they do so many of the fathers, of course, are unemployed themselves, or either in the low wage sector, or in the case of of many, certainly people of color in prisons. 46%, for example, of the prison population is black male, even though Black males are roughly only 6% of the actual American population. So even if if, if you find these fathers, many of them will not be able to pay much, or any child support. And so the Republicans say, then these fathers would also have to do community work, and for which they would not be paid for their 35 hours a week. So one question that keeps coming to mind is, well, that's good. We all support child support. But how are you supposed to work and all of your money, go to the family, and you have literally nothing yourself. Even this, though, that the Republicans leave in place, they say what cost $6 billion a year. So to get the money, they propose savings, and stripping illegal immigrants as the cheap way of actually raising the money to pay for their program. Now, the clapping taskforce looks like heaven, I guess, compared to what the Republicans are proposing. But they too, would would propose a two year limit. But at least they emphasize education and job training through a variety of options that they are considering. But they would prefer that people actually work for wages, as opposed to work just for their benefits. And even then, though, recall that working for the minimum wage would leave a family of three poor. So it's a full time, year round employment, working the minimum wage, I think is only about $8,840. To restabilized. The family, they would insist that teen mothers live at home, so that would discourage teens. A lot of people say wait a minute, and I think the families that we're seeing already fail, are these families that may be abusive if their children live at home, and who says that they want this teen and the baby at home, but nonetheless, we require teen mothers to live with their their parents or parent. Our also if the federal welfare reform task force also puts a lot of emphasis on establishing paternity, but at least they emphasize that the state would have a responsibility that ultimately, the mothers, if the mother had done everything she could to establish paternity, people wouldn't be penalized for state inaction. And at least one option being considered but certainly not in the draft yet is to do some child assurance demonstration projects, where if the fathers could not pay the state's the the federal government which would give a least a minimum benefit, so they are talking about trying that out in a few places to see if it works. So their program basically says let's provide childcare. They will do something comprehensive, hopefully, about childcare for not just AFDC people but all of the working poor health care, which they hope for will come out of here Reis bill, and they say they've already made work pay through expanding the earned income tax credit. The latest figure for what this would cost over 10 years is $58 billion. Unknown Speaker 1:05:13 And the money for this would come again from I know, you're wondering, we're in this deficit situation, we're finding all these savings, but every everything that comes up, the crime video yesterday is going to be paid for by savings. So there's two of these paid for by savings. And those close to the Clinton Task Force say they too are going to propose cutting some of the benefits of the legal immigrants. And so they have been flooded recently, by particularly the religious community and the Hispanic community, and other civil rights, other parts of the civil rights community objecting to this, but their argument is that since the Republicans are really pushing it, Clinton won't look tough, unless he goes in saying, saying that he's going to give up on some of the benefits of legal immigrants. There are clearly differences. Job Training is mandated in the president's bill, but still, the differences are a one a quantity and not quality between what the Republicans are proposing and what CLIN are is proposing. Now, to be sure, everybody and I'm sure all of us in this room want to quote, end welfare as we know it. And I would argue most especially those people who live on, such as in the state of Maryland, with two children on $357 a month, I am sure it would like to end welfare as we know it. And a recent poll conducted for the civil rights community, by Peter Hart and American visions found that for more than four out of five people of all races, all classes, all political party identifications, ideological dental identifications, believe that our current welfare system is a total failure, and needs restructuring. Yet large majorities also did not support the two year limit, unless there was a guarantee of jobs and services, African Americans were especially likely to cite the labor market as the cause for why people were on welfare. And to believe that we shouldn't reform at all without a strict guarantee of jobs to be provided. After two years. African Americans also by large majorities, believed that if we did, that the problems would become worse, there would be more homelessness, more hunger, and there would be more time as a result. Finally, the large majorities of all racial groups do not believe in according to this survey, that the economy will be able to absorb the new workers that would that would come out of the welfare system, that large majorities reported that first and foremost, the central goal of welfare reform should be to create the jobs to move first, before trying to move people into the labor market. This then discussion, the debate over welfare raises, I think, two critical questions before this conference. Were all the jobs were all women currently in our classes across in the labor market? But where are the jobs, particularly for low income women and less skilled and less educated women? And how does the answer to that question, affect family life? Even Treasury Secretary vinten said, We cannot we can produce all the highly trained well educated workers we want. But it does no good unless we've created a climate in which the corporate world has jobs for these people. And so just an emphasis on job training and education, which is all one gets now in the Clinton Task Force is hardly going to be enough. welfare reform without job creation, I think is a very, very hollow prize. And there's very little discussion of job creation. In fact, in the first five years, I think the discussion is to create 30,000 30,000 jobs. And yet we have to keep in mind again, that we're talking about roughly 5 million adults in the system. What so so first thing let's look at oops, time Well, okay. So first, I won't even bother to say this. Again. Maybe we can talk more in discussion. The only thing that that I will try to say to that is that clearly analysis shows that the job market for less educated and by this I mean the kinds of people who are predominantly on welfare are high school dropouts and high school graduates. The job market is already has an overseas supply of women who are high school dropouts and high school and high school graduates, so that they're not expanding jobs for this sector already, their unemployment rates are already rising. So even without dumping another couple of million workers into this sector, there are no jobs. Clearly one has to have a job creation, one has to do something about the minimum wage as well, because the kinds of jobs have been losing, for example, to take African Americans since 1979, the proportion of pay to high school graduates, women who are Unknown Speaker 1:10:46 high school, graduate women, African Americans, has dropped by 20% in real terms. So clearly, one has to do something about job creation, and both about wages. The second thing that I was going to say is that particularly for ethnic families, African Americans, and even more so for Latinos, because we're chinos are still predominantly married, that simply having a husband is not enough to guarantee that 111 is not in poverty. And I was going to provide you some statistics that show the sizeable proportion, a married couple of families, which remain in poverty, even when the husband is working full time, the only thing that tends to pull African Americans in particular out of poverty is when the wife is also employed full time, because the average black wife contributes 50% of the family income. So black women contribute working women contribute more to the total family income, largely because black men make so little money in reality. So that that basically just having an employed husband would not be enough, that therefore that says that basically, we have to, we have to again, turn our attention back to looking at what's going on with women's wages, we cannot depend on simply changing the wages of men simply getting women merit, we must look back at what goes on with women's wages. And the only thing that I know that could quickly alter that that scenario is to return again to an emphasis uncomfortable word. Now I know that we as women sort of gave up uncomfortable worth because it looked sort of unreasonable. But I think as long as we have that attitude, it will be unwinnable. And I think that since we have to struggle, for even the simplest change, we might as well struggle for something that would really help thanks. Somebody Unknown Speaker 1:12:59 each of us, I think, has expressed how pleased we are to be in our particular spot. In the program, I follow with an array of remarkable women, and therefore that may be a complaint. And indeed it is, nonetheless, it did occasion for me. And interesting and perhaps overdue thought in this in this anniversary year of the women's movement. There really are commonalities here the prior speakers have made that clear, privileged women and unprivileged women are discriminated against either because they've got privilege or because they don't have privilege. This, it is about time I think that we maximized on this obvious insight. I had a curious experience a couple of weeks ago a guy I know who's the managing partner of a big time law firm came and and and gave me the usual I've been at catalyst and very brief time. But there's an awful lot of this, the scales have fallen from my eyes that I want you to come in and help my company, I want you to come in and help my firm. But I have known this guy for a lot, lot of years. So he comes and he gives me that Sheila, we've got to do something about recruiting these wonderful women lawyers, we've got to get them. We've got to keep them. We've got to promote them. I want this to happen. I say come on. I've known you for a long time. What's going on with you? Well, what is going on with him is that in the last few weeks, he had been asked simply by two women who were general counsel's of major corporations who had business that his law firm wanted back Add, they did not make a large thing of it apparently they simply said, Tell me, Mr. Big time managing partner. How many women partners do you have in your law firm? How many women do you have? And what is their career path? A simple question. I think that the power of women who make up 50% of the workforce, wherever they are in that workforce is an unrealized force for change, which we have not maximized in decade after decade. And I think it's time to stop. Now then. Unknown Speaker 1:15:50 On with with my talk. When I took over the presidency of catalyst, my hard working colleagues were finishing a survey at a census of women who serve on corporate boards in the Fortune 1000. There are 11,715 seats on these corporate boards of pocket, there are 721 of the seats held by women. That's 6.2%. There are 500 women in the United States who serve on the boards of the Fortune 1000. Ah, do you say having read about Adam Reynolds recently, they're all serving on 25 boards, not so the typical woman director serves on 1.4 boards. The typical male director, the modal male director by the by being a CEO or retired CEO serves on 1.5 boards. Thus, for example, we find that 500 of the 1000 have no women on their boards. Where are the consumers? Where are the women shareholders? What goes on at annual meetings? And why does it make a difference? It makes an immense difference, because in our survey, we find that unlike the sort of thing, one might typically assume a woman on a board does feel that it is appropriate to inquire about diversity, women and minority employees does feel that it's important find out about flexible work arrangements. And when those women are on boards, they do ask those questions and they should be encouraged to do so. It does matter. So we hear a lot about the feminine mystique. I read at home with home with my kids. It was quite an experience many of us home as faculty wives in those days. Read that book. I stopped being a faculty wife and went to graduate school in 1966. In Part, I must say, because I called another faculty wife older indeed ancient AI, she was probably 45. Those were lovely days. And I wanted to talk with her about something superbly educated had received many footnotes in her husband's important research studies. Thanks for the endless edit for the usual usual stuff. Call this woman in the middle of the afternoon and ask your question, she was drunk. And I thought to myself, if I stay home, and my friends stay home, there is no telling whether this will happen to me. So I went to I went to graduate school, I went to work, I work by choice. However, I never forget that the vast bulk of women work to put bread on the table. They do not work to put wine in the cooler. And women will be damned whether they choose to work or they choose to stay home and it is immensely important that privileged women remember that as well as those who lack privilege. Now, in a time of change and of downsizing, we are finding ourselves with a tremendously anxious white male population. Unknown Speaker 1:19:59 The stereo type that married women don't really need to work is a pernicious one. We have heard about it from the other speakers. At the same time, we hear that women don't need to work. We hear that they're not committed to their work. This is a ludicrous paradox. Our studies have demonstrated that women are committed to work. And we all know surely that the vast number of working women need to work the typical Ozzie and Harriet family, my parents family, for eight years, my family is now just 18% of America's families, mom in the kitchen, dad at work, and the two children sitting around playing with Play Doh, or whatever it is that kids play with now is 18% of the American population. It is negligible, but it exists powerfully in myth, and in Legend, and that's where it belongs. So the stereotype that women could go home backlash, front page, national news magazines, white male and worried the war against women, a national bestseller that reverses the gender roles of sexual harassment in the workplace, and therefore trivialize it trivializes the very serious problem that women experience is something that we're all going to have to face. It is distressing, that so many would have us believe that mom at work and not in the kitchen, is the root of all that's wrong with the American family. This finger pointing is simplistic. The problems facing America today are complex. One route of working women's problems now is this fear on the part of the white male establishment who has had it for so long. And why should they give it up? It's been very nice. So what then do we advise women to do? One of the things that women should do, this did not happen to me. And were I fortunate enough to have daughters, I'm fortunate enough to have sons working sons, by the way Unknown Speaker 1:22:41 is to take very seriously the issues of their careers, the issues of the choices that they make. I've gone to panel after panel, students ask women who appear to have make it, how did you do it? And invariably, the answer is some variant of I was just lucky. You know, what, women who succeed are not lucky. They're operational, and they're effective, and they take themselves seriously. One of the things therefore, one can do is to look at the companies and the firms where we work and those which we wish to shape. And evaluate whether having a woman in their picture is just a logo is just some kind of a theme, which is meant to appeal or whether they really mean business about women's issues. And if they mean business, how do you know it? So these are the things that catalyst is finding time after time, others find it time after time in their research. One thing is, is there truly a recognition that the value of women in the workforce, the value of diversity is a business issue, that there's a bottom line pay off, if they're doing it because they think it's nice to do, they don't really mean it. If they're doing it because they know it's smart to do because they're going to retain valuable workers. Because turnover is very expensive. Because if you recruit a woman, and she has kids, and you have no flexibility, and you don't have decent policies, those women will leave, but they're not going to leave the workforce. That's a myth. They're going to find and our studies have shown this, your studies have shown it, they're going to find jobs in companies that are flexible, are family friendly, are supportive of women's leadership, or they're going to become entrepreneurs and just publish their own environments, corporations that lose these women are going to pay for it. And they better wake up before it's too late. So do they know it, and if they know it, that's where you ought to be. That's one thing. Another thing, Unknown Speaker 1:25:20 a supportive environment and support from the top, it's immensely important that there not be merely lip service from the top of a corporation. Because time after time, we find that the resistance comes from middle management. And unless you have top management, that truly committed that kind of resistance, that kind of subtle undermining is going to destroy the opportunity for women to gain access to leadership positions to gain flexibility, because it's going to be undermined at the middle management level, watch for a CEO, watch for CFOs. And CEOs that genuinely mean it. And you can and you'll know it, and I'll tell you how. So lots of places have policies on the books, give or take almost 47% I think was our number, have some kind of family policy, flexible work arrangement, some kind of policy on the book. And you know what most workers don't know about it, and most workers are penalized when they endeavor to use it. That's important. Know that the policy is communicated, find out how many people are availing themselves of it, find out what happens to them when they come back. That's important. Another measure is accountability. Our research indicates that, that women's development and mobility is really seen as Central. When managers performance and advancing female and minority employees is measured with the same seriousness as other business results. Some companies make this part of a manager's bonus, some companies make it part of a manager's job description. This is important in America, if they mean it, it gets measured. If it gets measured. People are held accountable. Watch for that. That's important. Look at the numbers. Numbers count how many women are at the top of a corporation. How many women are in the boardroom? How many women are in the pipeline. 25 years ago, when the feminine mystique came came out 15% of America's managers were female. Now 5% of America's senior managers are female. What happened to the pipeline, the pipeline doesn't really work. They're in the pipeline doesn't seem to get us anywhere. It's got to be counted. And women have to hold public sector and private sector institutions accountable for these results. This is a matter which is vital to the American economy. This is not something which is about it's good or it's cute, or it's sweet or it's nicer, it's Mother's Day. This is about the fact that if we are going to compete and retain the kind of social and political and economic freedom, which has been the hallmark of this company, for most a country for most, but not all of its population, we are going to have to continue to provide jobs and profitability in order to do it. These are the kinds of things that have to happen. And by the way to end on a cheerful note it being spring. I do think it's going to happen. I do think that there is there are enough smarts to make clear that despite the changes, the flexibility that is important and the leadership development that is important will pay off. Because while I told you that 50% of the Fortune 1000 do not have women on their boards. For some reason, total fluke that came out in our research. We found that of the 50 most profitable corporations in America. 80% had women on their boards. We think that Being open to new ideas, different experiences yield a better product, whether the product is social policy, or clothing. We think sooner or later men are going to catch on to that because women have Thank you. Unknown Speaker 1:30:31 Good morning. How you doing at this point in time, last speaker. I wish I could say I could wrap up what every woman up here has said, but I can't. Because see, I'm the government representative. I do have a few things in common with my distinguished colleagues, though. I'm a graduate as you heard of a woman's College, and I'm also a baby boomer. And as I get into my remarks, you'll see some of the things we have in common. So I think though, that I can say we can respond. And I'm here to tell you how we're going to do that from the perspective of the women's Bureau, which is the government agency that deals with the issues of working women. First of all, I want to bring you greetings from our director, who was not able to join us today. That's Karen Nussbaum. She was out in Tacoma, Washington on yesterday, doing the same thing I was doing here yesterday, which was kicking off our big pre Beijing conferences, we are holding a series of them around the country to assess where women have been, and to strategize for what we can do to impact the platform of action, which is the document that will be discussed in Beijing, China, for the Fourth World Conference on Women. We do feel that it's springtime, we are so glad that it's here. But Karen has brought a springtime feeling to the women's Bureau, a time of reaffirmation and rebirth of what we all about. I want to share some of that with you today and hope that you can join us because we do take our mandate seriously. And we have come to the working women of this country to get some assistance in doing what we're trying to do. So let me take a few minutes to share our vision. We have always worked as since 1920, when you heard Leslie talk about the bureau with the issues of working women, and we've done that as well as we can considering our side. But a lot of the work we've done, it's been to put women into higher paying jobs. And a lot of times that's been in non traditional arenas, because just face it, the jobs where the men are, traditionally were those that pay the most. So we work toward that in a lot. And we're still doing work in that arena. And of course, we worked in the opposite arena, what we consider opposite but it's not, it's still not traditional, that is trying to break the glass ceiling, where women were trying to move up the ladder. But when Karen client came in, she focused us a bit more on where women are traditionally. And that's why what Linda said is really pertinent when we talk about comfortable worse care and focus just on where the majority of the women are working. And so we've been around going around the country, talking to those women and looking at their situations. We've talked to women in the clerical work arena, we've talked to childcare workers, we've talked to health care workers, retail workers, women who can't even see the glass ceiling, they're still stuck in the in the floor. And Joyce mill is going to talk to you more about that, because she's expanded the whole concept of the glass ceiling, to look at the the walls, the floors and everything else that went to work in me. But what we've seen as we've is as we've been talking to these women is that there is a need to focus the women's Bureau's work on improving the working conditions of these women workers where they are working. We want to work to to improve their wage earning capacities and to improve their career possibilities and that is overall the mission of the women's bureau. So women really need our voice as as loudly as they can