Director's Report
As CCA's Women's Issues Director, my goal is to develop a strong, active coalition of individuals committed to the issue of women's rights, equality, and justice for not just the members of our organization...not just women as faculty in our community colleges...but women the world over.
As much progress as we have made for women's rights here in the United States, much remains to be done.
We need to ensure that equal pay for equal work becomes the standard for women in every occupation. We need to work together for passage of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (see below). We need to heighten the public's awareness of the terrible toll that domestic violence and child sexual abuse exact on women in our homes, neighborhoods, schools, and communities. We need to ensure that gender equity becomes more than just a pat campaign slogan to be trotted out whenever there is a gathering of women. We need to educate our daughters and sons that a woman can be anything and anyone she chooses to be, whether that is a Fortune-500 CEO or a mother--or both!
And perhaps even more importantly, we need to celebrate the women in our lives, our families, and our world. We need to celebrate them for their accomplishments, for their contributions, and for the unique perspective they bring to the issues and challenges facing us all. In the months ahead, I will be bringing you stories of some of these women, in the hope that they will inspire you as much as they have inspired me.
If you know of women in our community college system--past or present--who have made contributions to CCA, higher education, or the state as a whole, please let me know! Drop me an email at vvccoach@aol.com, with the subject heading of "CCA Women."
Now, take a look at our latest recipient of CCA's Exceptional Women honor!
To view previous recipients of this honor, click here.
As the CCA Women's Issues Director, I am investigating manifestations of gender discrimination in the college environment. I have developed a very brief (only six questions) survey to assist me in obtaining this information. Please take 60 seconds and fill it out TODAY! Click here to take survey
Reversing Bush on Title IX
Undoing another legacy of its predecessor, the Obama administration plans to withdraw a 2005 clarification of a federal anti-discrimination law that critics saw as weakening enforcement of gender equity in college athletics.
Vice President Biden, joined by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and other administration officials, have just issued a “Dear Colleague” letter overturning the 2005 interpretation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The 2005 policy allowed colleges and schools to use an e-mailed or Web-based survey alone to prove that they are “fully and effectively” meeting the athletics “interests and abilities” of female athletes.
Read the entire article from Inside Higher Education.
Ratifying the Women's Rights Treaty
Since 1981, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) has endorsed the ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Also known as the Women's Rights Treaty, it is the most comprehensive agreement addressing international women's rights. The treaty can be an effective tool in reducing violence and discrimination against women and girls, ensuring access to education and health care, and preventing other human rights abuses.
Although the U.S. played a defining role in drafting the convention and signed the treaty in 1980, it remains the only industrialized country to fail to ratify it. In fact, while 185 countries have ratified the treaty, the U.S. is one of only eight countries that have yet to do so, standing alongside Sudan, Iran, Qatar, Somalia, Nauru, Palau, and Tonga.
While the treaty has enjoyed bipartisan support in the U.S., it has never made it to the Senate floor for a full vote. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted in 1994 and in 2002 to send the treaty to the floor for ratification, but the Senate recessed each time before the vote occurred.
The week of May 14, 2007, AAUW joined more than 200 leading organizations nationwide in supporting ratification of CEDAW. We advocate for basic rights for mothers and all women around the world.
Take Action! Urge your senators to ratify CEDAW.
Women in the Sciences & Math
Active recruiting and positive messaging can go a long way toward shrinking the gender gap in many science and engineering fields, an analysis released by the American Association of University Women suggests.
In "Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics,” AAUW researchers have collected the findings of dozens of other studies to produce a report on challenges that girls and women face at every step of the way in studying and working in sciences, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
Researchers found eight major factors that helped depress the numbers of girls and women in STEM: beliefs about intelligence, stereotypes, self-assessment, spatial skills, the college student experience, university and college faculty, implicit bias, and workplace bias.
Read the entire article from Inside Higher Education.
New Information on Women's History Museum
The National Women’s History Museum has been without a permanent home since its founding in 1996.
Now, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has passed HR 1700, a bill to allow NWHM to purchase land next to the National Mall and build the first major repository of women's accomplishments and contributions in Washington, D.C. The bill will now proceed to the Senate floor for passage, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s staff has committed to “hotlining” the legislation to the Senate floor for a vote. Click here for more on the fight to establish a home for the NWHM.
Equal Pay for Equal Work? Not Yet, Baby
They say we've come a long way...and in many ways, that's certainly true. However, when it comes to equal pay for equal work, we still have a long way to go to catch up with men.
A new study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that while the pay gap between men and women has narrowed in recent years, some of the data shows that gender pay differences get wider as men and women move up their respective career ladders.
According to the study, in 2009, women aged 16 to 24 earned an average of 93 percent of what their male cohorts did, and those aged 25 years to 34 years earned 89 percent. But women 35 years and older "had earnings that were roughly three-fourths as much as their male counterparts."
One of the factors noted is that women work more part-time jobs than men, an issue that really hits home in academia. A large number of our part-time faculty are women, and it goes without saying that part-time salaries are far beneath those of full-timers. Perhaps we need to ask if we're creating a new class of "pink-collar workers" among our college instructors, and what that bodes for the future of wage equality. Read the entire report from the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
Gender Does Matter
Does having a woman in the top job (or the No. 2 slot) make a difference? When it comes to faculty hiring, the answer appears to be Yes. And having a critical mass of women on boards of trustees also makes a difference. These are the results of a study by the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute. The new study could provide new evidence to those who argue that change at the top of institutions is crucial to promoting change at the junior faculty ranks as well. Read the entire article from Inside Higher Education...
For information about the
2010 California Women's Conference (October 25-26) and the
2010
Minerva Award winners, go to our
Events page!
Highlights
from the
2009 California Women's Conference
The California Governor and First Lady’s Conference on Women, hosted by First Lady Maria Shriver and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was held in July of 2009.
You can view video of many of the workshops and keynote speakers, as well as audio of the Conference sessions, here.
Among the speakers at the 2009 Conference was Dr. Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Gombe Stream Research Centre in Tanzania.
The Institute supports the continuing research at Gombe and is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. It also is widely recognized for establishing innovative community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa, and Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots, the global environmental and humanitarian youth program that has nearly 150,000 members in 110 countries.
The Gombe Centre is a world-renowned training ground for students interested in studying primates, hosting a skilled team of researchers and field assistants. To read more about Dr. Goodall, click here.
Check out our archives of previous articles from our
Women's Issues page.