Laura Hale, of the Vermont Coalition of Clinics for the Uninsured, speaking at the Women’s Economic Security Summit on Oct. 8. Photo by Erin Mansfield/VTDigger.
Women are less economically secure than men, are disproportionately represented in low wage jobs and more often rely on Medicaid for health care, a national labor expert told participants at a summit sponsored by the Vermont Commission on Women and the Women’s Legislative Caucus.
Latifa Lyles, director of the Women’s Bureau at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., gave the keynote address at the first Women’s Economic Security Summit at the Statehouse on Thursday.
The Obama administration is pushing for paid leave legislation across the country, and the department recently awarded a grant to the Vermont Commission on Women to study the issue.
Lyles said she often meets representatives from European countries at conferences, who chide her about how little time off U.S. companies give parents.
“[They say] this (paid leave) is an economic issue for people,” she said. “This is an equality issue for women. And there’s not a whole lot more we can say to the United States. Just get it done.”
Women are more likely to obtain a college degree than men, but carry higher student loan debt, according to Lyles. Nationwide, women are the primary breadwinners in 41 percent of households and co-breadwinners in 23 percent of households. However, women make 78 percent of what men make nationwide, she said, and represent two-thirds of minimum wage workers.
Lyles said women most often call her office with complaints about pregnancy discrimination in the workplace and sexual harassment. She is currently six months pregnant and, as a federal worker, is not guaranteed paid family leave when she has her baby. She and other new mothers often cobble together sick time and vacation time as paid maternity leave.
Auburn Watersong at the Women’s Economic Security Summit. Photo by Erin Mansfield/VTDigger.
Auburn Watersong, the associate director of public policy for the Vermont Network against Domestic and Sexual Violence, said women need paid time off, as outlined in H.187, so they can take time to escape from domestic abusers.
The bill, which is widely expected to pass the Vermont Senate in the upcoming session and become law, would let anyone take up to three days off per year for health appointments, taking care of sick children, or addressing life events surrounding domestic violence.
“If a woman can’t find a safe place to go, there’s a good likelihood she will stay,” Watersong said. She added that Vermont’s current laws don’t hold abusers financially accountable to their victims, whose families become economically insecure.
In the upcoming legislative session, Watersong said her organization plans to introduce laws, which could include requiring abusers to pay their half of the family’s rent to a former partner after the partner kicks the abuser out of the home.
Michelle Fay, from Voices for Vermont’s Children, and former state representative at the Women’s Economic Security Summit. Photo by Erin Mansfield/VTDigger.
Michelle Fay, the associate director of Voices for Vermont’s Children, which has been advocating for paid sick time, said women disproportionately have problems accessing dental care. They often rely on Medicaid, which cover a limited amount of services and that many dentists don’t accept, she said.
Women often develop severe dental problems due to lack of access to care, Fay said, which can change the way they look and the way potential employers perceive them.
In Vermont, women also lack access to basic primary health care: Sixty percent of patients at the Vermont Coalition for Clinics for the Uninsured are women, according to Laura Hale, the executive director.
Cary Brown, the executive director of the Vermont Commission on Women, said one of the biggest issues still driving women’s economic insecurity is the wage gap, and the commission has been working to close it since 1964.
In Vermont, the Commission on Women says full-time women workers make 82 percent of what men make. When part-time work is included, women make 76 cents for every dollar a man makes in Vermont.
“It’s unlikely that it’s overt, blatant sexism … but there’s unconscious bias,” Brown said. “I think there’s some cultural change that has to happen where we really need to value women in the workforce as much as we value men in the workforce.”
Colin Ryan, a recently appointed member of the Vermont Commission on Women, said plenty of men don’t think about women’s issues “because they don’t have to,” not because they don’t care.
He suggested that attendees go home and explain to the men in their lives what roles they can play in achieving gender equality in Vermont.
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