When my grandmother became pregnant with my mother, her first child, she was fired from her job. My grandfather was still in college and they had no other income, so they scrimped and borrowed from relatives to get by. After my mother was born, my grandmother looked for a new job because she had been replaced at her old job. Less than two years later, she was fired again when she became pregnant again. Her experience occurred in the late 1950s, years before the passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978, an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Before then, it was common practice to fire and replace pregnant women or not hire women who might become pregnant.

Now, 30 years later, pregnant women still face discrimination. Here are two recent news articles that caught my eye: (1) A study in the United Kingdom found that 76% of employers said they would not hire a woman if they knew she was going to become pregnant within six months of starting her employment. (2) The financial news and data firm Bloomberg LP is facing a lawsuit involving 58 women who say they faced pay cuts and demotions or were denied job growth opportunities because they had become pregnant.

Later this month, the AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund will launch a new pregnancy discrimination section of its online Resource Library to provide legal background, facts, and statistics on this topic. Visit this section to learn more about the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and what to do if you’re being discriminated against.

Have you or someone you know ever faced discrimination due to pregnancy? If so, what happened? Do you think expectant or new fathers face a higher risk of job discrimination than in the past?

AAUW is concerned about sexual harassment issues on campus, and in February we posted a blog entry about an incident at Yale University where pledge members of the Zeta Psi fraternity held a sign that said “We Love Yale Sluts” outside the university’s Women’s Center. This stunt was part of a scavenger hunt required to gain membership in the fraternity. The Women’s Center and a student who felt intimated by the group and their sign demanded that the university address this incident, which they felt was representative of fraternity-driven, campus-wide misogyny.

This week, the Executive Committee of Yale College found the young men not guilty on a charge of intimidation and harassment. The Women’s Center and others are upset because neither the pledges nor the fraternity culture on campus are expected to be disciplined or changed. The silver lining is that the university administrators have agreed to some of the Women’s Center’s demands, including the evaluation of extant sexual harassment prevention policies.

While it may be hard to prove legally that harassment or intimidation occurred due to the circumstances, it makes me wonder why their use of “slut” outside a safe place for women, including survivors of sexual assault, did not prompt immediate disciplinary actions and an official condemnation of the actions by the university or fraternity.

I agree with the Yale Women’s Center board and think that had the pledges stood in front of a multicultural center and held up a sign with a racial slur, the outcry against them would be stronger, and they would probably face disciplinary actions. Instead, a sexist slur that reminds women that they historically have been the sexual property of men and that is often used to ruin a woman’s reputation does not warrant such action …

What’s your opinion on the incident and its outcome?

Equity in the News from April 23 – May 3, 2008

• Fox news segment on Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act vote and pay equity. Segment features Lilly Ledbetter, Lisa Maatz of AAUW, and others.
• When clerics, ministers and businessmen gathered at a forum in Riyadh last month to discuss women in the workplace, there were no women in sight.
• Since it was founded, the L.A. SWAT team has been all-male, mostly white and resistant to change. But that may soon change.
• Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle.
• The Indian prime minister described the widespread practice of aborting female fetuses as a “national shame.”
• Did a recent comedy set in London cross the line to assault?
• Students affiliated with the Zeta Psi fraternity who were involved in January’s “Yale Sluts” incident stood before the Executive Committee of Yale College three weeks ago and were found “not guilty” on a charge of intimidation and harassment, sources close to the proceedings confirmed this weekend.
• Sixty-nine percent of young mothers ages 18 to 34 have incurred medical debt, a survey indicates.

Ethnicity is an interesting topic of discussion, whether you’re comparing presidential candidates, having a heated debate about immigration policies or making dinner table conversation with people you’re meeting for the first time. For example, my English/Irish heritage seems obvious from my appearance, and yet Spanish was my first language.

And speaking of Spanish, one holiday that is recognized on a regional basis in Mexico (mainly in the state of Puebla) has taken on a larger significance here in the United States, where Cinco de Mayo festivities celebrate Mexican heritage and national pride. I’m taking the liberty here of broadening it even further to recognize some of the Hispanic women AAUW has honored for their contributions to the betterment of humanity.

Originally designed to provide Latin American women with opportunities for graduate and postgraduate study in the United States, the AAUW International Fellowships program awarded its first fellowship in 1917 to Virginia Alvarez-Hussey. She studied medicine at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and then returned to Venezuela, where she became a specialist in the treatment of leprosy. Another International Fellow was Marina Nunez del Prado (1940), who became one of Bolivia’s premiere artists and whose sculpture Madre y Nino is in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

In 1997, Antonia Hernandez, former president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, received the AAUW Achievement Award. In 2006, Consuelo Castillo Kickbush received an AAUW Women of Distinction award. Formerly the highest-ranking Hispanic women in the Combat Support Field of the U.S. Army, Kickbush has spent the past 10 years dedicated to empowering a new generation of Hispanic leaders. She has worked with over a million children and their parents across the United States through Educational Achievement Services, a company she founded in 1994.

María Otero, a 2007 AAUW Woman of Distinction, is president and CEO of ACCION International, which pioneered the idea of making small loans to the self-employed poor beginning in 1973 in Recife, Brazil. Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-CA), a 2004 Woman of Distinction, co-sponsored the PACT Act (H.R. 5774), providing financial assistance to state training programs that prepare women for employment in high-wage, high-skill fields where they are often underrepresented. And in 2008 … wait, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

These are just a few of the Hispanic women that AAUW has honored. What Hispanic woman do you wish to honor by sharing her story here? As for me, my father was stationed in Bogota, Columbia, when I was young, and my first year of school was en una escuela. While I may not have any actual Hispanic blood, I honor the heritage I have in my heart.

This article was written from the floor of the Global Summit for Social Responsibility (ASAE and the Center for Association Leadership).

It’s invigorating to be among other associations focused on the ideas and actions of social responsibility. One of the tasks put to the group is to ask and answer the question, “What do associations uniquely bring to society and do best, and how can we effectively leverage these capabilities to advance a new magnitude of socially responsible leadership?” I couldn’t help but be proud that AAUW is ahead of most associations in that we have practiced — and continue to practice — social responsibility on a large scale.

Story after story emerged from organizations already involved in “doing good” — whether being “green” or, as in AAUW’s case, working on behalf of women and girls. I heard stories that brought tears to my eyes of associations helping communities through contributions of time, money, and resources, either by organizational efforts or through the volunteer aid of members.

Jeffrey Sachs, author of the critically acclaimed Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, spoke from the heart about the daunting challenges facing us today: poverty, lack of education, climate change, and environmental destruction, to name a few. Unlike the usual doom-and-gloom of such presentations, Sachs’ talk focused on solutions. One involved the collective power associations could bring to the table if all organizations and their members practiced social responsibility in every conceivable manner. Wow.

That we still have work to do in our own backyard was brought home yet again, even in such an august environment as this summit. There I was, doing the group discussion thing typical of such events when the topic of global warming was brought up. Knowing who I represented, a man turned to me and said something to the effect of, “If you would only get all your women to stop having hot flashes, we wouldn’t have global warming.” The reaction? Shocked silence around the table instead of the laughter he probably expected. But it wasn’t until later that my mind kicked in with all those lovely responses I wish I had given on the spot.

The summit sessions are entitled “Discovery,” “Dream and Design,” and “Destiny: Moving to Action.” There is lots of work still ahead, but I can’t wait to see how the association community will bring its full power to bear on the concept of social responsibility. I know what one single organization has managed to do powerfully for more than 125 years. Just imagine what this type of collective planning can accomplish! Any ideas?