Maryland Community News Online - Women's Issues Get Airing at Forum

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By Rebecca J. Barnabi

Diane Polangin's red purse is not a bold fashion statement, but a reminder that women are always "in the red."

While women have seen changes since the women's rights movement began with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, their paychecks have not caught up to men, said Polangin, who was one of six panelists at a forum June 16. Organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, the 1848 convention called for women's equality, including the right to vote as American citizens. The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women the right to vote in 1920.

U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md., 5th), the Fifth District Women's Network Advisory Committee and other women's organizations hosted the forum at the Colony South Hotel in Clinton to find an economic agenda that works for women.

In his opening remarks, Hoyer said women make up 47 percent of the workforce, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Hoyer is a father of three daughters, two granddaughters, one great-granddaughter and a second great-granddaughter on the way. He and his wife Judy were married for 37 years before she died in 1997.

"So, I am very focused in my family on women," Hoyer said. Although women earn on average 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, for many American families "women's incomes are crucial to making ends meet," Hoyer said, and "the success of our economic recovery is indeed one of the most important issues concerning women in America today."

Women in Maryland's 5th District see 90 cents for every dollar a man makes, but Hoyer said regardless of the difference, "we do know without a doubt that women are not being paid on average the same as a man doing exactly the same job." Hoyer has co-sponsored the Paycheck Fairness Act to provide legal remedies for people who have experienced pay discrimination.

Hoyer said women in minimum-wage jobs are struggling because $7.25 an hour is not enough to support themselves, let alone children. If the minimum wage had risen with inflation to have the same purchasing power in 2014 as in 1978, the minimum wage would be $10.77 per hour. This fact, Hoyer said, is why he supports raising the minimum wage in Maryland to $10.10 an hour.

For two of Hoyer's daughters, child care "was the most significant concern when they had a child." Hoyer said his late wife, who was a school administrator, focused her career on expanding access to child care, specifically before- and after-school care, because many women do not work 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

"When women succeed, America succeeds," Hoyer said. His Make It In America plan "is not a women's agenda. It affects women, but it ought to be America's agenda." He encouraged audience members to write down any ideas from the forum they wanted to share with other people in their lives.

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In closing remarks, Hoyer mentioned the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

"What [the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.] did was raise our consciousness of what we were doing," Hoyer said.

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