Forum takes on barriers to higher pay
By KERRIE FRISINGER
Journal Staff
ITHACA — Dammi Herath has seen it all in nearly two decades of helping Tompkins County women, especially poor women, obtain the skills and jobs they need to improve their lives.
The mother who took her child to day care at 5 a.m. in order to get to work on time; the woman who needed to wear clothing of a specific color to her job but had no car to get to a store, and the little girl who thought only about becoming a cleaning lady someday.
“Our society has never figured out how to help this second-class citizen they have created,” said Herath, executive director of the Women's Opportunity Center, a nonprofit organization in Ithaca that provides a number of employment services.
Herath and several other local female leaders spoke Thursday at a lunchtime forum about the persistent wage gap between men and women in the workplace. Held at the Women's Community Building in Ithaca, it was the last of three events that the Tompkins County chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) organized this summer to address issues of women and poverty.
Panelists on Thursday cited employment barriers such as a lack of government support, institutions and policies resistant to change, the responsibilities of motherhood and the low value often placed on so-called women's work.
Data supports observed trends. According to the most recent Census bureau statistics, women nationwide make on average $0.76 for every dollar paid to men. Moreover, 30 percent of female-run households in the U.S. fell below the poverty line in 2003, compared to 10.8 percent among all families.
In Tompkins County, according to the 2000 Census, 23.6 percent of families with female householders and 6.8 percent of all families lived in poverty.
Beverly Livesay, a former Tompkins County legislator and member of the Tompkins County NOW steering committee, said lower wages and poverty among women also affect children. Society has an interest in providing good child care and other services, since today's children will run tomorrow's economy, she said, but there's a softer side, too.
“We're human and we're able to feel compassion for these circumstances and these children,” said Livesay, who works also on a League of Women Voters committee studying unmet needs of children and youth in the county.
Ithaca resident Judy Scarpella, one of six people to attend the forum, talked about the added burden she sees on the “sandwich generation” of women who care for their growing children and their aging parents.
“I feel sad that not more people attended,” Scarpella said after the event. “It's crucial.”
Speakers suggested small steps every person can take to change the situation, from fathers assuming more child-rearing duties to women mentoring their peers.
For county Legislator Kathy Luz Herrera, also a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 241, the collective bargaining power of unions has provided a better shot at fair pay than fighting alone.
“We should commend people for making trouble,” Herrera said. “We should commend people for demanding a livable wage and saying, ‘This has to stop.' ”
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