Get the Led Out for Ledbetter

Remember this post (another thriller where I whine about not having enough time to right all the wrongs of the world)? Well, the National Partnership for Women and Families (another fine organization I forgot to mention in my last post) informed me today via email that the Senate is set to vote on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act this week.

An excerpt from the email:

Your voice is needed — today! The Senate is scheduled to vote this Wednesday on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

E-mail your Senators now and urge them to vote “YES” for fair pay for working women. Then forward this e-mail to your friends, family, and co-workers.

Why is this important to you? Women in the United States are still paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to their white male counterparts — more than four decades after Congress outlawed wage discrimination based on gender. For women of color, the numbers are even starker — African-American women earn 63 cents and Latinas earn 53 cents for every dollar paid to white men.

Outraged? Tell your Senators to support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

What are you waiting for...click here and email your Senators before Wednesday!

Get the Led Out for Ledbetter

One Step Forward and Another One Back

When I first started this blog, I imagined creating wonderfully insightful and thought-leading posts about work-life balance issues. Turns out after spending most of my time thinking about how to cure cancer at my day job and trying to be the best mommy I can be the rest of the time, the brilliance just doesn't seem to flow like I thought it would.

But I have been a faithful email activist, keeping up with my action alerts from Momsrising.org, 9 to 5 and the National Organization of Women. I was thrilled to learn a few weeks ago that thanks to some heavy duty lobbying from Momsrising and several other organizations, New Jersey became the third state to pass a law that provides paid leave for workers to care for a sick family member or to bond with a newly born or adopted child. Three down, 47 more to go...I can't wait for this fight to come to Georgia. If you haven't signed up to receive action alerts from at least one of these organizations, you gotta go do it. Go ahead. Do it now. I'll wait till you get back.

At the same time, I was sickened to read that this past week, our federal government let families down yet again when the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved cutting a proposed eight weeks of paid parental leave for federal employees to only four weeks. The logic completely escapes me. Our government finally has a chance to prove it's not back-assward by providing American families some much needed support and it can't seem to get it together enough to support its own employees. Talent attrition alone should more than pay for this program, but apparently Committee Republicans argued that supporting this program in a spiraling economy sends a message that our lawmakers are out of touch with American citizens. So instead, they sent the message that they're out of touch with the needs of their own employees. I suppose four weeks is better than nothing, but it's hard to get excited about a program equivalent of holding out a life preserver only to pull it back and yell, "Psyche!"

Clearly the fight for family-friendly work policies is just beginning. Although I won't be leading this fight any time soon, thankfully others are on the forefront. I just stumbled across Washington Post's blog on work-life balance and they offer a super cool widget, now nestled in the sidebar of Up With Moms, so I can offer great work-life balance content even when I'm sidetracked by devotions in soccer or being (NOT) a Top Momma. Or you can read actual thought leaders like MojoMom, who like me is convinced that fixing our corporate infrastructure to support families is the next wave of feminism. Like our predecessors who fought to make it acceptable for women to achieve in the workplace, it's now up to us to make the workplace acceptable for us moms and our dads. Whether you're a thought leader or just a garden variety email activist, New Jersey is proof of the power of moms.

One Step Forward and Another One Back

(No) Time to Activate

Turns out that its alot harder to rid the world of cancer (my day job) AND right the wrongs of corporate America for us moms (oh yeah, AND do that mommy job) than I thought.

Yesterday I got an email from Momsrising.org asking for volunteers to coordinate a meeting with one of our GA Senators to encourage them to pass the Fair Pay Restoration Act. This Act reverses a recent Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter vs. Goodyear that now gives employees a mere 180 days from the time a pay rate is set to discover heinous and unfair pay discrepancies based on gender, race or other discriminatory factors and to file a claim to right the wrong.

Man, I would have LOVED to have coordinated that meeting. I can just imagine strolling into that Senator's office all fired up, channeling my best Julia Sugarbaker (remember "Designing Women"? Love that show!!!):

"Senator So and So, we're here representing Momsrising.org, Mothers and More and the thousands of hard-working employees here in the state of Georgia who have a high likelihood of experiencing pay discrimination. We are asking that you vote to pass the Fair Pay Restoration Act when it comes up in the Senate. Now we don't know what our distinguished Supreme Court justices were smoking when they ruled on Ledbetter vs. Goodyear, but surely you can see the folly in allowing only 180 days from the time pay is set to file any kind of pay discrimination claim. Because unless you happen to be psychic or lucky enough to stumble upon a pile of your co-workers' pay stubs, there is no way in hell you could discover and prove potentially discriminatory pay practices in that short of a time period!"

Ok, I probably wouldn't say that. But Julia would. Unfortunately, when I looked at my calendar to see when I could hold such a meeting, it was already jam-packed with cancer-fighting meetings. And since I'm actually being paid with money that people have donated from their hard-earned paychecks to fight cancer and not the working mommy issues, I decided I'd better stick to my original schedule.

So, my working mommy issue fighting will have to be limited to signing this Momsrising.org online petition and writing a letter to my Senators ("Dear Backwoods Senator..." Just kidding. I wouldn't write that either) in my off hours for now. I encourage everyone reading this (all 11 of you) to visit Momsrising.org (haven't joined yet...what are you waiting for?) and get involved. They are looking for people in all 50 states to coordinate meetings with their Senators, sign their petition and to express their support of the issue.

Time to activate!

(No) Time to Activate

Become an Email Activist

I don't consider myself to be politically active. I have an opinion, of course, and I vote, but I've never contributed time or money to a political campaign. Lately I've been dipping my toe into the world of email activism and I gotta say, it feels pretty good.

I started through my day job. I work for a major cancer organization and as a cancer survivor, I have a personal stake in many of the issues that my employer advocates (increased government research funding, smoke-free communities, etc.). Then, as a frustrated mom trying to find a better way to balance a successful career and a thriving family, I stumbled across (hallelujah!!!) Momsrising.org, a movement dedicated to advocating for a family-friendly America. (My peeps!!!) Both organizations make email activism so easy. You get an alert, click on a link, fill out an online form, hit send and voila!, you've taken a stand on an issue and let your voice be heard.

I'm so surprised that more women don't actively engage in email activism on a regular basis. Every time I forward one of my email alerts to my super mommy friends network, it's usually met with a resounding silence. Maybe they don't realize that being an activist these days doesn't have to mean burning a bra or staging a march. Or maybe, as PunditMom muses in this post on Work It, Mom!, politics just isn't everyone's thing. Or it could be (and I think this is the real reason), as PunditMom points out in this post, that we're too nice to stir the pot and don't realize what a powerful force we can be when we do put our opinions out there.

I realize that changing the world isn't the first thing on everyone's to-do list, but we absolutely HAVE to get in this game. The stakes have never been higher for us as Moms and as Americans. It really doesn't take much effort or money (and if you don't believe that, check out THIS post from PunditMom). I've seen bills in Congress succeed and fail due to pure public pressure. If you don't want to devote your life or your blog to changing the political tide, start small like me. Sign up for some email action alerts at Momsrising.org, NOW or Congress.org. It takes all of ten minutes. If changing the world isn't reason enough, here's one more. Just like many of us have found with this blogging thing...giving yourself a forum to be heard feels friggin' great!

Become an Email Activist