Women of the 5th Congressional District: Part Two

By Natasha L. Foreman, MBA

Yesterday I shared highlights from Saturday's conversation between Congressman John Lewis, Dr. Beverly Tatum (the President of Spelman College who moderated the conversation), Dr. Cynthia Pierre, Dr. Julie Hotchkiss, State Representative Stacey Abrams, and Portia Wu. So that this blog article was not too lengthy I decided to split it up into a two-part post.

In part one of this series you read some mouth-dropping statistics from Dr. Cynthia Pierre and Dr. Julie Hotchkiss, and today I will share information from Representative Stacey Abrams and Portia Wu. Abrams and Wu switched places on the program before speaking as their talking points piggybacked each other on many levels.

Portia Wu, VP National Partnership for Women and Families
approached the podium after Dr. Tatum introduced her and she discussed facts about workplace disparities and the court system. Ms. Wu said that:

-Black women are making 60 cents on dollar compared to working white men
-Latina women are making 46 cents on dollar compared to working white men
-Nationally 4 out of 10 working women are bringing in more than half of household income; either as a single woman or married and bringing in their fair share of the income
-Pregnancy discrimination is higher against women of color
-Women get paid less when return from having child
-Men get paid more when return after birth of child
-Women being laid off from jobs because of their pregnancy but companies are saying that it is not because pregnant or because had to take time off for maternity leave.

Stacey Abrams, House Minority Leader for Georgia General Assembly and State Representative for 84th House District was next to speak and she also shared some powerful information including:

-We hold up half the sky but get underpaid and overtaxed for it
-Women earn less than men and the darker you are the less you make
-Women are dependent upon health and human services more than men because women are also responsible for taking care of children and families
-Women live longer and have less money to die with
-Tax reform means politicians reforming for them and not you

Buzz words that should scare you...
-Flat tax: means equal tax for all...no matter if poor or rich all get same tax,
-Consumption tax: awful for the poor; only good for those who can control and afford what they buy
-Revenue neutral: is bad...it means "I'm taking your money and not mine"
-"Cutting government": cuts services to things we need like road repairs, lights, women's jobs (public sector jobs are government jobs)
-Pension reform: not bad idea unless talking about public sector
34 percent of women are public sector pension recipients; if you cut that then that leaves women broke and homeless
-Privatization: means giving jobs to private sector workers and taking jobs from public sector employees
Private companies goal is to make money not job creation; public companies are about job creation

Representative Abrams said that we should
DEMAND THE FOLLOWING
1) Transparency
Models used on middle class and upper class white males, with perfect homes, perfect families, perfect cars with perfect gas mileage, and no health problems.

Information should be based on Roseanne Barr not wealthy ideal families
Who is the model?

2) Literacy
Every woman should be able to fluently speak taxes and taxation; become tax literate

Tax credits are great; recognize specific social policies like child care credit.
Earned income tax credit helps close wage gap...you want this
When people call EITC "welfare" then remind them then in that case Farm aid is also "welfare".

-Women represent more than 1/2 voting population but we are the lowest in participation when it comes to speaking up and speaking out about our country, taxation, etc

Congressman Lewis closed things out just as he opened the conversation- with passion and a clear vision. He said that women need to speak up and stand up and make noise, use the technology you have at your disposal such as Facebook and Twitter, and get the word out that you won't stand for being overlooked and underserved.

"We have a major fight on our hands...our seniors, children and our women...
without women we wouldn't be here and we have to save this planet for all of us..." Congressman Lewis said. He continued by saying that it doesn't matter our race, color, sex, political party, we're one family, one people, one house.

With that we left energized, enlightened, and empowered!



Copyright 2011. Younger Women's Task Force Atlanta Metro Chapter