BY GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer
As soon as the semester begins, Dr. Johanna Foster challenges the assumptions of students in her gender studies class about women’s issues like pay inequality, sexual violence and juggling work and family.
"On the first day of class I ask them, ‘What is some evidence to suggest that feminist issues are still with us?’ " said Foster, visiting professor of sociology at Monmouth University in West Long Branch.
"Students are surprised to learn about the persistence of wage gaps," she said. "I tell them that women with college degrees still make as much as men with high school diplomas. I tell them that one woman out of every four is likely to be raped during her lifetime, that we’re one vote away from losing our reproductive rights.
"They’re shocked to hear women work on average one month of 24-hour days in child care and housework more than men," she continued. "That in a survey of college men, 60 percent said they would rape a woman if they knew they wouldn’t get caught, that 30 percent of all women murdered are murdered by their boyfriends or husbands."
"The misconception is that there’s no need for feminism," explained Dr. Mary Gatta, director of Workforce Policy and Research at the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. "We’re thinking we need to mobilize that collective consciousness again. A lot of women think feminism is dead.
"It is critically important for women to have economic independence and that comes through work," said Gatta. "So we need things like pay equity, work-family integration, equal access to educational programs. We need to address issues of discrimination."
Gatta and Foster are organizers of a Women’s History Month conference designed to provide a forum where stakeholders will discuss how women’s work is shaped by both global and local social forces and begin to develop an agenda for change.
"Women’s Work Post 9/11: Linking the Global and Local" will be held March 23, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., in Wilson Hall at Monmouth University. The free event is co-sponsored by the university’s Gender Studies Program, Department of Political Science/
Sociology, the Global Understanding Project, and the Rutgers University Center for Women and Work.
They hope to enlist academics and students, policy makers, community leaders, and members of area advocacy and community groups in a full day of talks, panels and roundtables focused on the ways in which the issues facing women workers in New Jersey are similar to, and shaped by, the issues facing women workers in other parts of the world.
The conference will feature keynote speakers from the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor, a panel discussion on "Women’s Work in Local and Global Contexts," and working roundtables on "Linking Local and Global Theory and Practice: Developing Agendas for Change."
To register for the free program, contact Foster at [email protected] or call (732) 263-5440.
Through the conference, Gatta and Foster aim to create a network of women and men advocates and to develop recommendations to change the status of women.
"We’re hoping it opens up the opportunity to continue the dialogue beyond this event," Gatta explained. "We want to galvanize people around these issues because at this time these issues are critical.
"The aim is to lay out a strategy for change, which we will put into a policy paper," she continued. "Speakers will lay out the issues and discussion will center on recommendations for change. What do we need most to move forward in Monmouth County and New Jersey?"
As a sociologist, Gatta, of Long Branch, focuses on low-wage women workers, gender earnings inequality and sex segregation studies. She also is a staff member of the Council on Gender Parity in Labor, a joint initiative of the state Employment and Training Commission and the CWW, for which her focus is the role of gender equity in different occupational fields.
Foster, of Montclair, teaches sociology and gender studies at Monmouth and focuses on the issue of reproductive rights. The two feminist sociologists met as doctoral candidates in Rutgers’ nationally recognized gender studies program, and as undergrads had been activists at their respective colleges.
Gatta helped found a women’s studies program at Providence (R.I.) College, while Foster was a pro-choice campus activist and founder of the Women’s Confederation at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., a consortium of student groups advocating for women’s issues.
"Our career trajectories are so closely aligned," noted Foster. "It seemed like kismet that we would be able to work together professionally and make connections between Rutgers University and Monmouth University.
"One thing we hope the conference will do," she said, "is to help people begin to make the link between the personal level and the larger political environment and help them see things like social structure and systems of inequality and how they are impacting our lives.
"So many women struggle with issues they think are their own personal problems like low wages, sexual violence, juggling child care and paid work. The core of gender studies is to get women to realize these problems are shaped by larger forces of gender. The global inequality that exists in the world also shapes women’s lives at the local level," she explained.
"Whether it’s in Bangladesh or West Long Branch, it’s women not being equal to men," Gatta added.
"There is a relationship between the inequality women face around the world and what goes on here in Monmouth County; it’s all connected," concurred Foster.
The ‘nanny chain’ is an example of the global impact of women’s pay inequality, Foster explained.
"Many men do not do their fair share of household work," she said, "and since most women need to work full time, they have to use their wages to replace their work as mothers. They hire other women to do that labor and many women who wind up doing that work are immigrants from other parts of the world who are fleeing even worse economic conditions. That’s an example of how gender inequality in the division of work here impacts women around the world."
Gender inequality is also reflected in pay scales for mothers who work for pay, Gatta added. "Data shows that women with children see their pay decrease," she said, "while men with children see their pay increase.
"Women earn 76-79 cents for every $1 men earn," she said. "For women of color, the disparity is worse. We know there’s a pay gap. In the U.S. and globally, the message is women’s work is not valued."
Education and awareness are not the main thrust of the conference, however.
"You shouldn’t just learn about sexism, you should learn about it to change it," Foster said. "We’re striving to do more than educate. We’re trying to make this connection between academics, students, policymakers, advocacy groups in Monmouth County. Let’s try to live up to the promise of feminist sociology. We’re both trying to make our Ph.D.s do the job we wanted to do. Now we’re in a position to try to change the inequalities."
"We are in a position to do something locally to bring awareness, to say we want the ability to be full citizens," Gatta said. "We really want to begin a sustained movement where we can work to improve the lives of women globally — here in Long Branch and in the rest of the world."
"In sociology we teach students change is possible," noted Foster, "but it rarely happens with individuals working alone."