Lara Vapnek

What would you say to Lilly Ledbetter if you had the chance to meet her?  I pondered this question as I headed to Queens College yesterday for the Virginia Frese Palmer Conference.  Joyce W. Warren, a professor of English and Women’s Studies at Queens College, organized the conference to bring together activists, scholars, and educators to discuss Gender in the Workplace.  Lilly Ledbetter gave the keynote address.  She spoke directly and movingly about her experiences seeking restitution for the wages she had lost due to Goodyear’s unequal pay scale for men and women.  In a phrase that resonated across centuries of struggle for civil rights and women’s rights, she explained: “We [women] want to enjoy the fruits of our labor.”  In their own ways, the other speakers echoed this theme, although they approached the problem of women’s place in the workforce from very different angles.

Patricia Francois described how Domestic Workers United is fighting for “dignity, respect, and recognition” for domestic work.  As Francois, an immigrant from Trinidad, who has worked as a nanny explained, “we came here searching for economic opportunity and we found a lawless environment.”  Her stories of abuse echoed the complaints of the 19^th century working women, which I described in my presentation.  Francois urged all of us to join in supporting a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which would extend all existing labor laws in New York State to cover domestic workers.

Many of the speakers mixed the personal with the political.  Sheryl McCarthy, a Distinguished Lecturer in Journalism at Queens College shared her experiences breaking into journalism as an African-American woman.  She advised the audience, which included many students, not to be afraid to ask for a promotion or a raise. Following up on connections Lilly Ledbetter had drawn between women’s need for equal pay and their roles as family supporters, Carmella T. M. Marrone, the founder of the Queens College Women & Work program insisted that “healthy communities can not exist without economically viable families.”

Hester Eisenstein, a professor of Sociology at Queens College and Janet Gornick, a professor Political Science and Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center, framed the issues globally.  Eisenstein encouraged us to think critically about where women fit into the story of economic development around the world, and to look critically at the relationship between feminism and capitalism.  Gornick’s transnational research demonstrated how little family support American workers enjoy compared to their European counterparts—leaving us with longer working hours and less public care for children than any other industrialized nation on the planet.

Together, the presentations captured the complexity of women’s roles as workers and as caregivers and showed the connections between politics and economics. Ultimately, what I said to Lilly Ledbetter was simply this: “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”  It was inspiring to meet someone like her, who was not afraid to stand up and fight for what she believed in, knowing that any victory she achieved would aid future generations of women in their long battle for equality at work.