Month: April 2022

Lawmakers who are the mothers of young children face special challenges. Barbara Rodriguez, writing for the 19th, notes that while 31 percent of legislative seats across the United States are now held by women, little research has been done to understand the experiences of those who are mothers with young children. A nonprofit organization called Vote Mama Foundation, which advocates for policies that help mothers run for office, is undertaking a large study of women lawmakers to learn more about the structural barriers women may face while running for office and functioning successfully once elected. So far, Vote Mama has heard many stories that give a sense of some of the difficulties that women face. For example, Rodriguez shares these anecdotes:

• In 2020, a Virginia lawmaker gave birth to her fifth child and was unable to bring her youngest child with her to the capitol because of the COVID-19 pandemic. On a recent workday, she drove three hours to spend two and a half hours with her family and to nurse her youngest child. This lawmaker pointed out, “You want to be present and with your family. . . . At the same time you are in the Capitol, and you want to show up every day for your constituents to do your work. It’s definitely a balancing act.”
• A Michigan senator who gave birth to a daughter in early 2021 discovered that she and other lawmakers were not eligible for the twelve weeks of paid parental leave available to state workers because the legislators were technically a different kind of employee. She took the time she needed to recover from the birth and was attacked by a conservative opponent for missing the most votes that year without noting any context of her pregnancy.
• In another example, the Michigan capitol does not have a lactation room, and lawmakers are not allowed to vote by proxy, which created challenges for parents during the pandemic.
• The Nebraska state capitol had a lactation room, but last year, a lawmaker allowed it to be turned into an office.
• In Colorado, a lawmaker was needed on the House floor for a vote. She was in her private office pumping breast milk at the time the vote was called. As a House leader, she had to be there but had no time to undo the pump and get her clothes back on. Keeping the breast pump attached to her body, she threw her suit jacket over “everything” and ran to the floor to vote. When she tweeted about the incident, a number of legislators with young children welcomed her to “our pump & vote club.”

Rodriguez quotes Michigan lawmaker Mallory McMorrow as saying, “It is a system that punishes people who are caregivers. And unless we change the system, it’s just effectively saying that this is not a place for somebody who’s a caregiver, which means that those lived experiences are not represented in the legislature.” Without these lived experiences being represented, the policies and legislation needed to support families will never be put in place.

Photo courtesy of ajay_suresh (CC BY 2.0)

New research from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, reported by Emma Whitford, shows that when women are the presidents and provosts of institutions of higher weducation, female senior faculty and top administrators earn more than at institutions where men are in charge. Furthermore, women occupy a higher percentage of top administrative positions when female presidents lead colleges and universities. Here are some specific examples reported by Whitford from the research:

• Women make up 45 percent of senior officers at female-led institutions, compared with 42 percent at male-led institutions.
• Six in ten division heads are women at female-led institutions, compared with 55 percent at male-led institutions.
• About 63 percent of administrators—such as chief diversity officers and chief purchasing officers—at female-led institutions are women, compared with only 61 percent of administrators at male-led institutions.
• Female administrators at female-led institutions generally earn more than their counterparts at male-led institutions, but, reports Whitford, “regardless of whether an institution has a female or male president, female administrators are typically paid less than men.”
• At institutions with female provosts, 48 percent of deans are women, compared to 43 percent at institutions with male provosts.
• Women make up 53 percent of assistant professors at institutions with female provosts and 50 percent of assistant professors at institutions with male provosts.

According to Angela Onwuachi-Willig, dean and professor of law at the Boston University School of Law, “Who is in leadership matters, because they’re more likely to see issues that might be invisible to somebody who didn’t share a particular identity.” For an example, pay equity is more likely to be a top priority for female leaders. Even policies like parental leave, available at many academic institutions for both mothers and fathers at the birth of a child, can have unequal consequences. For example, research shows that often the nonpregnant parent uses his or her leave to produce additional research while the pregnant parent is not able to do so. In this way, well-intended policies can have an unequal impact on careers that female leaders may be more attuned to. The transparency provided by this research helps dispel myths and documents truths about differences in gendered leadership. More transparency is needed.

Photo by Tim Alex on Unsplash