Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 20, 1993 TAG: 9303200339
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SEX BIGGER JOB ISSUE THAN RACE, PANEL SAYS
Three Princeton University professors tackled the difficult topic of women in public life in a Roanoke College panel discussion this week, offering views spanning sexuality, women's policy issues and earnings gaps.Among their observations:
That in the labor market as a whole, gender is a bigger issue than race.
That the newly elected women Congressional members are less likely to work behind closed doors but are handicapped in penetrating government leadership's inner circles.
That women aged 20-24 have made the greatest strides in closing the gender wage gap, earning an average 96 cents on the dollar.
That the way women who seek public life are perceived is rooted in a centuries-old link of "public woman" with "prostitute."
The latter "would have been only a piece of historical trivia if it hadn't had such a profound effect on women of both the working class and the middle class as they moved into public life in the early 1800s," said M. Christine Stansell, an associate professor of American history and women's studies at Princeton.
Old notions linking a woman's venturing into the workplace to her sexual respectability, "helps us understand something of why public women today do the things we do," Stansell said. "Why we wear dowdy suits instead of pretty dresses. Why we might stress our motherhood or wifehood."
Celebrating the thrill of public life often is difficult for women, Stansell said. Recently, evidence of it crept into the spotlight in the uproar over insurance executive Zoe Baird's and U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood's hiring of illegal aliens as domestic workers.
"People forget that a lot of men in public life had the same problems, only it was their wives who wrote the checks," said Cecilia Rouse, an assistant professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton. "It was not possible for women to use that as an out."
The controversy shed light on the fact that many women, while climbing the career ladder, have maintained responsibilty for children and home. Studies indicate that women, while increasing hours at work, also devote more time to home, giving rise to the term "second shift," Rouse said.
"Evidence of time-use surveys suggests that women are the losers - that over the last century, as women spent more hours in the labor market, that hasn't meant they've reduced their hours in the home," she said.
Women's participation in the labor market has created social issues - child care and the juggling of family and career. Those issues - sprouting legislation such as the Family Leave Act and child-care subsidies - likely will receive more attention with the increased representation of women in Congress, said Carol Swain, an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton.
"Female lawmakers, regardless of their political party, do have different public policy agendas than male members of legislative bodies," Swain said. "As exemplified by Hillary Clinton, women are more likely to focus their energies on health care, issues affecting children and family and those affecting other women."
Mandating those benefits, however, has potential costs and could show up in lower wages for women, Rouse said. But the fact that women age 20-24 are earning 96 percent of what men are earning, "is rather promising," she said.