I recently had the pleasure of attending the annual fundraising breakfast for the Canadian Women’s Foundation. This is an organization that I had only heard of recently, but has actually been around for almost 20 years. The mission of the CWF is to raise money to “research and share the best approaches to ending violence against women, moving low-income women out of poverty and empowering girls with confidence, courage and critical thinking skills.” A foundation that focuses on helping women and girls? At the grassroots level? And influenced by research and best practices? CWF, where have you been all my life?!
Getting acquainted with the Foundation has been, for me, a matter of finding out about an exciting, pan-Canadian organization that is actually really doing something for women and girls. Of course, a national organization serving women that is charity-based is a completely different kettle of fish from the publicly funded (and now dead as a doornail) NAC (National Action Committee on the Status of Women). The expectations are different, the politics are different, and the accountability is different.
Yet the criticisms that one can make of charities in general don’t really apply, I think, to the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Sure, you can make the blanket argument that charities prop up our current unequal social and economic system by plugging–and therefore sustaining–gaps that are actually inherent in the model. But in the absence of signs that that system is on its way out (and I mean sooner rather than the long, slow, troubling economic times we’re living in now), it seems to me that throwing my support behind an organization like CWF only makes sense.
After all, they are actively working towards that vision of the future that I have–the kind where women would no longer be the face of poverty, where girls didn’t start the body-loathing campaigns by the time they were seven, where violence wasn’t a reality of the daily lives of so many Canadian families.
Although it is a foundation–an organization that raises and distributes money–and therefore has the appearance of being merely a charity, it’s clear that it’s not. It’s actually a change agent, leading the way in helping Canadian women’s organizations do their work of improving the lives of girls and women. It’s concrete. It’s real. And if you’re looking for a place to put your money where your politics are, I’d suggest CWF might be the place.
Tagged as:
money,
revolution
Bad news. This is from The Institute for Women’s Policy Research:
A new analysis released by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) today on Equal Pay Day shows that men out-earn women in nearly every occupation for which data are available.
Of the more than 500 occupational categories for which sufficient data are provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in only 5 occupations do women earn the same or more than men.
Why is this still happening in the 21st century? Part of the explanation is that “pink collar” jobs (nurses, teachers, social workers) pay less. But part of it is also that, according to Ariane Hegewisch,
“Women tend to be in the minority of workers in the occupations with the highest earnings. We need to ensure that women are fully informed about the earnings potential of an occupation before they
choose their careers.”
When you were a kid and the topic of careers came up, did anybody ever talk to you about income earning potential? Would it have made a difference, do you think?
Tagged as:
career,
money
The Art Gallery of York University has just released a study called Waging Culture: The Socio-economic status of Canadian Visual Artists. Apparently this is the first national survey of Canadian visual artists since 1993. The report paints (oooh, the puns start coming out now!) a “dismal” picture: findings indicate the average artist lost $556 dollars in 2007 on their art practice.
Here’s the really interesting stuff:
“Compared to the national total labour force, artists are more likely to be female, anglophone, in a relationship, and born Canadian, and less likely to be members of a visible minority. They are overwhelmingly more likely to be highly educated, with an average of more than six years post-secondary education.”
Okay. Interesting. Still mulling that over. But this is the bit that really surprised me:
The wage gap between male and female artists is significantly lower than in the labour force as a whole, a mere 10% for artists versus 36% for the total labour force. The difference in sales, however, is a full 48%.
So, let me get this straight. Compared to the average Canadian worker, artists tend to look like Margaret Atwood (if Maggie were a visual artist). And compared to the average Canadian workforce, the wage gap among artists isn’t as wide. But male artists tend to make double the sales female artists do? I realize I have an advanced degree and all, but I’m having a hard time reconciling all this data. And there’s more crazy stuff to put into the mix:
• Immigrant artists have higher total incomes than Canadian-born artists, if only nominally so.
• Caucasian artists have slightly higher total income than visible minority artists.
Who wants to jump in and try to get a sense of what this means? I don’t even know if I should be happy or sad about all this.
Tagged as:
art,
money,
women
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