Catalyst Blog

Are women “persons”? Not according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s reading of the U.S. Constitution.

Recently asked whether the 14th Amendment prohibits discrimination based on sex, Scalia replied flatly: “It doesn’t.”

As perplexing as this remark may sound at first, Scalia summed up what proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) have argued for decades: the principle of equal rights for both sexes is not explicitly written into the Constitution.

And it should be.

Without a specific guarantee for equal protection of the sexes in the Constitution, Congress has the power to scale back legislation banning discrimination against women. Or pass laws that discriminate.

Suffragette Alice Paul was among the first to see a need for the ERA. She authored the amendment in 1923 on the 75th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention. The ERA was introduced in every session of Congress from 1923 until 1972, when it passed in the Senate and House. The amendment required ratification by at least 38 states, but garnered only 35. The ERA was then reintroduced in Congress in 1982, and in every session since.

Eighty-eight years is too long—even for Scalia’s colleagues on the bench. “I would like to see in our Constitution this clarion statement of bedrock principle,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

The text of the amendment is simple and straightforward: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Who could disagree with that?

American women got the vote 90 years ago this month. It wasn’t easy. After 70 years of hard state-by-state campaigning, suffrage came down to a final vote in the Tennessee Legislature. The deciding ballot was cast by Harry Burn, a 24-year old who switched to “yes” after receiving a last-minute nudge from his mother. “I know that a mother’s advice is always the safest for a boy to follow,” Burn later said.

Read more about this historic struggle, plus all the news about women and work, in C This.

————————

Three’s a Charm

Elena Kagan joined the U.S. Supreme Court, and ForbesWoman asked: “Will three finally be the magic number that effects real change for women in terms of pay parity, access to education and sexual harassment in the U.S.?” I hope so, but let’s not stop there. Women make up roughly 51% of the U.S. population. To really reflect America’s diversity on the Supreme Court, let’s see at least one more woman—ideally, a woman of color.

READ: “And Kagan Makes Three,” by Meghan Casserly, ForbesWoman, 8/8/10

Know Before You Go

What can you do to counter gender biases that influence hiring decisions? In this article, Amy Williams lays out four rules, including learning about “illegal questions” and sex discrimination before you go in for the interview.

READ: “Four Ways to Fight Sexist Interviewers,” by Amy Williams, Ms., 8/16/10

Mentored to Death

In the latest edition of the Harvard Business Review, INSEAD’s Herminia Ibarra and Catalyst’s Nancy M. Carter and Christine Silva reveal how high-potential women are not getting enough from mentors. Many are under-sponsored and over-mentored. “I am being mentored to death,” said one exasperated respondent. Are you?

READ: “Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women,” by Herminia Ibarra, Nancy M. Carter, and Christine Silva, Harvard Business Review, September 2010

Hear Them Roar

Who are the “new feminists”? The Guardian profiles seven courageous women “who dare to articulate what others would rather not see.” “I receive death threats all the time, but I’m not afraid,” said Shahla Farid, a lawyer who challenges the Taliban.

READ: “The New Feminists: Still Fighting,” by Susie Orbach and Shahesta Shaitly, The Guardian, 8/15/10

Rocking the Vote

What was the biggest obstacle to women’s right to vote in the United States? The U.S. Congress. Gail Collins recounts the long, hard slog to suffrage in this New York Times column. While we celebrate Women’s Suffrage Day on August 26, Collins prefers to commemorate August 18—the day of a tense final showdown in the Tennessee Legislature.

READ: “My Favorite August,” by Gail Collins, The New York Times, 8/13/10

Gender is at the core of workplace inequity.

But you wouldn’t know this from reading The New York Times.

Citing a University of Chicago study, the Times reported this week that women who had no children and never took time off had careers that “resembled those of men.” This is misleading—here’s why.

The Chicago study found that men earn roughly $15,000 more than women upon receipt of an M.B.A. Nine years later, men earn about $150,000 more. Women who had children or took time off suffered a greater penalty over time than women without children. This is not surprising—workplaces still penalize women for dialing down or temporarily leaving a traditional career track. But, remaining childless does not level the playing field for women.

Our report, Pipeline’s Broken Promise, found that men who left a corporate job for a nontraditional assignment and then returned experienced no penalty in either position or compensation, but women did. The report also found that post-M.B.A. women start behind men in job level and salary—and they never catch up. These findings hold true regardless of previous work experience, industry, geography, aspirations and parenthood status.

What to make of the fact that the last three women nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court were unmarried and had no children? The Times article implies that not having children allowed these women to focus on their careers. But what of the many female leaders who have children?

In Women and Men in U.S. Corporate Leadership, Catalyst surveyed nearly 1,000 senior-level women and men, most within two levels of the CEO. We found that 81% of the women were married or living with a partner, compared with 97% of the men. And there was less discrepancy around whether they had children living with them:  51% of the women did, compared with 57% of the men.

The most powerful businesswomen in America are mothers, too. There are currently 14 female Fortune 500 CEOs. At least 12 of them have kids.

Blaming inequity on factors like motherhood obscures a simple truth: entrenched biases and sexist stereotypes impact all women. Misrepresenting this reality doesn’t solve the problem. It distracts all of us—including employers who lose out on great talent—from addressing core inequity.