By Gabriella Ciuffetelli
EDITORIALS EDITOR
The lack of equal pay for women in the workplace and the matters that forge the gap in sala- ries were discussed in a lecture on Wednesday, Feb. 23 as a part of Civil Rights Day at Hofstra.
“Accommodation is not a spe- cial privilege … Workforces actually are supposed to change the way they structure things in order to accommodate a broader array of workers,” Joanna Grossman said.
Grossman not only summed up the purpose of the Women’s Equality Act, but the broader power struggles between working women and their employers.
In her lecture, “New York and the Women’s Equality Act: Is Equality Equal Yet in the Workplace?” Grossman went on to talk about this law and its implications.
According to the New York Governor’s official website, the
Women’s Equality Act passed in 2013 was designed to “achieve pay equity, stop sexual harass- ment, prevent pregnancy dis- crimination in all workplaces, strengthen human trafficking laws and protections for domes- tic violence victims, end family status discrimination and protect a woman’s freedom of choice.”
The talk was organized by The Center for Civic Engagement as a part of Civil Rights Day 2016 and was moderated by Lara
Nochomovitz, the Hofstra Title IX coordinator.
Grossman, a professor of family law at Hofstra, showcased her knowledge on a broad spec- trum of women’s issues in what felt more like an intimate discus- sion than a formal lecture.
The main focus of her lecture, pregnancy rights in the work- place, inspired illicit responses from attendees as they heard real-life case studies of dis- crimination in the 21st century workplace.
“What I appreciated about the
lecture was that the professor was so specific in her cases. She clearly knew what she was talking about, which I think is very impor- tant when you’re talking about such a controversial topic,” junior journalism major Erica Brosnan said.
One of the most striking cases Grossman discussed was the case of Peggy Young, a UPS driver who lost her job when she became pregnant. Young took her case to the Supreme Court and won, forging a path through which laws such as the Women’s Equality Act came into existence.
While the law has 10 main pro- visions, ranging from pregnancy rights to equal pay, Grossman said that law’s true significance is that it shows there is a tan- gible “need for social change and structural change” as formal legislation marks that “people now know that [discrimination] is happening.”
Issues regarding pregnancy and its effects on women in the workplace are just a few of the many obstacles women currently face and Grossman was quick
to elaborate on the multifaceted dimension of such discrimination.
In fact, according to Grossman’s lecture, institutional and behavioral mechanisms,
such as pay secrecy, covertly hurt women’s chances even more than pregnancy does, leading “women [to] believe they are entitled to less” than their male counterparts.
“What really got to me … was that a man who has children will get paid more than a woman who has children … It’s something in society that we need to work on,” Daniel Rosero, a junior biology major, said.
Nonetheless, in the face of such adversity there is hope
that new legislation will continue to pass and in turn foster more open-mindedness when it comes to women in the workforce.
Of this progression, Rosero said, “As we educate ourselves and people see these stories [and] hear these cases everyone becomes more aware of it. It’s almost impossible to avoid that discrimination is a real thing … But I’m optimistic, I think things will get better.”
