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Business and Professional Women's Foundation
Contact
1718 M Street NW, #148
Washington, DC 20036
Ph. 202-293-1100
http://www.bpwfoundation.org/
foundation@bpwfoundation.org
Washington, DC 20036
Ph. 202-293-1100
http://www.bpwfoundation.org/
foundation@bpwfoundation.org
The Business and Professional Women's Foundation (BPW) is a national organization that promotes equity for all women in the workplace and brings working women's concerns to the attention of the business and professional community. BPW fosters partnerships among corporations, foundations, organizations, and individuals in order to advance equity for working women. The BPW Foundation is also dedicated to helping women further their education and helps low-income women attain undergraduate and graduate degrees.
Recently Posted
Remembering the Women During Black History Month
Resource
Selection of posts from the Business and Professional Women’s Foundation Young Women...
From Gen Y Women to Employers: What They Want in the Workplace and Why it Matters for Business
Resource
The report explores Generation Y women’s career choices and the opportunities and...
Women are Always "On": Broadband Survey Results May 2011
Resource
Wanting to learn how women use high-speed Internet or broadband technology, BPW Foundation...
Principal Staff
Deborah L. Frett, Chief Executive OfficerPh. 202-293-1100
Linda Wright-Fuller, Director of Organizational Effectiveness
Ph. 202-293-1100 ext. 8988
E-mail: lfuller@bpwfoundation.org
Sherry Saunders, Director of Communications
Ph. 202-293-1100 ext. 8949
E-mail: ssaunders@bpwfoundation.org
Areas of Expertise:
Advancing Women's Leadership, Diversity & Leadership, Domestic and Workplace Violence, Glass Ceilings & Barriers, Diversity & Inclusion, Older Women, Entrepreneurship & Small Business Development, Women in STEM, Mentoring, Title IX, Women's Leadership, Women's Movements, Women's Networks, Work - Life Balance, Work:life Balance, Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM)Member Experts:
Deborah Frett
Projects & Campaigns
# Employment Issues
Marguerite Rawalt Resource and Information Center. The Rawalt Center is one of the oldest and most comprehensive collections about working women in the United States.
# Mental Health
Women and Depression: Dispelling the Myths and Finding the Answers. The Women and Depression Depression study confronts depression and provides information on symptoms, treatment, and support services geared specifically toward women.
# Microenterprise and Small Business
Small Businesses. The small business initiative, which has generated the publication, Making Workplaces Work: Quality Work Policies for Small Businesses, involves a community roundtable to discuss and explore quality and equitable policies for small businesses.
BPW Foundation Advocacy Center
Make your voice heard! Use the sample letters and advocacy tools provided on the website to write to your elected representatives and tell them to support successful workplaces. Your letter does make a difference!
Reports & Resources
# Employment Issues
You Can't Get There from Here: Working Women and the Glass Ceiling. Statistics on the glass ceiling in the corporate, academic, and governmental arenas and information on corporate responses and legal remedies for victims of glass ceiling discrimination.
Women in Primetime: Employment Issues for Midlife Women. Discusses the challenges facing the one-third of all adult women who are in their midlife years.
Financing Your Future: Women and Retirement Income. An analysis of retirement system discrimination against working women
# Microenterprise and Small Business
Making Workplaces Work: Quality Work Policies for Small Business. This special report and program guide contains information on quality work policies and how employers can meet the needs of their employees while still making a profit.
Resource Guide for Women Entrepreneurs. A guide for women who want to start or expand their own business.
# Reproductive Rights
Reproductive Rights: A Political, Professional and Personal Issue. Discusses the impact of reproductive rights on women's lives, including the latest birth control methods and reproductive rights in the workplace.
# Sexual Assault/Harassment
Crime of Power, Not Passion: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. Summarizes the legal case history of sexual harassment and the changing corporate policies that ban sexual discrimination in the workplace.
# Work and Family
Women and Work: A Journal of the Business and Professional Women's Foundation. The most recent edition, titled Work & Family: Today's Realities and Tomorrow's Visions, includes research presented at BPW's 1998 academic conference. It covers issues such as parental leave policies, child care, self-employment, microenterprise, corporate culture, and parental attitudes toward work and family balance.
The Duality of Work and Family Roles. A collection of papers presented at the 1997 BPW Foundation Academic Symposium; includes topics such as work/family politics, child care satisfaction, maternal and parental leave, reduced-hours career paths, and success at work and family in different stages of life.
BPW Issue Papers
Work and Family Policies: Options for the 90s and Beyond.
Women in Primetime: Employment Issues for Midlife Women.
Financing Your Future: Women and Retirement Income.
You Can't Get There from Here: Working Women and the Glass Ceiling.
Crime of Power, Not Passion: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace.
Reproductive Rights: A Political, Professional and Personal Issue.
Center News
BPW Foundation Calls For Paid Leave
Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 11:20am
On June 15, BPW Foundation joined a broad coalition of women's, labor, social justice and work-and-family advocates, to express support for President Obama's FY 2011 budget proposal to establish a $50 million State Paid Leave Fund within the Department of Labor.
To see how BPW is active in their reseach of Paid leave click here!
White House Strongly Calls for Action on Equal Pay
Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 11:18am
"Be on the right side of history," urged Vice President Joe Biden as he called on the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act at the White House Middle Class Task Force event on Tuesday, July 20th.
Read more here!
New Poll Reveals Overwhelming Public Support the Paycheck Fairness Act!
Thursday, June 17, 2010 - 2:39pm
In a nationwide poll of registered voters commissioned by the Paycheck Fairness Act Coalition, of which BPW Foundation is a key leader, 84% said they supported "a new law that would provide women more tools to get fair pay in the workplace."
Contact your Senators and ask them to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act NOW!
New Poll Reveals Overwhelming Public Support the Paycheck Fairness Act!
Thursday, June 17, 2010 - 2:37pm
In a nationwide poll of registered voters commissioned by the Paycheck Fairness Act Coalition, of which BPW Foundation is a key leader, 84% said they supported "a new law that would provide women more tools to get fair pay in the workplace."
Contact your Senators and ask them to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act NOW!
Feds Try to Increase Number of Women Contractors
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - 10:33am
Women-owned businesses account for some 41% of all privately held firms and are growing at twice the rate of all other firms. Despite this phenomenal growth women-owned businesses continue to face challenges, including limited access to the federal contracting pipeline.... Read more
Workplace Gendered Tradeoffs Lead to Economic Inequalities for Women
Friday, February 12, 2010 - 3:38pm
Published on Feb 12, 2010 - 9:19:25 AM YoubaNet.com
By: University of Washington
Feb. 11, 2010 - Despite big changes over recent decades, workplace gender inequalities endure in the United States and other industrialized nations around the world. These inequalities are created by facets of national social policy that either ease or concentrate the demands of care giving within households and shape expectations in the workplace, according to University of Washington sociologists.
In a new book, "Gendered Tradeoffs: Family, Social Policy and Economic Inequality in Twenty-One Countries," Becky Pettit and Jennifer Hook contend workplace equality for women boils down to not only whether women are included in the work force but on how they are included. Pettit is an associate professor of sociology and Hook is research scientist in the School of Social Work.
The book, which looks at levels of women's employment, number of hours worked, occupational integration, and wage equality, draws on the ongoing Luxembourg Income Study. The study is a repository of data collected in a number of countries, and for the book, the UW authors look at Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Canada, Australia, Austria, Russian Federation, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia, Hungary, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Spain and the United States.
There are vast differences in women's economic fortunes in these countries and in no one country do women do well on all measures of equality. Italy, for example, ranks first in wage equality but is 20th in the number of women employed. Sweden is No. 1 in women's employment but is only 14th in full-time work and while Belgium is first in occupational integration and it is 18th in women's employment.
Policies governing gender equality and inclusion in the workplace vary drastically in these countries, and Pettit contends that in order to understand gender inequality in the workplace it is necessary to consider to how a nation's family policies affect the division of household labor.
"Our argument is gender inequality in the workplace is in a large part due to bearing and rearing children. There are economically successful women everywhere but exactly how women manage the dual demands of work and home varies a lot. The biggest differences come when people have children and when those children are young," she said. "Some countries support working women publicly by providing child care. What we have in the United States are private solutions to child care. People who have more resources can maximize their employment and pay for child care. Some nations are more generous and the US is way behind them in providing early childhood education, child care and paid maternity leave."
Even so state subsidized family-friendly policies don't guarantee women can achieve equality in the workplace. Some of these policies foster the growth of part-time employment – which is a dead end for advancement – work segregation, and wage inequality, the UW authors said.
So where is the best place for a woman to work and live?
"My answer depends on what a woman wants, how much education she has and what resources are available to support her and her family," said Pettit. "If you want to be a stay at home mother, Germany has a very extensive home leave policy. If you want to work full-time and have kids, the U.S. isn't bad if you can afford quality child care. If you want to work part-time, Sweden and Denmark have very good child care. And if you want to have your husband involved in child care, Finland is a good choice.
"In the U.S. very well-educated women are more likely to use substitute labor for child care. But this is not the case for low-income women, and this can lead to a two-tiered economic system that penalizes many women."
In a new book, "Gendered Tradeoffs: Family, Social Policy and Economic Inequality in Twenty-One Countries," Becky Pettit and Jennifer Hook contend workplace equality for women boils down to not only whether women are included in the work force but on how they are included. Pettit is an associate professor of sociology and Hook is research scientist in the School of Social Work.
The book, which looks at levels of women's employment, number of hours worked, occupational integration, and wage equality, draws on the ongoing Luxembourg Income Study. The study is a repository of data collected in a number of countries, and for the book, the UW authors look at Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Canada, Australia, Austria, Russian Federation, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia, Hungary, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Spain and the United States.
There are vast differences in women's economic fortunes in these countries and in no one country do women do well on all measures of equality. Italy, for example, ranks first in wage equality but is 20th in the number of women employed. Sweden is No. 1 in women's employment but is only 14th in full-time work and while Belgium is first in occupational integration and it is 18th in women's employment.
Policies governing gender equality and inclusion in the workplace vary drastically in these countries, and Pettit contends that in order to understand gender inequality in the workplace it is necessary to consider to how a nation's family policies affect the division of household labor.
"Our argument is gender inequality in the workplace is in a large part due to bearing and rearing children. There are economically successful women everywhere but exactly how women manage the dual demands of work and home varies a lot. The biggest differences come when people have children and when those children are young," she said. "Some countries support working women publicly by providing child care. What we have in the United States are private solutions to child care. People who have more resources can maximize their employment and pay for child care. Some nations are more generous and the US is way behind them in providing early childhood education, child care and paid maternity leave."
Even so state subsidized family-friendly policies don't guarantee women can achieve equality in the workplace. Some of these policies foster the growth of part-time employment – which is a dead end for advancement – work segregation, and wage inequality, the UW authors said.
So where is the best place for a woman to work and live?
"My answer depends on what a woman wants, how much education she has and what resources are available to support her and her family," said Pettit. "If you want to be a stay at home mother, Germany has a very extensive home leave policy. If you want to work full-time and have kids, the U.S. isn't bad if you can afford quality child care. If you want to work part-time, Sweden and Denmark have very good child care. And if you want to have your husband involved in child care, Finland is a good choice.
"In the U.S. very well-educated women are more likely to use substitute labor for child care. But this is not the case for low-income women, and this can lead to a two-tiered economic system that penalizes many women."
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