Columnist Sandra Thompson: Women slowly carve their way out of gender bias inequalities

SANDRA THOMPSON is vice president/associate editor of the Las Vegas Sun. She can be reached at 259-4025 or on the Internet at [email protected]

LINDA Chavez-Thompson, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, is a self-avowed rabble-rouser. She is proud of her accomplishments as the highest-ranking woman in the labor movement.

But she's also proud of being a mother and grandmother.

Speaking at the National Association of Commissions for Women convention last week at the Luxor hotel-casino, Chavez-Thompson urged women to fight for pay equity.

Although the equal pay law has been on the books since 1963, women today are still paid less than men for the same work. The gap is narrowing, but has not closed.

In 1996, she said, women were paid 74 cents for every $1 earned by a man for the same job. A woman secretary earns $100 less than a male secretary; a woman professor earns $170 less a week than her male counterpart.

For women in unions, the pay gap is smaller. They earn, on average, 84 cents on the dollar.

Chavez-Thompson said the AFL-CIO is looking into pay equity, child care and women's pension issues.

Child-care workers fill such a vital need, yet they are among the lowest-paid professions. Chavez-Thompson said there are more requirements for a person training to do hair and nails than there are to train and keep a child-care worker.

As the representatives of women's commissions throughout the country sat amid the symbols of an ancient civilization at the Luxor, they discussed issues following the theme of "Meeting future challenges: Don't gamble with women's lives."

Paula Quagliana, a member of the Nevada Commission for Women and chairwoman of the NACW national convention, put together an excellent program that explored justice for women in the courts and in the workplace, and a symposium on breast cancer and plastic surgery.

I was honored to be one of the speakers at the Thursday session, which also featured Chavez-Thompson, Jill Crawford of the National Judicial Education Program and Judge J. Dean Lewis, president of the National Association of Family and Juvenile Court Judges.

Crawford pointed out that there are 41 state and eight federal task forces on gender bias in the courts.

Stereotypes prevail in courtrooms throughout the country. Crawford cited the example of a judge who was reluctant to sentence a rapist to a prison term because his victim did not fight back. Another blamed the woman rape victim because she had been hitchhiking -- and therefore asked to be rape.

Then there was the man who was being sentenced in court for dousing his wife with lighter fluid. Someone in the courtroom began to sing "You light up my wife" to the tune of Debbie Boone's "You Light Up My Life."

Crawford said gender bias stems from stereotypical thinking of women's roles, devaluation of women and women's work, and the socioeconomic realities of women's lives.

Lewis presented disturbing statistics involving children in the family and juvenile court systems across the nation.

Three children die each day from abuse. Eighty-five percent are younger than 5; half of those have not reached their first birthday.

In 1995, 3.1 million children were abused or neglected -- almost double the figure in 1984. Of those, only 1 million were determined to be founded. But Lewis said the Department of Health and Human Services believes that is an underestimation.

In 1995, 494,000 children were in foster care. Again, that's almost double the number from 1984. Lewis said 750,000 children go in and out of foster care annually; 100,000 are in what she called "foster care drift" and are eligible for adoption.

Violent juvenile crime, she said, decreased in 1995, contrary to what's portrayed in the media. Only 6 percent of youths nationwide commit crimes.

Interestingly, female juvenile offenders are treated more lightly than their male counterparts. Girls are more likely to be taken home to their parents than to a juvenile detention facility, Lewis said. They are less likely to be found guilty and more likely to be placed on probation than put in jail.

There is a strong link between parental rejection and delinquency, as well as inconsistent parenting or harsh discipline.

There are effective intervention methods that can stem the tide of delinquency. Lewis simplifies it by saying, "Put your money in the playpen, not the state pen."

Women's and children's issues will always be linked because women have been the primary caretakers of children.

But as this convention pointed out, women aren't just breadmakers. They are breadwinners, too.

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