Reproductive Health, Education, Rights, & Privacy

Healthy Teens Act

In 2007 LIWA joined the Get the Facts NY Coalition, whose goal is to pass the Healthy Teens Act to expand access to comprehensive sexuality education. The Healthy Teens Act would establish a competitive grant program to fund comprehensive sexuality education in New York State. We know that 1 in 4 teenage girls, nationwide, have a sexually transmitted infection, and in New York, about 6 in 10 teens have sex before they complete high school. The bill requires that programs receiving grants use evidence-based programs, and teach about abstinence as well as contraception, safer sex, and healthy relationships. Priority consideration is to be given to applicants working in high-risk districts and to applicants working collaboratively.

Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act

The Reproductive Health Act strengthens New York State law by ensuring that the State continues to protect and respect women’s health and the right to make private reproductive health care decisions. The Reproductive Health Act will guarantee individuals’ fundamental right to choose to use, or refuse to use contraception, as well as women’s right to choose or refuse to have an abortion. The bill will repeal the penal code provisions containing New York’s abortion statute and place laws related to the regulation of abortion in the public health code; NYS would continue to regulate abortion in the same way it regulates other medical services. Consistent with Roe v. Wade, the bill will allow abortion up to the point of viability and after that, only if there is a threat to the woman’s health or life.

Paid Family Leave

In 2001 LIWA joined the NYS-Paid Family Leave Coalition, whose goal is to enact a NYS law that would fill the gaps in the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA, enacted in 1993). FMLA grants workers in larger businesses up to 12 weeks job-protected leave to care for a newborn, newly adopted child or seriously ill family member – but without pay. A proposed NYS law and mechanism offering a paid family leave benefit is deemed essential for lower income families, single parents, and others to deal with family crises. The benefit would be funded by NYS temporary disability insurance and capped at 50% of the average weekly wage, to be paid by workers (not employers) through TDI payroll deductions.

Green Environment and Healthier Products and Services

LIWA supported a coalition effort, led on Long Island by its member organizations involved in breast cancer prevention, which resulted in both Counties unanimously passing separate bills instituting “green government” purchasing and practices. The new LI region governmental procurement practices would include the use of environmentally safer and cleaner products that safeguard public health. In part, the impetus came from the body of evidence that certain landscaping, roadwork, cleaning, office equipment/supplies and other products are implicated as carcinogens, and may contribute to a number of serious chronic conditions.

The use of greener products will set an example for other municipalities and residents and familiarize contractors with their benefits. The intent is to replace current supplies with environmentally friendly materials over time in a fiscally responsible manner.

Quality Early Child Care & Education

The Early Years Matter Collaboration

LIWA identified the issue of quality care and education for young children as a critical issue affecting women and families of all cultures and economic levels. LIWA then partnered with the Long Island Fund for Women and Girls (LIFWG) in a 3-year multi-media campaign (2005-2008), The Early Years Matter, which promoted public awareness, policy, and practices reflecting the body of research showing that young children need a learning environment that develops core competences for later success in school and in social relationships. The LIFWG led an outreach effort to provide parents and caregivers with practical knowledge about the needs of young children and empower them to fulfill those needs. To combat the “No Child Left Behind” credo that fosters early academics and testing, the EYM Campaign also explained the centrality of play – whereby children “learn how to learn” – in early education, getting the message out to professionals, agencies and government leaders.

Quality Child Care & Education in NYS

LIWA has supported coalition efforts to foster high-quality, affordable, available, culturally competent child care for all families. 2010 has been especially challenging as the fiscal health of NYS and the counties are impacted by the recession. The coalition “Winning Beginning in NY” will fight to hold harmless the subsidies that allow low-income families to access high quality child care and education in the coming year.

Pay Equity

The New York State Fair Pay Act provides that it shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discriminate between employees on the basis of sex, race, and/or national origin by the payment of different wages for work of “comparable worth.”

While long-standing federal law protects workers performing the exact same job functions, it does not address the inequities in compensation inherent in female-dominated professions. Numerous states have passed legislation based on “comparable worth” concepts, thereby truly addressing the basis of sexually-biased wage discrimination. New York is way behind the times on this issue.

Join the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Long Island Women’s Agenda to take action on these and other important bills. Email info@liwa.org for more information.




The wage gap between men and women stubbornly remains despite the passage of the Equal Pay Act nearly 40 years ago. Women are still not receiving equal pay for equal work, let alone equal pay for comparable work. This disparity not only affects women's spending power; it penalizes their retirement security by creating gaps in social security and pensions.

• The General Accounting Office compiled data from the Current Population Survey regarding the ten industries that employ 71 percent of U.S. women workers and 73 percent of U.S. women managers. The pay gap between full-time working women and men managers widened between 1995 and 2000, in seven of the ten industries examined.
  
• A full-time working woman currently receives only 73 cents to every dollar received by a man.
  
• African-American women are paid only 65 cents for every dollar received by white men while Hispanic women are paid only 53 cents to the dollar.
  
• If women received the same as men who work the same number of hours, have the same education, union status, are the same age, and live in the same region of the country, then these women's annual family income would rise by ,000 and poverty rates would be cut in half. Working families would gain an astounding 0 billion in family income annually.
  
• Pay equity in female-dominated jobs (jobs in which women comprise 70 percent or more of the workforce) would increase wages for women by approximately 18 percent.
  
• Fifty-five percent of all women work in female-dominated jobs (jobs in which women comprise 70 percent or more of the workforce) whereas only 8.5 percent of all men work in these occupations. However, these men still receive about 20 percent more than women who work in female-dominated jobs.
  
• Women are paid less in every occupational classification for which sufficient information is available, according to the data analysis in over 300 job classifications provided by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics.
  
• In 1963, the year of the Equal Pay Act's passage, full-time working women were paid 59 cents on average to the dollar received by men, while in 2000 women were paid 73 cents for every dollar received by men. In other words, for the last 37 years, the wage gap has only narrowed by slightly more than one third of a penny per year.

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Sources:
U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports P60-213: Money Income in the United States 2000 6 (2001).
AFL-CIO & the Institute for Women's Policy Research, Equal Pay for Working Families: National and State Data on Pay Gap and Its Costs (1999).
A New Look Through the Glass Ceiling: Where are the Women? Commissioned by Representatives John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) (2002).



January 24, 2003—Do you think we're on a longstanding, irreversible march towards women's equality? Do you assume your rights and opportunities can never be taken away? Think again.

In early 2003, an assault was mounted on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that requires federally funded schools and colleges to provide equal educational opportunities to girls and women. As the first prong of the attack, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights proposed taking steps to reintroduce segregation into the public education system, in the form of segregation by sex instead of race. The Office of Civil Rights announced in May 2002 that it intends to allow educators to establish single-sex classes and schools at the elementary and secondary levels.


The second part of the attack has come in the form of a Department of Education commission designed to "analyze" Title IX and its implementation. This so-called "Opportunity in Athletics Commission" is stacked with opponents of educational equity who intend to dismantle Title IX and the opportunities that it ensures for women.

At a time when Title IX is creating real progress toward equality of opportunity for women and men in athletics and education, it doesn't make sense to weaken it.



In Education
In 1972, the year Title IX was signed, women earned just seven percent of all law degrees. By 1997, they received 44 percent. Five years after Title IX was signed, women earned only nine percent of all medical degrees. By 1997, they received 41 percent of medical degrees. In 1977, only a quarter of all doctoral degrees went to women. Twenty years later, women earned 41 percent of all Ph.D.s.

In Athletics
In the days before Title IX, only one in 27 girls played varsity high school sports. Today that figure is one in 2.5, for a total of 2.8 million girls now playing high school sports. Similarly, 32,000 women athletes played on intercollegiate teams prior to Title IX, compared with 150,000 today. Athletic scholarships for women were virtually non-existent prior to Title IX, but in 1997, there were more than 10,000 scholarships for women athletes. We've made great strides under Title IX—but there is still a long way to go.

Title IX is Crucial to Our Future

Women remain underrepresented in traditionally male fields that lead to greater earning power after graduation. While women received 75 percent of all education degrees awarded during the 1997-98 academic year, they received only 18 percent of all engineering degrees. Women also continue to lag behind in earning doctoral and professional degrees.

While women's participation in athletics has grown steadily over the past 30 years, women athletes continue to get fewer teams, fewer scholarships and lower budgets than their male counterparts. For every spent on women's athletics, is spent on men's programs.

What You Can Do to Protect Equal Opportunity in Education

Learn how you can help in the fight to protect and strengthen Title IX by:

• Fighting for stronger enforcement of Title IX in both athletic and academic areas;
  
• Working to end sexual harassment in schools;
  
• Advocating for fixing the problems in co-educational environments rather than sex segregating;
  
• Opposing sex-based tracks and gender-stereotyped courses and instruction that send girls to cosmetology and daycare and boys to engineering and computer science; and
  
• Making sure your local schools are in compliance with Title IX.

Women’s Health

The Long Island Women’s Agenda serves as a champion for women's health issues on Long Island. LIWA’s health agenda is to ensure that health care services and education are delivered effectively and efficiently to women on Long Island. This mission is so important to combat the inequities in research, health care services and education that have that have historically placed the health of women at risk. LIWA’s goal is to support educational programs that encourage women to take personal responsibility for their own health and wellness. In that regard, LIWA collaborates with the North Shore LIJ Health System on an annual basis to present a Health Care Symposium program for the women on Long Island. Partnering with The North Shore – LIJ Health System at this symposium is a one way to deliver LIWA’s message to our members and women on Long Island

LIWA was a staunch supporter of the Women's Health and Wellness Bill over the past few years. Governor Pataki signed the compromise Health and Wellness bill into law in 2002. This law now requires insurers to cover mammograms, screening for cervical cancer and osteoporosis at age 40, as well as birth control. This was a milestone for women’s health in New York State.