For every push toward women’s equality, there is often a push backward in resistance. Almost one year after a divisive 2016 presidential election, this narrative continues to take center stage.
The Trump administration and GOP leadership are quick to tout their support for women, but the reality and the impact of their policies on the ground tell a different story. Policy choices are made every day that are shaped and influenced by attitudes, stereotypes, and expectations about women and women’s roles.
Yet, the work of feminism to expand opportunities for all women and create an environment where women can make the choices that make sense for them is often mischaracterized—in an effort marginalize ideas, stifle progress, and maintain the status quo. In this environment, The Center for American Progress seeks to look closer at how the economy actually operates for women and how decisions get made, as well as what attitudes shape these decisions and underlie different policies and approaches.
This event will examine the current and historical economic climate and its impact on women across diverse backgrounds. Feminist economics provides a starting point to developing a broader understanding of how women’s varied lives and complex needs interact with the economy. Preeminent women economists from across the country will use a critical feminist lens to discuss the importance of labor market structures, such as work-life policy, in economic opportunities and the crucial role that bodily autonomy plays in all women’s—and indeed all people’s—ability to fully engage in the economy.
Please join us for this innovative convening on the role misogyny plays in the U.S. economy and how feminist economics provides a counternarrative to narrow representations of women who work.
Opening remarks:
Neera Tanden,President and CEO, Center for American Progress
In Conversation:
Joyce Jacobsen, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Andrews Professor of Economics, Wesleyan University
Judith Warner, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Panel: The Intersection of the Family and the Labor Market:
Michelle Holder, Assistant Professor of Economics, John Jay College, City University of New York
Nina Banks, Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University
Randy Albelda ,Graduate Program Director and Professor of Economics, College of Liberal Arts Senior Research Fellow, Center for Social Policy, University of Massachusetts Boston
Moderated by:
Jocelyn Frye,Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Panel: The Economics of Bodily Autonomy:
Rhonda Sharpe,Founder and President of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race
Adriana Kugler, Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University
Lee Badgett,Professor,Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Moderated by:
Kate Bahn,Economist, Center for American Progress
Closing Remarks:
Heather Boushey,Executive Director and Chief Economist, Washington Center for Equitable Growth