Executive director of Equal Rights Advocates Noreen Farrell invited students to take part in online equal rights petitions and spoke on the importance of female action in the fight for fair pay in the Overby Center Thursday.
The title of the lecture, hosted by the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies, was “Moving Women Forward: What Women Have to Do with It.”
Women today make 78 cents for every dollar that a man makes, Farrell said. This wage gap is present in almost every career.
Noreen Farrell’s non-profit organization, Equal Rights Advocates, is a strong promoter of equal pay between men and women. The group also helps provide support for women who are ready to fight for their own equality. Farrell said she believes the fight for fair pay will make a real difference in female socioeconomic status. Mississippi is one of five states with no statutes on equal pay and 80 percent of low-wage jobs in Mississippi are filled by women, Farrell said. Farrell said she believes this could be changed with education and support, and students at universities also had a role to play in promoting change.
Students have the chance to do so by signing Equal Rights Advocates’ petitions, which are displayed on their website. Farrell urged that students to consider how equal pay might affect them after graduation when buying a house or paying off loans.
“I’m really glad to hear that someone cares about how equal pay affects students’ futures,” Claudia Batres, a freshman education major, said. “I had never thought about how the wage gap might affect my life after graduating.”
The lecture celebrated Equal Pay Day, which was held on April 14 to represent the struggle for equal pay between men and women. Farrell explained what the wage gap was and how it affects the working class.
Farrell described her attempts to bring the wage gap issue to Mississippi’s government and said the legislature and governor are the prime targets for a campaign to change Mississippi’s standards on equal pay.
“My inspiration comes from my strong feelings towards civil rights,” Farrell said. “I came from a working-class family, and I find it important to fight for equality for the working class.”
Farrell and the Equal Rights Advocates organization send out spokespeople to many universities to further influence students on the repercussions students will face because of the wage gap. Farrell believes that with enough education about the wage gap between men and women, people will be more likely to fight for equality.
