In June, Wellesley sponsored a virtual event, “Building the new SHEconomy,” presented by Economist Impact. The event was on the heels of “The Economy She Deserves: Building an Agenda for a Women-Centered Recovery,” a virtual summit in April organized by Wellesley, Spelman College, and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College (see “Toward an Equal Economy,” winter 2022).
Moderated by Charlotte Howard, New York bureau chief of The Economist, the New York City event featured a panel of business leaders and policymakers who contemplated a new status quo that supports women in the workforce. The panelists included President Paula A. Johnson; Hillary Rodham Clinton ’69; Jennifer Hyman, CEO and co-founder of Rent the Runway; Andrea Jung, president and chief executive of Grameen America; and Ann Mukherjee, CEO of Pernod Ricard USA.
During the panel, Johnson discussed some of the findings from a national survey conducted by Lake Research Partners for the College and its partners as part of the earlier summit. The research included a series of focus groups and an online survey with 1,000 racially diverse women from both college and non-college backgrounds. The survey showed that women are very concerned about wages, being financially secure, and equal pay. Young women are also thinking about how they’re going to balance the various demands on their lives, in particular, caregiving issues. “Interestingly, in the group that we looked at, about 30% said that they would not have children because even though they valued parenthood … they did not feel that our economy could support them,” Johnson said.
Howard asked Clinton what she thought the ideal federal policy would be to help women balance these competing demands. “Well, that’s a very easy question to answer, if you take out politics, because there have been successive waves of very well-thought-out, well-organized agendas for supporting women in the workplace,” Clinton said, and pointed to paid family leave and increasing the quality, accessibility, and affordability of child care.
Mukherjee commented, “We are all women that are very inspired, we all have passion, and I’m making a call out to everyone—allies and women alike who are leaders—this is our moment. Do not let this moment pass, don’t go backward.”
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