Janet Yellen at Brown University: So We All Can Succeed; 125 Years of Women's Participation in the Economy
Chair Janet L. Yellen At "125 Years of Women at Brown Conference," sponsored by Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
Thank you, and let me say what an honor it is, as an alumna of this great university, to be here today and part of this important occasion.
As we celebrate the 125th anniversary of women being admitted to Brown, it seems appropriate to reflect on the progress that women have achieved in the intervening years. Since 1891, women have made tremendous strides in their ability to pursue their dreams of education and meaningful work and to support themselves and their families. In pursuing these goals, women have helped improve working conditions for all workers and have been a major factor in America's prosperity over the past century and a quarter.
Despite this progress, evidence suggests that many women remain unable to achieve their goals. The gap in earnings between women and men, although smaller than it was years ago, is still significant; women continue to be underrepresented in certain industries and occupations; and too many women struggle to combine aspirations for work and family. Further advancement has been hampered by barriers to equal opportunity and workplace rules and norms that fail to support a reasonable work-life balance. If these obstacles persist, we will squander the potential of many of our citizens and incur a substantial loss to the productive capacity of our economy at a time when the aging of the population and weak productivity growth are already weighing on economic growth.
To enliven the history I will present today, I will include the experiences of women graduates of this institution, in most cases in their own words, as related in oral histories preserved by Brown.1Among these alumnae, I am proud to say, is a member of my own family who was an early graduate of Pembroke, Elizabeth Stafford Hirschfelder of the Class of 1923. Her career and achievements as a mathematician embody both the opportunities that opened for Pembroke graduates in the decades after she left here and the limitations many women faced and the compromises she, like so many others, was forced to make.
A Historical Perspective on Women in the Labor Force
From the time that Brown began to accept women and into the 1920s, most women in the United States did not work outside the home, and those who did were primarily young and unmarried. In that era, just 20 percent of all women were "gainful workers," as the Census Bureau then categorized labor force participation outside the home, and only 5 percent of those married were categorized as such.2 Of course, these statistics somewhat understate the contributions of married women to the economy beyond housekeeping and childrearing, since women's work in the home often included work in family businesses and the home production of goods, such as agricultural products, for sale. Also, the aggregate statistics obscure the differential experience of women by race. African American women were about twice as likely to participate in the labor force as were white women at the time, largely because they were more likely to remain in the labor force after marriage.3
What was true for women in general was also true of the early graduates of what was then called the Women's College, the large majority of whom got married, raised families, and did not pursue careers. The fact that many women left work upon marriage reflected cultural norms, the nature of the work available to them, and legal strictures. The occupational choices of those young women who did work were severely circumscribed. Most women lacked significant education‑‑only 54 percent of girls aged 5 to 19 were enrolled in school in 1890.4 And women with little education mostly toiled as piece workers in factories or as domestic workers, jobs that were dirty and often unsafe. Educated women, like those who attended Brown's Women's College, were scarce. Fewer than 2 percent of all 18- to 24-year-olds were enrolled in an institution of higher education, and just one-third of those were women.5 Such women did not have to perform manual labor, but their choices were likewise constrained. Edna McDonald was a graduate of the Class of 1919, and in her oral history, she summed up the opportunities for her and her classmates: "Let's be frank," she said. "What choices did women have? Teaching. You could teach. You could be a lab technician. Or you could go into office work and be a secretary. Those were the only real choices." Margery Chittenden Leonard graduated from Pembroke in 1929 and went on to earn a J.D. as the only woman in her class at Boston University--after two others withdrew. And with that law degree, her first job was as a secretary, and she continued to struggle to find work as a lawyer. In her oral history, Doris Madeline Hopkins, a 1928 graduate, talked about the opportunity that she had to work, but also about being told she had to leave her job once she got married. Indeed, at the time, marriage bars were widespread.6
More Articles
- Better Balance, Better World: Showcasing Women of BART on International Women’s Day
- The Source for Women’s Issues in Congress, November 12-16, 2018: Rep. Carolyn Maloney Condemns DeVos Proposed Changes to Title IX, Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act, Women's Business Ownership Act
- We Can Vote! An Appeal to the Women of the United States, 1871; 'Suffrage for women is not yet a universal condition"
- Little Women, Masterpiece Theater: "I detest rude, unladylike girls!" "I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!" "Birds in their little nests agree," sang Beth, the peacemaker
- Art Nouveau In the Netherlands, a Quest for the 'Truth', the 'Genuine', the Original; Leaving in Architecture and the Decorative Arts
- The Gender Gap in Economics: Swarthmore’s Amanda Bayer Discusses Sexism in the Profession and What To Do About It
- How Far Have We've Come? Janet Yellen, Her Resignation and the Current Economic Outlook
- Congressional Bills Introduced on Sexual Harassment, AMBER Alert Grants for Indian Tribes, Encouraging STEM Education, Holistic Solutions to Families in Need
- Diversity in Innovation: Documenting a Systematic and Persistent Lack of Female, Hispanic, and African American Labor Market Participation in the Innovation Sector
- Congressional Bills Introduced: Parental Leave, Abortion, Child Soldier Prevention,National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls