Editor’s note: This commentary is by Lisa Senecal, of Stowe, who is the chair of the Vermont Commission on Women and the co-founder of The Maren Group.
[M]ount Washington, also known by its Abenaki name Agiocochook, is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States. Reaching the summit is easy. It’s also impossible. Then again, it’s moderately challenging, but very doable, while being extremely difficult and treacherous. You can make it from base to summit in 30 minutes, or five hours, or two days. Some, despite having the right skills, will never make it. Because the difficulty of the climb depends upon where you start, the route you take, the conditions you face, and the power that gets you there, all these seemingly conflicting statements are true.
For those who reach the summit and eagerly head to the gift shop for their “This car climbed Mt. Washington” bumper sticker, it’s nearly impossible to imagine the effort expended by the hiker who just reached the top via the Tuckerman Trail. Even the fair-weather hiker (that’s me!) who has climbed the mountain several times has no idea what it takes to summit in the dead of winter. The destination reached might be the same, but the frequency and intensity of obstacles encountered along the way vary wildly.
As a member of the Vermont Commission on Women for the past two years and its newly elected chair, I’m constantly searching for ways to meaningfully convey the challenges that women in our communities face – and, at times, to understand them myself. Many of the obstacles encountered by women are hidden within systems that are challenging to identify and even more so to change. Those things that harm and hold women back are easy to ignore if you’re someone disinclined to see or believe they exist. But to ignore that these obstacles exist is to imply that women lag behind men due to something inherently lacking in women. The data doesn’t lie and what it reveals is that most women’s path to the summit is replete with obstacles that put women at an economic and cultural disadvantage. The harm that causes is not limited to women; it damages us all.
In Vermont, nearly 40% of female-led households live in poverty. Most people who live in poverty work full time. The gender pay gap has white women in our state earning approximately 86 cents to every $1 earned by a man. For women of color, indigenous women, and women with disabilities, it’s as little as 54 cents. When a woman in Vermont retires, she receives around 50% less in Social Security benefits as compared to a retired man. As a result, a disproportionate number of elderly women in Vermont live below the poverty line as compared to men. Women, including transgender women, face significantly higher rates of domestic and sexual violence than their male cohort. Most incarcerated women in Vermont have experienced severe trauma. Often, a direct line can be drawn between the trauma and the offense that resulted in incarceration. Sexual harassment in the workplace affects women of all ages, education and employment levels, and economic status, but is most prevalent among rural women and low-wage workers. Effective, accessible, and viable options for those workers are too few. Most will either endure the harassment or leave their jobs and accept employment where they will earn less.
For too many Vermont women, the dream of reaching the summit is replaced with desperate efforts to avoid and overcome obstacles and merely remain on the trail at all.
The good news for people of all genders is that this means women in Vermont, and across the nation, represent tremendous unrealized potential. In a state with a shrinking and aging population, we must not only recognize that this potential exists, but identify and address the systemic and cultural obstacles in women’s paths. This has been at the heart of the work of the Vermont Commission on Women since its creation 55 years ago.
The VCW is a non-partisan organization and the only entity in Vermont focused on the overarching implications of how our state budget and policies affect every aspect of women’s lives – lives that have a direct impact on the economic and cultural health of our state. The research and data provided by the commission – and its gender equity initiative Change The Story – serve as a critical snapshot of the status of women in Vermont. We provide the aerial view of the trails leading to the summit. That information helps identify the obstacles and supports the work of our partner organizations, legislators, the media, business, advocates, and leadership development organizations.
No matter how you reach the top, on a clear day the views from Mount Washington of the Green Mountains of Vermont and White Mountains in New Hampshire are spectacular – though some might, for the struggle it took to get there or the support they provided to someone along the way, appreciate what it means to be standing on the summit just a little bit more.
