A Working Solution
Tamisha Jones rolled the dice, picked up the card and pondered the question on it: “Why do women say they work?”
At the same time, 150 other teenage girls attending a recent “economic literacy” conference in Los Angeles were considering similar questions as they played An Income of Her Own, a game aimed at inspiring them to think about the world of work before they start playing for keeps.
Tamisha and her classmates from the Mid-City Magnet School listened to the multiple-choice answers: “They need to get out of the house to keep sane?” “They can’t stand being around their kids every day?” “Work takes their minds off trivial household problems?”
Tamisha, 16, won $1,000 in play money when she chose the correct answer, based on polls of working women: “It’s necessary in order for them to survive financially.”
Economic survival is an increasingly urgent priority for today’s young women, according to the new Los Angeles alliance of educators, activists and business women that hosted the conference at Loyola Marymount University earlier this month, the first of several programs designed to teach the basics of business and finance to low-income girls.
“As the social safety net is being dismantled, each individual adult and child is going to have to start creating their own individual safety net. I want to make sure girls are at least on the playing field,” said Joline Godfrey. She is founder and president of An Income of Her Own, a nonprofit Ojai organization that designed the daylong program, first of a series put on by the Collaborative for the Economic Empowerment of Girls that will also include mentoring programs and workshops on staying in school.
On this day, the girls participated in activities such as the board game and Product in a Box, an exercise in which they devised their own business.
To help them develop new product ideas and a business plan, each table of girls was given a box with scraps of fabric, ribbon and paper, scissors and glue, and a list of questions about their market. One group from Ramona High School in East Los Angeles came up with “Ramona’s Secret,” a store featuring sexy underwear for “girls . . . women . . . cross dressers.” Another group from the same school created “Toys R Not Us,” a company that made tactile objects for blind children to play with.
“We say if there’s a market for it and you like it, far be it for us to judge,” Godfrey said.
According to the Los Angeles Women’s Foundation, although boys and girls are dropping out of school at about the same rate, girls have a 90% greater chance of falling into poverty.
“In the end, 90% of all women are going to be economically responsible for themselves at some point in their lives,” Godfrey said, adding that women make up the largest segment of the elderly poor. “It’s because we live longer, don’t have pensions and are generally the caretakers of our families.
“If they don’t have the skills, they’re out of luck.”
A 1993 report by the foundation suggested that girls in Los Angeles need more information about the basics of money and work--particularly in a culturally diverse community characterized by both single-parent and two-income families.
According to the report, based on analysis of census data, single mothers constitute half the 1.5 million people in Los Angeles County who live below the poverty line. Young mothers who have not completed high school were “virtually destined to raise their children in poverty, dependent on public assistance.” While the gender gap appeared to be narrowing, there were significant patterns of low wages based on race and ethnicity.
The report also found that business ownership among women in Los Angeles had exploded, with 156,350 businesses owned by women. Most are in the areas of managerial / professional, sales and administrative service, including clerical and personal service occupations.
Many girls today already realize that they can’t depend on a man to take care of them, said Karen Hill Scott, chairwoman of the foundation’s economic justice initiative. “Among some, there’s even an attitude of ‘I don’t need a man to make it.’ The void is, ‘What are you going to do to take care of yourself?’ she said. “There’s a vacuum there.”
Some of the girls invited to the conference were enrolled in teenage mother programs in which instructors have been trying to inform them about the 1996 welfare reform law that makes it more difficult to obtain cash benefits. “They knew nothing about the welfare reform,” said Sandra Tatum, a volunteer in Belmont High School’s program for teen mothers. “They have no idea how they will support these kids.”
Last year, the Los Angeles Women’s Foundation formed the collaborative, which includes the Girl Scout Council, Big Sisters, the YWCA, Los Angeles Unified School District, Junior Achievement of Southern California and Girls Incorporated. Each plans to host related programs over the next five years.
At the Loyola conference, the girls were introduced to successful women entrepreneurs. In one of the day’s activities, the girls moved around the room interviewing women such as Ella Williams, founder of the engineering firm Aegir Systems; Brenda French, founder of the French Rags clothing company; and Pam Fitzpatrick, founder of the Dollmakers, a toy firm.
Asked what they had learned, the girls said, “You have to depend on yourself” and, “Women can be carpenters.” Asked what the women had in common, the girls observed that they “started from the bottom” and they “never gave up.”
Some also noticed that some of the women seemed to work 20 hours a day and that some were divorced. A number of girls said they were disappointed that some women seemed so involved in their work that they didn’t think about their families.
On the other hand, the women said they were surprised at how smart the girls were, how interested in money they seemed to be and that at least half of them already had career goals. But Fitzpatrick, owner of the Dollmakers, said she worried that few of them seemed to have any hobbies that might naturally lead them into work they would enjoy.
The main point, said Godfrey, is to develop skills and attitudes in these young women that will lead to self-sufficiency and a place in the economy.
“Of all the billions and billions of dollars of venture capital, only 1% goes to women,” said Godfrey, who worked for Polaroid Corp. and her own company before starting the first An Income of Her Own conference in San Francisco in 1992. Her firm also organizes two-week summer camp programs for girls in California and Massachusetts.
“Women are out there,” she says. “We’re half the population. We own 40% of the business and have access to only 1% of the venture capital. Unless we do things for girls to prepare them to be real warriors in their own economic development, they will remain more vulnerable.”
