Sarah Launderville, Executive Director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living, moderates this dialogue with guests Deborah Lisi-Baker, Winnie Looby, Cara Sachs, and Laura Siegel in the new podcast in the Vermont Commission on Women’s (Un)Equal Pay Day series.
Introduced by VCW's Executive Director Cary Brown, this episode explores equity and employment through the lens of women with disabilities. In addition to sharing personal experiences, each of the guests is engaged professionally in disability rights in Vermont and brings that expertise to this discussion. Deborah Lisi-Baker was in leadership positions at UVM’s Center for Disability and Community Inclusion and as Executive Director for the Vermont Center for Independent Living. Winnie Looby, Ph.D. is a UVM faculty member at the Center on Disability and Community Inclusion in the College of Education and Social Services. Cara Sachs is a Vermont Center for Independent Living Americans with Disabilities Act Advocate and a personal life coach. Laura Siegel is the Vermont State Director of Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deafblind Services.
Equal Pay Day is a symbolic day chosen to illustrate the point into the current year to which women must work to earn as much money as men made in the year before, due to the gender wage gap. With these video podcast conversations, VCW hopes to raise awareness about pay equity, and the ways racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism intersect, creating much larger wage gaps for women of color, women living with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Another goal of the project is to listen to women about their experiences with pay inequity, how it impacts them, and what they think could help.
Watch this video podcast on YouTube, or listen on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.
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The Vermont Commission on Women (VCW) is an independent non-partisan state commission working to advance rights and opportunities for women and girls. Sixteen volunteer commissioners and representatives from organizations concerned with women's issues guide VCW's public education, coalition building, and advocacy efforts.