Women's Rights

By: Kaila Ramsey

For this past Spring semester I have been learning more about international concepts of human rights and how they can be applied locally to the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, especially in considering women's rights. The international treaties make very clear the needs for providing child care, for maternity and paternity leave, for more job security for women, and specifically addressing the issue of the gendered wage gap that exists even here in our university towns. As of right now in Chapel Hill/Carrboro there is no way to require businesses to provide health care, a fair wage, or job security to their employees.

One important thing I did this semester was to meet with administrators and workers at the Orange County Women's Center and the Carolina Women's Center (addressing the needs of women on UNC's campus). As I did more research both on the nation and on this area, I realized the most problematic issue was the lack of facts and information or research on this topic of women's rights. Both centers do not have any kind of statistics available to them to cite about the wage gap in these counties, or the percentages of businesses that offer child care support. Obtaining and publicizing this information would be the first big necessary step to conquering the gender inequity here in our backyard.

Lastly, I compiled lists of potential partnerships that could occur between active student organizations in the community, and researched the need to teach and promote fiscal responsibility among citizens of Chapel Hill/Carrboro.