The Women’s Fund of the Greenbrier Valley Community Foundation (GVCF) will show the film “North Country” on Monday, Apr. 18, at 7 p.m. at the Lewis Theatre in downtown Lewisburg to recognize Equal Pay Day and raise awareness about pay equity issues. Suggested admission to the event is $3.50 for women and $5 for men because women in West Virginia earn 70 cents for every dollar that a man earns. Proceeds from the event will be contributed to the Women’s Fund to support local programs that promote empowennent, economic security, and self-reliance for women and adolescent girls.
Additionally, the Women’s Fund is partnering with United Way of the Greenbrier Valley on a feminine hygiene product drive. Movie-goers are asked to bring a feminine hygiene product to the event. These items will be donated to area public schools to assist girls in need.
“North Country” is based on the true story of Lori Jenson, who took a job at a Minnesota iron mine in 1975. She and other female miners endured harassment from male co-workers, ranging from verbal taunts to pornographic graffiti and worse. Jenson eventually filed suit in 1984 and won a landmark legal decision. The movie stars Charlize Theron, Frances McDonnand, Sean Bean, Woody Harrelson and Sissy Spacek. Roger Ebert called the film “a great movie experience,” and said, ‘”North Country’ is one of those movies that stir you up and make you mad, because it dramatizes practices you’ve heard about but never really visualized.” It is rated R for sequences involving sexual harassment including violence and dialogue, and for language.
The event will highlight the need to close the wage gap that still exists between women and men. According to US Census data, over a working lifetime, this wage disparity costs the average American woman and her family an estimated $700,000 to $2 million, impacting Social Security benefits and pensions. The wage gap exists, in part, because many women are still segregated into a few low-paying occupations. More than half of all women workers hold sales, clerical and service jobs. Studies show that the more an occupation is dominated by women or people of color, the less it pays. Part of the wage gap results from differences in education, experience or time in the workforce. But a significant portion cannot be explained by any of those factors; the General Accounting Office’s Oct. 2003 report “Women’s Earnings,” which examined 18 years of data, found a 20 percent earnings gap between women and men that could not be explained, even when accounting for demographic and work-related factors such as occupation, industry, race, marital status and job tenure. This gap is attributable to discrimination; certain jobs pay less simply because they are held by women and people of color.
The Greenbrier Valley Women’s Fund is a donor-advised fund established in 2006 at the Greenbrier Valley Community Foundation. Earnings from this endowment are granted to local nonprofit organizations that work in the region to empower women. Membership in the Greenbrier Valley Women’s Fund is open to all women in Greenbrier, Monroe, and Pocahontas counties. To date, the Women’s Fund has distributed over $12,000 to the community. Recipients of grants include the Family Refuge Center, High Rocks Educational Corporation, Almost Heaven Habitat for Humanity, Pocahontas County Historic Preservation Project, Alderson Quilters Guild, Greenbrier/Pocahontas Parents as Teachers, Homeless Inc., the Tutoring Center Foundation, Women on Wellness, Camegie Hall, the Greenbrier Valley Chamber of Commerce, Communities in Schools Greenbrier County, Oakhurst Outreach, and the Monroe Family Resource Network.
The Greenbrier Valley Community Foundation was created in 1999 to help the region remain an enriching community, where individuals and organizations will always have the resources needed to continue their vital work. It creates and administers funds that distribute money to the community.
For more information contact Courtney Smith, executive director, at 304-645-5620 or info@gvfoundation.org.
