Venue

: The Wyncote NW Forum
: 1119 8th Ave (Entrance off Seneca St.)
Seattle, 98101 United States + Google Map

Note: Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.

Headshots of June Carbone (with fair skin, short blonde hair) and Nancy Levit ( with fair skin, short brown hair)

Civics

How can we foster more equity in the economy, where gender parity is not merely a talking point, but a reality? Despite there being more women in the workforce than in decades past, the wage gap has not closed. In fact, gaps have widened, with the most educated women falling the furthest behind. Even with a collective celebration of high-profile representation — women on the board of Fortune 500 companies and our first female Vice President of the United States — women have limited recourse when they experience harassment and discrimination, and blue-collar women hold the most insecure and badly paid jobs in our economy.

In the new co-authored book Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy, three legal scholars take a look at the state of women’s progress — and the lack thereof.

The book asserts that the system of winner-take-all that governs our economy is the root cause of these issues by self-selecting for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics that sideline women. The authors refer to this as a feedback loop known as “the triple bind”: if women don’t compete on the same terms as men, they lose; if women do compete, they’re punished more harshly; and when women see that they can’t win on the same terms as men, they often remove themselves from consideration entirely.

Co-authors June Carbone and Nancy Levit join us at Town Hall to discuss how with awareness and collective action, we can build a truly just economy for all.

June Carbone is the Robina chair of law, science, and technology at the University of Minnesota Law School. Previously she has served as the Edward A. Smith/Missouri chair of law, the constitution, and society at the University of Missouri at Kansas City; and as the associate dean for professional development and presidential professor of ethics and the common good at Santa Clara University School of Law. She has written From Partners to Parents and cowritten Red Families v. Blue Families; Marriage Markets; and Family Law. She is a coeditor of the International Survey of Family Law.

Nancy Levit is the associate dean for faculty and holds a curator’s professorship at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law. Professor Levit has been voted Outstanding Professor of the Year five times by students and was profiled in Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz’s book, What the Best Law Teachers Do. She has received the N.T. Veatch Award for distinguished research and creative activity and the Missouri Governor’s Award for teaching excellence. She is the author of The Gender Line and coauthor of Feminist Legal Theory; The Happy Lawyer; The Good Lawyer; and Jurisprudence—Classical and Contemporary.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle.