Goldman Sachs (3.5 stars) now offers more paid parental leave than any other major U.S.–based bank after increasing leave from 16 weeks to 20 weeks. The 20 weeks of paid leave are provided regardless of gender in hopes of getting rid of the discrepancies that occur when the length of paid leave decreases for a secondary caregiver (traditionally, the man in heterosexual relationships). The company will now also provide four weeks of paid leave for employees to care for ill family members and stipends for egg retrieval and donation, as well as an expanded stipend for adoption and surrogacy. Bloomberg
Apple Card—a credit card created in a partnership with Apple (3.5 stars) , Goldman Sachs, and MasterCard (3.6 stars) —is being investigated for alleged gender discrimination from the New York State Department of Financial Services after a prominent software developer took to Twitter to criticize the card for offering him 20 times the spending limit granted to his wife, despite her having a higher credit score than him. NY Times
A new report from the Washington Post Newspaper Guild found that women and people of color employed by the paper’s (2.8 stars) newsroom are paid significantly less than their white male counterparts. The study, which examined company pay data requested by the union, found that women of color are paid 35 percent less than white male peers, and that disparities between employees of different genders and races are most pronounced in the salaries of employees under the age of 40. CNBC
Election Roundup
It may have been an off-year, but last week’s election saw some significant wins for women of color, particularly in local elections. Some historic firsts include the elections of:
Ghazala Hashma, who is the first Muslim woman and first Indian American woman elected to Virginia's State Senate.
Regina Romero, who is the first woman and first Latina to become mayor of Tucson, Arizona.
Shawyn Patterson-Howard, who is the first woman to become mayor of Mount Vernon, New York.
Safiya Khalid, who is the first Somali American and youngest person elected to Lewiston City Council in Maine.
Nadia Mohamed, who is the first Somali American and the first Muslim woman to win a spot on the St. Louis Park City Council in Minnesota.
Donyel Barber, who is the first black woman to be elected to Gastonia City Council in North Carolina.
Abrar Omeish, who is the first Libyan American to hold elected office in the U.S. after winning a place on the Fairfax County School Board in Virginia. She’s also the youngest woman to hold elected office and is one of the first two Muslim women to hold elected office in the state. VICE
Also in Virginia, Danica Roem made history once again by becoming the first openly transgender person to be re-elected to a state legislature. The Hill
Quick Hits
Job burnout is, unfortunately, a pretty universal condition these days, with Skye Learning’s 2019 Work Confidence study finding that nearly 75 percent of workers suffer from burnout. Officially defined as a medical disorder by the World Health Organization, burnout is serious for everyone, but as one might expect, women workers are even more vulnerable to burnout. Forbes
Unsupportive work environments are not ideal for obvious reasons, but a new study has found that such conditions actually cause people who breastfeed to physically produce less milk than those who work in supportive environments. In the study, factors such as a lack of adequate time and space to pump played a role in yielding fewer ounces of breastmilk. Conversely, workers who pumped in environments where they felt enriched and supported produced more milk. Quartz
More than a century after it was seized, the city of Eureka, California, signed the deed for Tuluwat Island back to the Wiyot tribe, marking the first known case in the U.S. of municipal land being voluntarily returned without a tribe having to pay, sue, or trade for it. The return of the 202-acre island, which the Wiyot people regard as their spiritual home, is the result of more than 15 years of activism and lobbying. CityLab
Around the World
Pakistan: Three teenage girls in Pakistan are taking environmental conservation into their own hands, accusing the government of Punjab of violating their right to life and health by underreporting the severity of Lahore’s air pollution. According to the petition filed by the girls, Lahore’s government website classified the city’s air quality as moderate, despite the levels qualifying as severe by U.S. EPA standards. BuzzFeed
Canada: Quebec banned the wearing of religious symbols for certain public sector employees back in June, but opponents of the measure are speaking out, claiming that the law is unfairly affecting Muslims, Sikhs, and other religious minorities for whom certain forms of religious dress is required. The Guardian
Japan: Japanese working women are fighting for...the right to wear glasses? Yes, you read that right—a ban on women wearing glasses in the workplace joins the mandated wearing of high heels and makeup as the latest bullshit Japan’s women must deal with. Japanese women protested the prohibition on Twitter, tweeting out the hashtag “glasses ban.” Bloomberg
