Fight for Equality

Women make up over half of the world’s population and today, International Women’s Day, we celebrate the progress that has been made and highlight the obstacles women still face around the globe. This Women's Day is particularly important because women and men, together in solidarity, are celebrating "A Day Without a Woman" action, to highlight women's economic power and its importance to our world's stability.

However, I believe in order to truly have gender equality we must make women's equality a priority every day of the year.

Long before taking office as your Treasurer, I believed that for society to be equal and just, we must empower all women and girls. As Treasurer, I have committed to creating programs and policies that would help erase the gender gap, break down barriers, and create opportunity.

From establishing the first of its kind, Office of Economic Empowerment to launching www.EqualPayMA.com, we have laid a foundation in the Massachusetts Treasurer’s office to provide women with the information and tools to aide them in achieving equal pay for equal work.

We have hosted Regional Wage Equality Roundtables and a Women in STEM summit, launched a Women’s Economic Empowerment Series, and created the Women in Finance Fellowship – All with the goal of wage equality and financial independence.

I was determined not just to talk the talk, but walk the walk. From leadership positions, where 3 out of 5 of my Deputy Treasurers are women, to every office within Treasury, women are being hired and are advancing. And our 12 week paid parental leave is just one example of the policies that support women and families. We even conducted an internal audit to ensure men and women are paid equally, and piloted a flex time schedule too.

I am proud of what we have done in the Massachusetts Treasurer’s Office to fight for gender equality, but our fight is far from over.

It is up to all of us to continue to move forward toward the goal of equality. We may take a small step or a large leap, but we must continue to move forward. Each woman we empower, each playing field that is leveled, each young girl who doesn’t see a glass ceiling, but sees an open door is a victory.
Please join me in continuing this fight for all of our mothers, sisters, daughters and granddaughters.

In solidarity,

Deb Goldberg
State Treasurer