Chief executive officer of Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore, UMUC graduate Joanne M. Saltzberg, 63, has promoted women’s rights and financial empowerment since the 1970s. She strives to help low-income earners become financially self-sufficient through WEB’s business development courses.
When did you first become interested in gender equality issues and was there a formative experience?
Growing up in Yonkers, New York in the early sixties, I noticed that women weren’t afforded the same educational opportunities as men, and there was a lot of very talented, frustrated women around. It just seemed to me that there was something wrong about it.
Later, a lot of energy developed around the women’s rights movement, which, because I’m motivated to help solve unfair discrimination, I joined. Then, in 1971, I became quite ill, and wasn’t able to work for months. Here, though I had family support, I became intensely aware of how fragile our economic lives are — particularly when there’s no support or where gender discrimination is a factor.
It was a very formative experience for me, and one that was serendipitous in that the women and human rights movements were just coming into their own at this time. So there was an intersection of my passion and a social breakthrough.
How did you come to apply your passion and insights to women’s financial empowerment?
I’ve had a long-standing interest in financial stability, which [after financial services training at American College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and various local jobs] culminated in my forming my own financial planning business. There I had a large client base of women, particularly limited-income women, whom I helped to achieve financial stability. What I’m really proud of is that I was able to take my professional life and use it to further women’s economic status.
Does religious faith play a part in your anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts?
I don’t actively practice any one religion, but I do have a very deep faith and believe that we have the obligation to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. I’m guided by the Jewish tradition of sharing one’s good fortune with others.
Why is women’s equality important to society?
Besides just the fairness of it, what we have to look at is the practicality of it. In Maryland the overall poverty rate is six percent. For female-headed households in the state, where there are children under 18 years old, the poverty rate is 25 percent _ 400 percent higher. And in Baltimore City the rate is 40 percent.
When you’re living in this area, which is plagued by long-standing inequality and poverty and you see the relationship between women and poverty, you have to say that the one thing that would make a huge difference would be to end the gender-based economic disparity.
The reason I’m so committed to micro-enterprise and to WEB is because it’s a practical, cost-effective and measurable way to boost women’s income. And when you boost women’s income, you boost her family and community from poverty or near-poverty to some kind of economic stability. When a woman pulls herself up, her family gets pulled up as well.
Are things getting better for women?
I think they are. Certainly there are more career opportunities, and there are more educational opportunities.
