Red Purse Society

In Hartford this past Friday, a woman stopped me on the street and asked eagerly, "Are you a member of the Red Purse Society?" because I was carrying a red woven bag.  I just looked dumbly at her and said, "Um, no," and we walked our separate ways.  I'm not good at responding to unexpected social encounters, so I didn't think to ask her what the Red Purse Society is.  I said to James, "I wonder what signals I'm sending out with this red bag?"

Fortunately, I think I'm sending out signals I'm ok with.  An internet search led me to this: 

[T]he Red Purse Campaign [was] launched in 1988 to bring attention to pay disparity [for women and minorities vs. white men].  Members initially carried red purses and sent politicians red purses, totes and pins. The promotion was revived in 2004 with the Red Purse Society, which raises funds to support equal pay education, awareness and activities.  ("Unhappy Hour raises awareness, not glasses," Waveney Ann Moore, St. Petersburg Times, 23 April 2006)

I can get behind that. Women and people of color, on average, have to work until Tuesday of the following week to make what white men made the week before.  So imagine the situation for women of color.  It was a woman of color who asked me about my bag in Hartford.  I wish I'd known then what I know now—I'd have said, "Yes, I am!" and we'd have discovered our mutual support of each other's value in this still white and male preferential society.

And my red bag makes even more of a statement to that effect, given that it was made by Burmese refugee women to help support themselves.  So I carry it boldly now—it's a bag that has a lot to say!