Diverse group of women meet in effort to boost lives across Chattanooga and Tennessee [video]

Councilwoman Carol Berz  speaks during the Mayor's Council for Women luncheon Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016 the Bessie Smith Hall.
Councilwoman Carol Berz speaks during the Mayor's Council for Women luncheon Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016 the Bessie Smith Hall.
photo Katie King speaks during the Mayor's Council for Women luncheon Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016 the Bessie Smith Hall.

A diverse group of women met at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center on Thursday in an effort to boost the lives of women across Chattanooga and the state.

They discussed plans to improve the health of all people in Patten Towers, develop a program to rehabilitate women who commit violent offenses and one to help women overcome barriers that prevent them from achieving career goals.

"We're not marching," said City Councilwoman Carol Berz, who hosted the event. "What we're doing is sitting around like adults and we're making a change, and we have a track record to show it."

Berz spoke to more than 100 women Thursday at the Mayor's Council for Women quarterly meeting.

"We [women] are powerful," Berz said. "We're the majority of the population."

Since 2015 when the group started, Mayor Andy Berke has encouraged workplaces to become more family friendly by suggesting benefits including flex time, job sharing, child care onsite and allowing work from home. The council also helped change state law on domestic violence victims and housing. The law initially allowed a landlord to evict both the victim and the assailant involved, but the council pushed to change it to allow the victim, usually a woman, to remain in the home.

"What's important is that women in the community know we are here," Berz said. "We're open for all sorts of women to come in and deal with social issues and economic issues in the community."

Donna Christian Lowe, chief operations officer of Main Street Innovations, encouraged companies to get involved with the family-friendly workplace initiative. The Camp House has agreed to offer a one-hour free lunch on the second Wednesday of each month, and about 30 minutes of that will be spent talking about tools to make workplace environments family friendly. The group starts meeting after Jan. 1, 2017.

Several women reported on the six committees that make up the council. The committees include economic opportunity, education, health, history, justice and leadership.

Jennifer Harper, founder and director at Bridge Financial Planning, discussed barriers to women achieving economic independence.

"Tennessee has a very lenient environment for predatory lending practices. Tennessee has the highest per capita rate of bankruptcy and the highest per capita rate of divorce in the country," she said.

Local attorney Katie King spoke about economic opportunity. Needing transportation and getting affordable quality child care were two of three common barriers King said her committee saw among at least 200 women who participated in discussions or took surveys about obstacles they face when reaching for economic opportunities.

King said the third barrier is fear.

Fear holds women back from starting a business and from negotiating for fair pay, she said. Then she offered a quote from the late Eleanor Roosevelt to support her statement.

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by each experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you cannot do,'" said King, quoting Roosevelt.

Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.

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