As the Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women's (PCSW) Events & Special Projects Director, Michelle Noehren leads and directs all agency events, such as public hearings, Women’s Day at the Capitol, Pay Equity Day and Women’s Policy Day. In addition, she is an active part of the PCSW’s legislative team, manages the PCSW website and social media, is the co-chair of the CT Campaign for Paid Family Leave and represents the agency on several coalitons including the CT Campaign for Toxic-Free Kids. In 2013 she was selected as CT’s Most Inspirational Mom by gomom.me and in 2014 she was selected as one of the CT Women's Education & Legal Fund's 40 Women for the Next 40 Years.
Blog Post List
February 27, 2012
Did you know that the majority of workers making minimum wage are women? Did you know that the national minimum wage is $7.25/hour? According to a new report from the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), that means that a woman working full time, year round at the federal minimum wage earns just $14,500—more than $3,000 below the poverty line for a family of three.
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February 15, 2012
Hello MomsRising followers! So many of you enjoyed the CT Working Moms recent series about toxins that I want to share our latest series with you, A Day in the Life of a Working Mom (the brain child of our blogger Christa ). Each day for the next 2 weeks one of our bloggers will take you through her typical day. Today we are on day three! My day was yesterday so I posted it below for you. What's your typical day as a working mom like? Let us know and follow along! ------------------------------------------------- Good morning all! I’m happy to share what a typical day in my life is like...
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January 31, 2012
As the founder and editor of www.ctworkingmoms.com I am so proud of our blogger Dena for her very successful 12 Days of Toxins blog series. Yesterday, her series was recognized by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and we've heard from several people that they are now making their own cleaning products, shampoo and are overall more educated about toxins in our everyday products. -Michelle Here is Dena's wrap up of the series: Toxin A Day Wrap Up By Dena Fleno, CT Working Moms Blogger Whew… that was exhausting! I’m sure you are thinking right about now that this is completely overwhelming, so...
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January 18, 2012
Have you been following CT Working Moms blogger Dena Fleno's 12 Days of Toxins posts? Dena believes that understanding what toxins may be lurking in products we use on ourselves and our families and what alternatives are out there either in the store or in your kitchen cabinet are important for working moms to know. Today is day number 4 and she educates us about coal tar. Cleaner Living: Toxin #4- Coal Tar By Dena Fleno, CTWorkingMoms.com blogger Um, what? I hadn’t heard of this one until I started researching. Coal Tar in personal care products is the same as the stuff they use in pavement...
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January 16, 2012
Learn a Toxin a Day to Keep the Doctor Away Blog Written By Dena Fleno at CT Working Moms Understanding what toxins may be lurking in products we use on ourselves and our families and what alternatives are out there either in the store or in your kitchen cabinet are important for Working Moms to know for several reasons: Companies care about a bottom line, not necessarily your family. So to save time and/or money they use chemicals that are toxic to your health. As a mom, you want to protect the ones you love from dangers, even the ones that hide in a soap bottle. Also, your kids also need a...
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January 11, 2012
What would you say if I told you that a high number of baby products contain toxic chemicals? What if I told you those toxic chemicals were in the form of flame retardants that are used in things like nursing pillows, car seats, changing pads and bassinet pads? And what if I said there is currently nothing in the law protecting us from these harmful toxins? I wish I could say I made this up – that this whole thing is a ridiculous April fools joke, but a new report entitled Hidden Hazards in the Nursery shows that 85% of baby products tested in a study by the Washington Toxics Coalition and...
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December 7, 2011
A few years ago I started to learn about the utter lack of regulation by the FDA of many of the products used by women and children. Did you know that most of the ingredients in your body lotion, shampoo, baby shampoo, deodorant, shaving cream, perfume, tooth paste and other similar items are unregulated? In short, that means that every day most of us slather ourselves (and our kids) with chemicals that are known carcinogens (substances capable of causing cancer), endocrine disruptors (substances that affect hormones) or even teratogens (substances that can cause birth defects, among other...
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November 7, 2011
Not that I needed another reason to be grateful for many of the workplace benefits my current employer provides but I can’t help but be incredibly thankful that during Connecticut’s “snowtober” as it’s being called, my employer has allowed several of her employees the ability to work from home, be flexible with our work hours and has even said we can bring our children into the office if need be. If you haven’t heard, Connecticut (and surrounding states), got hit hard by a snow storm right before Halloween. Most of the state has been without power for 7 days now, and our neighborhoods look...
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October 12, 2011
Photo is of PCSW's Executive Director (at podium) surrounded by Connecticut legislators in support of paid sick days. This year Connecticut became the very first state to mandate that employers must provide a minimum standard of paid sick days for their employees. It seems that there is a wide-spread movement to enact similar legislation in other states and cities across the country. In fact, just a few weeks ago Seattle became the latest city to enact paid sick leave legislation (joining San Francisco, CA , Milwaukee, WI and Washington, D.C. ) and this November Denver, Colorado will be...
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September 30, 2011
Post Written by Michelle Noehren for WorkingMother.com Working Mother Media recently launched their campaign to gain paid parental leave in the United States by 2015 . In honor of this important campaign I’ve taken to a little poetic doggerel. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks a lot for the unpaid leave. Unfortunately, it’s only a minor reprieve - We’ve got bills to pay and mouths to feed And losing our income makes us quite frenzied. - If family values are what our country supports Then why aren’t we cohorts Working together to enact paid...
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September 14, 2011
I have always strived to be a compassionate person -- to be someone who puts myself in someone else’s shoes. Since becoming a new mom, I’ve found that my compassion toward others has only deepened and this is especially true of my empathy for other moms. Below are four ways that being a new mom has made me a better person, a list that I’m sure will only grow over time. #1. I will be even more respectful of pregnant women. I’m sure many of you have had the experience of being out and about, waddling around 8 months pregnant when someone, a complete stranger, walks over and touches your belly...
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September 7, 2011
Before our baby was born I received really good advice from a co-worker while I was only in my second trimester who suggested my husband and I should locate a child-care provider ASAP, well before the baby was due. It seemed crazy to me to have to start looking but we took her advice and I’m really glad we did. With my big pregnant belly we went out to visit a few large daycare centers and two at-home daycare locations. We weren’t sure what we would prefer but as soon as I saw the infant room at one of the big daycare centers I knew it wasn’t for us. Personally, it seemed like a little baby...
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August 30, 2011
Taking care of my new baby girl Lillian for 10 weeks was a great experience, but it only reinforced my desire to go back to my career. I missed adult interaction and using my skills and talents. While I love my daughter more than anything in the world, I also missed the life I had before she was born. I craved normalcy. I wasn’t sure how I would react going back to work. The night before dropping her off at daycare I barely slept. I had so many conflicting thoughts. Part of me felt bad about going back to my job. I would think about the fact that someone else would get to see her smiles and...
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August 23, 2011
Three weeks ago I “came back” to work. I say “came back” because for the previous 10 weeks I was at home taking care of a newborn and now I’m back at my full-time career. I love the saying, “every mother is a working mother.” Now that I’ve had the experience of being a first-time mother, I relate to that mantra more than ever. Anyone who claims stay-at-home moms aren’t working has clearly never had the experience of caring for an infant. Lillian was born at the end of May (an experience I will likely blog about) and since then I have learned a lot about baby care and just how much work taking...
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July 7, 2011
Photo is of Michelle Noehren with her new baby Lillian and Connecticut Senator Edith Prague, one of the biggest champions of paid sick leave legislation. Blog originally posted at WorkingMother.com Connecticut has made history by passing the first law requiring companies to provide paid sick leave to their employees and this past Friday Governor Dannel Malloy signed the bill into law. It’s taken several years and many legislative battles to get here but I’m proud that my state is leading the way in implementing this very important workplace reform. As I’ve blogged about before ( Sandwich...
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May 4, 2011
Crossposted from WorkingMother.com One of the most important things a workplace can do to support working mothers and mothers-to-be is to provide for flexibility. In my last few blogs for WorkingMother.com I’ve mentioned the difficulties I’ve faced while working full-time and being pregnant. Early in my pregnancy I went through three months of non-stop nausea that was debilitating and made getting through each work day a big challenge. I’m now in the home stretch with our baby due in mid-May, but the physical challenges I’ve faced didn’t end after the nausea subsided. For the past several...
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March 23, 2011
Co-Authored by Michelle Noehren & Michelle Pompei We’ve been advocates for women’s rights for a while and while we have been big supporters of advocating for working moms in particular, nothing really prepared us for what life would be like as we each started our own families. The inequities faced by moms and moms-to-be have only become more glaring and our drive and passion to support moms is stronger than ever. We’re two Michelles at different points in our motherhood experiences. Michelle Noehren is expecting her first baby in May of this year while Michelle Pompei had her son Phineas...
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January 25, 2011
Re-posted from Working Mother Magazine While all working women would benefit from access to paid sick leave, the latest data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) shows that 44 million workers in the U.S. did not have access to a single paid sick day during 2010. A growing segment of women are facing an incredibly difficult battle in balancing work and family obligations. Women in the “sandwich generation,” or those who care for a child under the age of 18 while also caring for an elderly relative, face significant difficulty in fulfilling their responsibilities at the...
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December 30, 2010
Cross posted from the Young Women's Leadership Program Blog: Words of Wisdom from Worldly Young Women As I scrolled through my newsfeed on my Facebook page this week I came across a posting written by a friend who has two young children that read, “I make $4.26 a week after daycare. Oh, the joys of parenthood.” My immediate reaction and my subsequent comment on her post read, “No, more like: Oh the joys of a society that says it values family but then doesn’t give us paid maternity leave and doesn’t create more affordable childcare options!” Ever since reading the Motherhood Manifesto (read...
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April 13, 2010
National Pay Equity Day is right around the corner! This year it will be held on April 20, 2010. The date is symbolic of how long women must work into the next year to earn what men made in 2009. It seems unbelievable that in 2010 women, generally, only earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. A lot of progress has been made since the passage of the Equal Pay Act some 46 years ago, including the fairly recent passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act . However, we have not yet achieved pay equity and there remains much work to be done. There are a lot of activities out there to help you...
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