This morning Joan and Kiki were on the Lisa Birnbach radio program on Greenstone Media.

A great description from Kiki:

Lisa, the host of the show, was great, supportive and a single mom with three children. She spoke of her own experiences in the past being asked, during a job interview, if she planned to have more children.

She asked me great questions, such as did I have high expectations about the outcome of the legislation and I told her I always did. Except for those times in the past that I put on my black mourning dress in November at
the end of the legislative session. But this time I feel more optimistic. I also told her about all the petitions that women from around the country have been signing on momsrising.org and that I brought over 5,200 of them to
Harrisburg to show the lawmakers that the country is watching and women are starting to band together to look out for and support one another.

She asked me what job positions I applied for and I explained they were for bookkeeper and administrative assistant positions but the problem is not limited to those job positions and I spoke of former State Treasurer Barbara Hafer's testimony at the hearing where she talks about experiences in the workplace and in politics with invasive questions - so it is a problem across the board of job titles.

She asked me about my interview experiences and she wanted to play devil's advocate and ask why an employer would want to hire her, a single mom with three children who may face a crisis in the morning and can't come to work. I said we needed family friendly policies to deal with human issues. It doesn't have to be a single mother who has a crisis about their children. What about employees who care for their aging parents? Should they not get a job either because of that responsibility? What about the female who just invested in a $100,000 college education only to be denied employment because of her potential to give birth in the future?

I stressed that this legislation will not tell employers who they can and cannot hire. It will only prohibit them from asking two questions just like in states like NY, NJ, CA and Washington DC. It is time PA raised the bar on professionalism and come up to par with the other states.

Joan talked about the companies mentioned in the book that have such tremendous success with family friendly policies. She also mentioned sister organizations who are banding together to help with motherhood issues such as 9 to 5, PA NOW, Mothers and More and a host of others.

Lisa asked me what listeners could do to help. I told her they needed to call Sen. Gordner and Rep. O'Brien and tell them to move the legislation now. Joan referred them to the momsrising.org web site for contact
information and Lisa ended the show with, "I think I'm going to call them right now myself!" It was a very good experience. It should be on the site, www.lisabradio.com later today or tomorrow.