By John McPhaul
jpmcphaul@gmail.com
During International Women’s Week, one island advocate for women’s rights has responded to reports that two towns in Puerto Rico, Caguas and Ponce, are among the nine small towns in the United States where women are paid better than men.
Proyecto Matria Executive Director Amarilis Pagán Jiménez said she had mixed feelings about the revelation.
“On the one hand, it makes me happy, but on the other hand I’m afraid of partial data; data may have been left out,” Págan said.
The reason she believes that data could be missing from the study documented by consumer finance startup Pheabs.com is that many women in both communities, like in much of Puerto Rico, work part-time, which could skew the data.
Pheabs.com spokeswoman Dana Leigh noted that the data “has come from the U.S. census, so it’s not so much [that] data is missing, more [that] we’re publicizing what was provided.”
CROEM announces ‘Women of the Year’ award recipients
Also as part of International Women’s Week, seven graduate students and a professor from the Residential Center for Educational Opportunities of Mayagüez (CROEM by its Spanish acronym) received the “Outstanding CROEMITAS Women of the Year 2023 Award,” a recognition granted by the CROEM Graduate Students Association (CROEM ALUMNI).
During the event, special recognition was given to the designated women’s affairs advocate, Vilmarie Rivera Sierra, whose appointment is pending approval in the island Senate, and who received special recognition in community work.
“The women honorees all meet the requirement of having achieved a strategic position either in their professional tasks or as part of the social civic work in their respective communities,” said Roberto Rivera Ponce, presidential delegate of CROEM ALUMNI.
Other recognitions went to CROEM graduates Doris Ramírez Ruiz of the Class of 1973 in the leadership area; Aurea Berríos Sáez (Class of 1972) for her work as executive in charge of the Naranjito Adolescent Program Incorporated (PANI); Juanita Pérez Orench (Class of 1984) in the area of public service; Nohemí Cotto Morales (Class of 1971) in the area of culture; Daisy Martínez Rodríguez in the area of education; the former president of the Puerto Rican Society of Pediatrics, Dr. Carmen Suárez Martínez (Class of 1981) in the area of health.
“It is important to note that the awards granted are part of the project that connects the CROEM school with the community,” Rivera Ponce noted. “The honorees have all developed special projects that reflect a positive attitude in our society.”