Vicki Shabo, Gender Equity Expert and Policy Advocate, to Address the Care Economy in the First Women’s Media Center Progressive Women’s Voices IMPACT Lecture

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Vicki Shabo will deliver the Women’s Media Center Progressive Women’s Voices IMPACT Lecture, titled “Who Cares Today? A Reflection on Where We Are As a Country With Respect to Work, Family, and Care.” The talk will premiere online on December 29, 2025, at womensmediacenter.com.

Shabo is a gender equity expert, policy advocate, and coalition builder, who has helped win paid leave, paid sick time, equal pay, and pregnancy fairness policies affecting tens of millions of people. She works closely with policymakers, advocates, researchers, and the private sector as the Senior Fellow for Gender Equity, Paid Leave & Care Policy and Strategy at New America’s Better Life Lab and Founder and Director of the Lab’s Entertainment Initiative, Re-Scripting Gender, Work, Family, and Care.

“Tensions around work and care are enduring, and they are rooted in culture, gender biases, financial realities, and a lack of supportive policies,” Shabo said. “They inform choices about whether, when, and under what conditions to start or grow a family, and how to care and provide for the people we love in a system that makes it impossible for most people to make decisions that are truly unconstrained by economic realities.” She continued:. “We must shift our tax system, make government investments in policies that provide us the freedom to make individual decisions about how to best provide and care for our families and to ensure that workers in paid care jobs are well-compensated professionals, and embrace new narratives about the value of paid and unpaid care.”

This talk is the first in the WMC Progressive Women’s Voices IMPACT Lecture series, highlighting the work and impact of women experts and advocates who have completed the Women’s Media Center’s Progressive Women’s Voices training.

Julie Burton, President and CEO of the Women’s Media Center, explained, “The Women’s Media Center has made training and promoting leaders like Vicki Shabo a cornerstone of our work to expand women leaders’ voices and impact in media and beyond. This lecture features big ideas to transform the way the public, media, and policymakers view national investments in work, family, and care. Women are the majority of caregivers, and we are eager to expand the media conversation with Vicki Shabo’s vision to create an affordable and sustainable care economy.”

The lecture will be followed by an extended conversation between Shabo and Maya Raghu about both unpaid and paid care work. Raghu is a seasoned leader with 20 years of experience in public policy, stakeholder engagement, and litigation centered on gender and racial equity, workplace civil rights, and economic security. Presently, Raghu serves as the National Director of the Protecting and Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiative at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Erica González Martínez, the Vice Chair of the Board of the Women’s Media Center, will deliver opening remarks and introduce both Shabo and Raghu. “I am a proud PWV alum, as are Vicki Shabo, our lecturer today, and Maya Raghu, who will be in conversation with Vicki after her remarks.”

The Women’s Media Center is an inclusive and feminist organization that works to raise the visibility, viability, and decision-making power of women and girls in media by ensuring that their stories get told and their voices are heard. We do this by researching and monitoring media; creating and modeling original online and on-air content; training women to be effective in media; and promoting women experts in all fields.

The Women’s Media Center Progressive Women’s Voices program is the premier media and leadership training program in the country for women. Since 2008 we have trained over 500 women experts to effectively communicate through the media as part of our mission to change the national conversation to better include diverse women’s voices and stories. Our trainees are regularly featured in all the major media outlets and influence the conversation on social media and in podcasts.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Watch the full lecture here.

For additional information, contact: mediarelations@womensmediacenter.com.

Watch the full video here.