Helen Gordon Davis' Women's Business Centre opens in Tampa

Helen Gordon Davis was a powerhouse of a legislator when she represented Tampa in the Florida Legislature from 1974 to 1992, championing the rights of the disenfranchised, particularly women and minorities. Although reportedly in ill health now, the native New Yorker’s lasting legacy has been her creating the Women’s Centre based in Tampa’s Hyde Park, designed in the 1976 to help women succeed both personally and professionally.

On Monday afternoon the Centre held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the creation of the Women’s Business Centre, which will help fund training, business development resources, and programs for women entrepreneurs. The key to its creation was a $755,000 federal Small Business Administration grant procured by Tampa Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor.

“While women own nearly one-third of all firms, and the start rate of firms greatly outpaces that of men, the market share for revenues has not kept up, ” Castor said her remarks to approximately 100 people or so who gathered on the unseasonably warm day for the grand opening. “I believe that entrepreneurship is a pathway to pay equity,” the Congresswomen said, adding that women are only paid 78 percent of what men are paid, “and that’s not acceptable.”

The desire to add a business element to the Women’s Centre germinated two years ago, says executive director Ann W. Madden, “to meet the needs of an increasing amount of women in our community who were looking for training and resources, so they could start their own businesses.” Florida is fourth in the nation in the number of women-owned businesses.

There are approximately 100 Women Business Centers (WBC’s) nationally around the country, all designed to assist women in starting and growing small businesses. WBCs seek to “level the playing field” for women entrepreneurs, who still face unique obstacles in the business world.

The event also was a way for Hillsborough County women politicians to give homage to a pioneer like Davis, the first female to win elected office from Hillsborough County to serve in Tallahassee. She sponsored the first legislation for displaced homemakers and spouse abuse centers, as well as the first sexual harassment law. She personally funded a study of equity in state employment.

“She was one of the most effective, powerful women leaders in the Florida Legislature,” said Hillsborough County Commissioner Chair Sandy Murman, about Davis, who had her political career ended when she lost to a freshman lawmaker from St. Petersburg in the Senate District that encompasses both Pinellas and South Tampa. A guy by the name of Charlie Crist.

Gordon Davis, the successful South Tampa restauranteur and son of Helen Gordon Davis, was the last speaker on the program. He told the audience that his mother is currently in the “last stages” of a rewarding life, and is receiving guests and friends who are paying their last respects to her. He then read from a note written by Ms. Davis.

“In 1974 when I first arranged to purchase this mansion that is now the Women’s Centre, women were wearing buttons that we’re saying ’59 cents for every 1 dollar a man makes’. In 1990 after all the strikes, struggles and bra-burnings, they finally increased wages to 77 cents for every dollar a man makes for doing the same job. Today due to the gaining awareness of inequality, it is now 82 cents for every dollar. My hope with the advent of this Business Centre, women will be better trained to compete in the work place and earn wages at the same rate as their male counterparts. 48 million live in poverty in the U.S., 26 million of them are women, most of them are supporting families on their own. We ned more centers to exist in the struggle for impoverished women to get ahead. Founding the Women’s Centre has been one of my proudest accomplishements, and the present administration has helped create a much better world for women in this community.”

Helen Gordon Davis’ name lives on even in current legislation.

Tampa’s Athena Joyner was recently selected to become the Senate Democratic leader in 2015. She announced that her first bill she would file is the Helen Gordon Davis Fair Pay Protection Act, that would help ensure women get equal pay for equal work, in line with the U.S. Equal Pay Act of 1963.

“Women have entered the workforce in record numbers over the past 50 years, yet … many women continue to earn significantly lower pay than men for equal work,” Joyner says of the bill, adding  that “in many instances, the pay disparities are the result of continued intentional discrimination against women.”

The bill would add responsibilities to the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity, including “collecting and making publicly available information about women’s pay” and making sure the state’s vendors comply with fair pay provisions.