The Double Tax: An Evening with Anna Gifty & Hope Walz

The approximate run time of the event is 60 minutes with no intermission. 

Join St. Catherine University for an evening with Anna Gifty in conversation with Hope Walz about Anna Gifty’s new book, The Double Tax: How Women of Color Are Overcharged and Underpaid. Presented by Katie Leadership Impact, St. Catherine University School of Business, and The O’Shaughnessy. Co-sponsored by the Minnesota Center for Diversity in Economics (MCDE) and Katie Leadership Impact (KLI)

Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a doctoral candidate at Harvard Kennedy School studying public policy and economics. She is a doctoral fellow for the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, Center for Black Entrepreneurship, Roosevelt Institute, Russell Sage Foundation, and Stone Program in Wealth Distribution, Inequality & Social Policy and a graduate affiliate at Harvard Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Center and the Institute for Quantitative Science.

Her first book, The Black Agenda: Bold Solutions for a Broken System (2022), is the first trade publication to exclusively feature Black scholars and experts across economics, education, health, climate, criminal justice, and technology. She also co-founded #BlackBirdersWeek in 2019 and The Sadie Collective in 2018—the first non-profit addressing the underrepresentation of Black women in economics and related fields. The youngest recipient of the CEDAW Women’s Rights Award from the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women—an honor previously given to Vice President Kamala Harris—her writing and commentary appear in TIME, Bloomberg, NPR, and The New York Times.

In 2023, she was selected to be part of the inaugural Forbes 30 under 30 Boston cohort. In 2025,Common Future selected her as one of their “Futurists of the Year” given her focus on economic inequality. Her second book, The Double Tax, published by Penguin/Portfolio and Little Brown Books UK, explores the costs women face, why the bill runs higher for women of color, and why closing the gaps helps everyone.

The Double Tax is a journey of uncovering the everyday costs women face. Throughout the book, Anna Gifty discovers that not only do women spend more money, time, and effort than men, but also that Black and white women lead vastly different lives, marked by gaps in beauty, motherhood, career, and more. Between conversations with hundreds of women and studies outlining the many price tags of womanhood, Anna Gifty charts a path forward that centers women without leaving anyone behind.

Hope Walz is a Minnesotan through and through. She was born in Mankato, Minnesota, a town in the southern part of the state. She graduated from Mankato West high school and went on to attend the University of Minnesota and graduated from Montana State University with a bachelor’s degree in Criminology with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies. She currently lives in Bozeman, Montana and works overnights at a homeless shelter, ski instructs, and sometimes attempts to post on social media. 

Hope grew up around politics and is passionate about equity in all spaces. Growing up around national and state politics instilled in Hope a drive to serve others. Growing up and seeing the inner workings of American politics coupled with years of hands on experience working with different communities gives Hope a unique perspective on what change can look like. 

Topics Hope is passionate about include housing equity and through her work at an overnight homeless shelter Hope has seen first hand the struggles the current housing crisis has placed on individuals and communities. She has also seen the successes of different housing initiatives and that is what drives her in her work. If you ask her how one may “solve homelessness”, the first thing she would say would be to “ban the box”. Which means removing the question of “do you have a felony” as that is what prevents a lot of guests at the shelter she works at, and at large, from getting housing. She is also passionate about equity in outdoor spaces. She spent time in college volunteering for Big Sky Youth Empowerment (BYEP) which is a nonprofit that gets kids outside and involved in outdoor activities, while connecting them to resources that help them move through middle and high school and into adulthood. Hope believes spending time outside is one of the best ways to embrace empathy and growth within yourself and helping provide that for others in any way she can is imperative to who Hope is. You will see her talk a lot about outdoor accessibility and equity on her social media accounts.

 Hope’s mom, Gwen, would tell her every day before school: “be a good friend, and a good learner” and that saying is still Hope’s guiding light today. Hope takes every day as an opportunity to build community. In her free time Hope enjoys skiing, hiking, lifting, going to pilates, reading, grocery shopping, and drinking a crisp diet coke with pebble ice.

• The ticket prices on this page reflect the face value price + $2.75 online Etix fee.  Tickets are $5 – $29 if booked directly through the Ticket Office in person or by phone at: 651-690-6700. Credit card transactions will also be charged a 3% processing fee. See Ticket Office information here. The price for this event is $29 and includes a copy of the book. The book will be given to you at the event. We are also offering a $5 ticket that does not include the book. This is an accessible price point option. All current St. Kate’s student tickets are free. Contact the Ticket Office or use the promo code provided to you to book your free St. Kate’s student ticket.
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