Yesterday was the 88th anniversary of women's suffrage (woo hoo!), but it seems we still have a long way to go until women are serving as equal citizens of American society.
"...Today, the United States ranks 22nd among the 30 developed nations in its proportion of female federal lawmakers. The proportion of female state legislators has been stuck in the low 20 percent range for 15 years; women’s share of state elective executive offices has fallen consistently since 2000, and is now under 25 percent. The American political pipeline is 86 percent male.
Women’s real annual earnings have fallen for the last four years. Progress in narrowing the wage gap between men and women has slowed considerably since 1990, yet last year the Supreme Court established onerous restrictions on women’s ability to sue for pay discrimination. The salaries of women in managerial positions are on average lower today than in 1983.
Women’s numbers are stalled or falling in fields ranging from executive management to journalism, from computer science to the directing of major motion pictures. The 20 top occupations of women last year were the same as half a century ago: secretary, nurse, grade school teacher, sales clerk, maid, hairdresser, cook and so on. And just as Congress cut funds in 1929 for maternity education, it recently slashed child support enforcement by 20 percent, a decision expected to leave billions of dollars owed to mothers and their children uncollected. ..."
-Susan Faludi
2 comments:
On a positive note...girls are now scoring the same or higher as boys on math and science standardized tests. That is a huge achievement considering that many never thought the gap would never close because girls' brains are "wired differently than boys." Though as a teacher now do we have to think about how our school system is failing boys?
That is a good, and positive, note. It is interesting though, working as we do, how my focus on equity in pay/jobs/politics remains on women, but my focus on equity in education has shifted to boys. I don't know how it is by you, but we've got a rough road getting our boys to graduation and college. There are no easy answers, I guess.
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