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Current Indicators Women are Still Not Equals in U.S. Society

Jennifer L. Jackson - 6/7/2008

Women in America have a choice – continue to be placated by superficial "equality" that exists in rhetoric and symbolism alone; or demand substantive change and a true equal position in all aspects of society. Why, as women, did we fight so vigorously for the right to vote, and have not fought just as tenaciously for an equal opportunity to hold office? Why have we so graciously filled the ranks of the labor market, and not demanded equal career opportunities or equal compensation? Why are we so grateful that we are finally allowed to "control" our own bodies when it comes to abortion, and not outraged that we are still unable to control being raped at a rate of one woman every eight minutes?

Women are not equals in American society; we both deny and accept this inequality, and in the process condemn our daughters to lives of inferior value and pre-measured success. Hopefully reflection on the following societal indicators of pervasive inequality will help us to collectively move from a state of denial and acceptance to the stages of anger, then action.

Political Under-representation –

Women were not represented in the legislative branch at all until 1917, and are still severely under-represented in the United States Congress. Currently, women sit in only 90 of 535 seats; there are 74 women in the House of Representatives and 16 female Senators in the 110th Congress. When the focus is narrowed to minority women, the under-representation intensifies. There are only 13 African-American women in Congress presently, all of whom serve in the House of Representatives, and account for half of all black women ever elected to Congress. Only one African-American woman has been seated in the United States Senate, Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun from Illinois, who served one term from 1993 to 1999. The 110th Congress includes seven Hispanic women, (the only Hispanic women to ever serve in the legislative branch), also all members of the House of Representatives. There are two Asian women in the House currently, two other Asian women have been Representatives previously, and an Asian woman has never served in the Senate. To date, a total of only 245 women have sat in the U.S. Congress (since 1789); 28 in the Senate and 217 in the House of Representatives (38 of which were simply filling vacancies left by their deceased husbands).

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) currently holds the highest leadership position ever held by a woman in the history of the United States government, as the first female Speaker of the House; the highest position a woman has held in the Senate is that of chair of the Senate Republican Congress, a post which was filled by Sen. Margaret Chase Smith from 1967 until 1972.

To date there have been 110 Supreme Court Justices (since 1789), and of those only two have been women. For almost two-hundred years there was no female representation on the Court, then Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed by President Reagan in 1981, followed by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appointed by President Clinton in 1993. Justice O'Connor retired in 2006, and President Bush seized the opportunity to replace her with a male, Justice Samuel Alito; therefore leaving only one female Justice in the nine. The federal court system as a whole is presided over by a total of 875 judges, (including the 9 Supreme Court Justices), 201 of which were female as of January 2007 according to USA Today.

The executive branch, however, is where women are the most marginalized. A woman has never served as President of the United States; in fact, a woman has never even secured the nomination from one of the two major political parties in order to get on the ballot in the general election. A woman has never served as Vice-President either, though Geraldine Ferraro did make it onto the 1984 Democratic ticket with Presidential Candidate Walter Mondale. Incidentally, Mondale/Ferraro lost the 1984 election to President Reagan by the largest margin in U.S. voting history; Reagan carried 49 of 50 states, won 525 of 538 Electoral College votes, and earned over 58% of the popular vote. President Bush's 15-member cabinet currently includes only four women, and of his six rank cabinet members, only one is a woman.

Despite the fact that women are obviously not receiving the votes, they are still casting them. In 2004, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 67.6% of voting-age females were registered to vote, compared with only 64% of voting-age males; of those, 60.1% of the females actually voted, compared to only 56.3% of males. In addition, there are more voting-age females (111.9 million) than there are voting-age males (103.8 million) in the population as a whole.


Economic Disparity –

In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau, through its Current Population Survey, determined that the wage gap between men and women was 81% (in other words, based upon median weekly salaries, women earned $0.81 for ever dollar that men earned). This gap is exacerbated by age; women ages 24–34 years old earned 88% of what their male counterparts earned, but as women get older (ages 45-64) this gap widens to 73%. Perhaps more disturbing, is evidence that this trend begins immediately out of college, at a time when the education, experience, and family status of male and female students is almost identical. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) reported that one year out of college, women are already earning only 80% of what their male counterparts earned, and that ten years after graduation this gap had widened to 69%. Even after adjusting for hours, occupation, parenthood, and other factors that effect earning, one-quarter of the pay gap remained unexplained; the AAUW suggested that this remaining gap was likely the result of sex discrimination.

Not only do women earn less than their male counterparts, there is no support from Congress or the Courts to help women to fight pay discrimination. Lilly Ledbetter, a 60-year-old woman and 19-year supervisor at a Goodyear Tire Company plant in Alabama, discovered in 1998 that she was being paid less than all of her male counterparts, even those that were of a lower position and more recent hires. Ledbetter sued Goodyear under the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and the jury determined that she had lost over $225,000 in wages due to sex discrimination over the 19 years she spent working for the company; she won her suit and was awarded $4 million dollars in damages. The judge later reduced her award to $360,000; then the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the judgment all together and dismissed the case because Ledbetter had not filed her case within 180-days of receiving the first discriminatory paycheck (of course she did not know that she was being paid less than her male co-workers until that window had long since expired). This case eventually made it to the Supreme Court, which upheld the decision of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals' in a 5-4 vote. Ledbetter lobbied Congress to pass the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would apply the window for lawsuit filing to the most recent discriminatory paycheck (as opposed to the first one) and allow those that have been discriminated against to sue for back pay, as well as reverse the decision in her case. Though the House passed the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (H.R. 2831), it was filibustered to defeat in the Senate recently.

The other problem facing women in the U.S. labor market is job stratification. Men are disproportionately represented in management positions, computer and mathematical jobs, and the architecture and engineering fields. Women, on the other hand, are disproportionately represented in service occupations, the education field, healthcare support positions, and office and administrative support jobs. Men and women are also segregated by college major; 79% of education majors are women and 82% of engineering majors are men, according to the AAUW.


Health and Safety Indicators –

The fact that women live five years longer than men on average is not a sufficient indicator of the overall health and safety of the female population. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, "physicians are less likely to counsel women than men about diet, exercise, and substance abuse. After a first heart attack, women are less likely than men to receive cardiac rehabilitation and are more likely to die." The Health Affairs journal found that preventable deaths account for 32% of deaths for women, compared to only 23% of deaths for men.

Maternity leave is a luxury to most American women. Nationally, only 8% of workers have paid family leave to care for newborns, as reported by the Department of Labor, and that drops to 5% for the lowest paid workers. The federal government does not even have paid parental leave for its employees. Working Mother and the Institute for Women's Policy Research identified the 100 Best Companies for working mothers in 2006; of the top 100 companies for working mothers 7% offered no paid maternity leave, and another 7% only offered one to two paid weeks of leave. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 required employers to allow new parents time off without being terminated or demoted, however, it does not require employers to compensate employees during this time.

Four women a day are murdered in the United States as a result of domestic violence; approximately 1,400 women each year die at the hands of an intimate partner. There are 572,000 reports of assaults against women by intimate partners annually, though estimates of actual assaults range between two and four million battered women every year. Women are ten times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner.

In 2006, there were 272,350 reported victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. The RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) organization estimates that a woman is sexually assaulted every two minutes, and that a completed rape takes place every eight minutes. Unfortunately, these numbers do not account for victims under the age of twelve, who suffer from 15% of all sexual assaults and rapes. Girls ages 16-19 are four times more likely than the general population to be the victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. It is estimated that one of every six American women are the victims of attempted or completed rape in their lifetime.