Gender Equality In America

A quote by Gloria Steinem states that “a feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.” The fight for women’s rights all began with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Although it was mainly a feminism fight, the convention included abolitionists, social purity, and temperance movements. Women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Sojourner Truth helped spread feminism throughout America. Despite their efforts, after 170 years after the whole equality fight began, males and females are not equal. (Seneca Falls Convention Begins). The absence of women leaders, the lack of respect for women, and the significant pay gap shows that men and women are still not equal in the United

“According to U.S. Census and Population data, the proportions of young women and men (aged 25-29) attaining a Bachelor’s degree or higher in 2014 were 37.2 per cent and 30.9 per cent, respectively. The gender attainment gap in the United States has hovered between five and seven per cent over the past decade” (Cooper). This data also shows that the higher percentage of Bachelor’s degrees are earned by women compared to men. Not only do women earn more Bachelor’s degrees than men, this gap has been present in data for the past decade. If these statistics have been true for the past decade, there should be more women in higher roles in the workplace. There are still many more men bosses than women although more women earn Bachelor’s degrees. Recently, “women are being cleared to play a greater role in combat — and vie for thousands of jobs — after the military conducted an internal review of how they might perform in artillery, armor and infantry roles” (Chappell). Although it is great that women are now going to be able to have roles in combat, it took many years for them to reach these roles. Since the 1970’s, women have been able to attend service academies. Even in the 1990’s, they were allowed into military roles, but with many exceptions so that they could not perform in combat. Furthermore, women “earn more than 44 percent of master’s degrees in business and management, including 37 percent of MBAs” (Warner). Although there are many women who have high degrees in business, the Fortune 500 board is only about 17% woman. Women have shown in the statistics that they are capable of achieving high business degrees, so it does not make sense that they are not owning more higher ranking businesses. Unfortunately, based on the current rate of change, it is estimated that women will achieve equal leadership roles as men in 2085. Therefore, America does indeed