47 Years of Women’s Equality Day: 5 Ways To Celebrate Now And Why
Photo from the National Archives from 1920.
Forty-seven years ago Bella Abzug’s push to make August 26 Women’s Equality Day a national day of recognition became reality. It is still not a federal holiday. While Americans have yet to reach gender and racial equity, Take The Lead’s mission continues to be equality, equity and fairness for all women.
“Forty-seven years ago Bella Abzug’s push to make August 26 #WomensEqualityDay a national day of recognition became reality. It is still not a federal holiday. #womenshistory #herstory”
According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, less than half of Americans, or 49%, “say granting women the right to vote has been the most important milestone in advancing the position of women in the country.”
Read more from Gloria Feldt in Take The Lead on Women’s Equality Day
An even larger percentage, or “57 percent of adults say the U.S. hasn’t gone far enough when it comes to giving women equal rights with men.”
Other findings from the report include that 77% say sexual harassment is a major obstacle to women’s equality; 67% say women don’t have the same legal rights as men; 66% say that there are different societal expectations for men and women; and 64% say there aren’t enough women in positions of power. “Women are more likely than men to say these are major obstacles,” the report shows.
“While Americans have yet to reach gender and #racialequity, @Takeleadwomen ‘s mission continues to be #equality, equity and fairness for all women. #genderparity”
Is any of this truly surprising?
While most Americans (76%) say the gains have not come at the expense of men, 22% of adults—including 28% of men and 17% of women—think they have come at the expense of men, according to the study.
White women have been the beneficiaries of feminism and the move to gender equity, the respondents said. “About three-in-ten U.S. adults say feminism has helped the lives a white women a lot, compared with 21% and 15% who say this about Black women and Hispanic women, respectively,” Pew reports.
Read more from Gloria Feldt on Women’s Equality Day
Similarly, a separate Gallup poll recently shows that the dream of equality—and the nearly 50 years of celebrating Women’s Equality Day—has not led to gender parity.
“A @Gallup poll recently shows that the dream of equality—and the nearly 50 years of celebrating #WomensEqualityDay—has not led to #genderparity. ”
According to the new Gallup poll, “Most Americans think additional work remains before women achieve equality with men. Nearly seven in 10 U.S. adults (69%) say women have not yet achieved equality in the workplace, and 66% say the same about politics. For women, 79% say there is not yet equality in the workplace and 75% say there is not equality in politics. Men agree, but by smaller majorities.”
Many of the respondents gave a time frame from 10 to 30 years to achieve gender equality in the workplace and also politics, though 8 percent say it will never happen in the workplace and 9 percent say it will never happen in politics.
Read more in Take The Lead on actions to take on Women’s Equality Day
Taking action to make sure that gender equality does happen someday relies on each individual as well as collective action to create equity in leadership and representation across gender and racial lines.
“Taking action to make sure that #genderequality does happen someday relies on each individual as well as collective action to create #equity in #leadership and representation across gender and racial lines. ”
Get smarter. Reading and learning more about feminism and the fight for equality through history can inform children, teens and adults. The New York Public Library recently “released a list of over 100 non-fiction titles about feminism, with a mix of current and historic materials. The ‘Essential Reads on Feminism,’ offers diverse perspectives on the fight for gender equality as well as reflects the limitations of the early suffrage movement, especially for women of color.”
“Get smarter. Reading and learning more about #feminism and the fight for #equality through history can inform children, teens and adults.”
Advocate for fair pay everywhere. Whether it is in your own workplace, or as an effort to boost pay in your community, understand the long term consequences of unequal pay. Gender and racial equality can begin with fair and better pay.
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Zeynep Ton, professor of the practice at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and co-founder and president of the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute, writes, “We already observe that where the minimum wage increases, workers’ well-being improves — with no negative effect on employment. Workers have fewer unmet medical needs, better nutrition, less smoking, less child neglect, fewer low-birth-weight babies, and fewer teen births. With more income, they spend more money and rely less on government benefits — all positives for the economy… Good jobs also create a competitive advantage by enabling firms to differentiate and to adapt better to change,” according to Ton, author of The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits.
“Advocate for #fairpay everywhere. Whether it is in your own workplace, or an effort to boost pay in your community, understand the longterm consequences of unequal pay. #payequity”
Advocate for paid parental leave. The motherhood penalty is real and measurable. Whether you fight for it in your organization or communicate the need for it to policy makers, child care concerns and costs weigh heavily not just on the family purse, but on the mother’s career.
“Advocate for paid parental leave. Child care concerns and costs weigh heavily not just on the family purse, but on the mother’s career. #workingparents #paidleave #caregiving”
According to the World Economic Forum, in a new study Gender, Work and Organization from researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, Maryland Population Research Center and the University of Melbourne found that in the first two months of COVID-19 in March and April, women lessened their work hours to the detriment of their earnings and long term career prospects.
“Scaling back work is part of a downward spiral that often leads to labor force exits—especially in cases where employers are inflexible with schedules or penalize employees unable to meet work expectations in the face of growing care demands,” the coauthors write. “We are also concerned that many employers will be looking for ways to save money and it may be at the expense of mothers who have already weakened their labor market attachment.” The study adds, “Future merit-based promotions and pay raises may disproportionately benefit men whose work commitments remained high during the pandemic.”
Read more in Take The Lead on Women’s Equality Day
Speak up and out. This is not new advice, and women have been standing up and speaking out against discriminating treatment for a century and more. But WFH habits seem to disadvantage women, according to a new study. “Remote work and specifically, virtual meetings, may exacerbate gender inequality such that women experience getting talked over, interrupted, or ignored more often in these formats than they did in-person before the pandemic,” according to SWE Alltogether at the University of Texas.
“Speak up and out. This is not new advice, but #WFH habits seem to disadvantage women, according to a new study from @SWEtalk. #genderinequality #worklife #leadership”
With 77 percent of women reporting concern about finding another job saying they are interrupted in virtual meetings, the report states, “COVID-19 has not only revealed the gender bias in interactions and experiences during workplace meetings, but it has also exacerbated them with the move to online meetings. Fortunately, there are steps that individuals and workplace organizations can take to try to mitigate some of these gender biases. Neela-Stock lists four ways to become a better ally for women, including motioning for leaders to set the tone and make it a priority to listen to women’s voices. Further, male colleagues should speak up when they see these biases (e.g., women being interrupted, talked over, or ignored) taking place. Similarly, women should also support other women colleagues as there is strength in numbers.”
Vote. Whether it is for the school board, city council, community representation, state representation or the office of president, exercising the right to vote that was hard won a century ago is the best way to celebrate Women’s Equality Day. Because women in this country are not represented equally. In a recent essay for Brookings Institution, Richard V. Reeves writes that the U.S. has achieved gender equality in educational attainment, but only 97 percent of the equal threshold in health and survival, with 75 percent towards gender equality in economic opportunity and 16 percent in political empowerment.
“#Vote. Whether it is for the school board or the office of president, exercising the right to vote is the best way to celebrate #WomensEqualityDay. ”
“Fifty years before the U.S. granted women the vote, John Stuart Mill argued in The Subjection of Women for ‘a principle of perfect equality.’ He considered that ‘the most vitally important political & social question of the future, [is] that of the equality between men and women,’” Reeves writes.
Every American can salute Women’s Equality Day, but the day women achieve equality is a day that has not yet arrived.
“Every American can salute #WomensEqualityDay, but the day women achieve #equality is a day that has not yet arrived. ”
