This is Women’s History Month, and as we celebrate the accomplishments of women, we need to think about now and what’s ahead.
Women now are in prominent elective and appointive offices. They run corporations, major civic undertakings and make or influence decisions that affect our lives in countless ways.
For the first time in U.S. history, a woman is vice president. She is a woman of mixed racial and cultural heritage who was attorney general of the largest state in the nation and then went on to become a U.S. senator before becoming vice president.
But the path that took her to the second-highest office in the land has disproportionately few women behind her.
There are 24 women in the U.S. Senate, or 24% of the 100 members. There are 121 women in the U.S. House, or 27.8% of the 435 seats.
There are now nine female governors among the 50 states, or 18%. There are 19 lieutenant governors, or 44.2%. There are 95 women in statewide elected executive offices, or 30.6%, of the 310 offices.
The woman now nominated to fill a U.S. Supreme Court seat, if approved, would join three other women on the court, a first in numbers for the court. And, if approved, this woman would become the first Black woman on the highest court in the land.
These are accomplishments for a nation that just guaranteed women the right to vote a little over 100 years ago, a guarantee that at the time proved only for White women.
A U.S. Census report in 2020 put women at a little more than 51% of the population and at 58.3% of the civilian labor force 16 and older.
But, women still earn 84% of the pay men receive, a 2020 Pew Research study found. The study noted that the 16-cent gender pay gap was down from 36 cents in 1980. Progress again.
Women have a longer life expectancy than men. The Social Security Administration says women represent 55.3% of all Social Security beneficiaries age 62 and older and about 63.9% of beneficiaries age 85 and older.
But, that’s where that wage gap becomes more troubling. In 2019, the average annual Social Security income received by women 65 years and older was $13,505 compared with $17,374 for men. While there’s disagreement on the exact number, it is believed that about 40% of retirees live only on Social Security income.
A Pew Research study of 130 countries found the U.S. at the top of the list of countries with children living in single-family households. That 2019 study said almost a quarter of U.S. children younger than 18 live in a household with only one adult. And, that one adult is usually a woman.
Of the 38.1 million people living in poverty in 2018, 56% — or 21.4 million — were women, Census data showed. The Center for American Progress in a 2020 report noted that the pandemic put families at increased risk of poverty because of how it affected the employment of women who had to care for their children.
The studies are there showing that women have higher rates of poverty than men across all races, but especially among people of color.
Almost one in four single mothers with children lives in poverty. Between ages 25 and 34 (prime child-bearing years), women are 69% more likely than men of the same age to live in poverty.
While we celebrate the women who have fought the hard fights to bring us to today, we have to recognize the battle is far from over.
We live in a changing nation and a changing world. Let us dedicate ourselves to making that change dramatically better for our mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.
THE NEWS & TRIBUNE
Jeffersonville & New Albany
