Tag: Gender Gap

Preserving Our Legacy: ‘An Important Piece of Feminist History Is at Risk of Being Lost’

In the early ’80s, Martha Albertson Fineman launched the Feminism and Legal Theory Project at University of Wisconsin Law School. For decades, the project has brought together scholars and activists from the U.S. and abroad to explore the most pressing contemporary legal issues affecting women. In multiple-day sessions, organized around specific, evolving sets of issues, feminists presented working papers and debated women’s legal rights.

Fineman recorded and preserved these groundbreaking conversations, as well as the working papers and other written material prepared for these sessions. But she is now struggling to find a home for this invaluable archive of the first generation of feminist legal thinkers.

Young Women Vow to Carry the Equal Rights Amendment Across the Finish Line

After realizing that gender equality wasn’t a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, Rosie Couture and her friend Belan Yeshigeta founded Generation Ratify, an organization dedicated to adding the ERA to the Constitution. Other women-led organizations, such as The Feminist Front and The Ruth Project, joined the fight.

“Advocating for the ERA means advocating for a fight that began with many of our grandmothers.”

There’s a Simple Solution to Elect More Women and Eliminate Partisan Gerrymandering

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: how proportional ranked-choice voting would eliminate gerrymandering; the U.S. ranks 27th in women’s equality; women gain seats in Japan’s House, surpassing U.S. House; flooding, heat waves and economic insecurity threaten women’s lives in particular; and more.

Demystifying Cyber: Raenesia Jones Pays It Forward to Young Black Girls

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Demystifying Cybersecurity highlights the experiences of Black practitioners, driving a critical conversation on race in the cybersecurity industry, and shining a light on Black experts in their fields.

This month, we spoke with Raenesia Jones, a cybersecurity operations analyst, about how her work keeps people safe and educates the next generation of Black women. “there are pervasive gender biases that have prevented women from going into cyber but I think it’s time we change that. I’d like for little girls to see someone who looks like them doing the work, so that they too can see themselves in this industry.”

Gender Diversity on California Corporate Boards Was Too Good To Last

California broke new ground for women when Governor Jerry Brown signed the first-in-the-nation requirement that publicly traded companies in the state have at least one woman on their board of directors by the end of 2019, and two or three by the end of 2021. But last month, the law was deemed unconstitutional.

On May 23, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber announced that she will appeal the California ruling, which will take time and may not be successful. Without formal requirements, we can only hope a growing critical mass of women can change corporate culture that’s still merrily skating along with those unwritten “majority male quotas” that have been firmly in place for centuries.

Paid Family Leave Act: Get Real on Gender Gaps in Academia Now

There is significant gender inequity in higher education that serves to disparage women’s role and contribution in academia. While women outnumber men in university attendance, they are less represented in faculty and continually paid less than their counterparts.

Many attribute these inequities to starting a family, as the benefits many professors attribute to parenthood, are overshadowed by the challenges to research, funding and tenure recognized by faculty and institutions. Improved paid family leave policies would help overcome these barriers and make strides towards greater equity in academia.

For Women, the Time To Run Is Now

For Women, the Time To Run Is Now

Start your engines, organize your campaign and submit your filing paperwork, ladies—because now is the time to run. Women are critically underrepresented in government, regardless of the level or branch.

Female candidates should be motivated, too. The last two election cycles marked record-breaking numbers of women running for office and ultimately winning. Research in political science (like the work of Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox) shows that when women run, they win—but they do not run as often as men do. This disparity in declaring candidacies leads to the gender gap in politics. A government “of the people, by the people, for the people” must include the people who aren’t men.

Weekend Reading on Women's Representation: Black Are Already Front-Runners in Statewide Primaries; Efforts to Pass ERA Ramp Up

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Black Women Are Already Front-Runners in Statewide Primaries; Efforts to Pass ERA Ramp Up

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.

This week: Black women establish themselves as early front-runners in statewide primaries; New Jersey must track data on the gender and race of appointees to state boards and commissions; efforts to pass the ERA in 2022; advances for women around the globe; RSVP for RepresentWomen’s Solutions Summit for a 21st Century Democracy; and more.