We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
Dear Leading Ladies,
Who can forget the popular advertising slogan, “You’ve come a long way, baby?” The phrase was the 1968 genius creation of a man, advertising whiz Pat Martin, who was tasked with marketing the first cigarette developed exclusively for women. The ads featured tall models in pants suits, seemingly emboldened by the new Virginia Slims, images emblematic of the liberated American woman of a new era.
Today, even referring to a woman of a certain age as “baby” could get a man banished to the back 40 for life.
Creative Commons
As we commemorate Women’s History Month, we decided to take a look at just how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. Here are some staggering statistics and both uplifting and distressing details.
Education
In 1900, women earned just 19% of all college degrees. By 1930, that rate went up to 40%. In 2018-19, women received 57% of all bachelor’s degrees conferred.
In 1950, women earned 9.7% of doctorates; in 1980, that jumped to 30.3%. In 2020, women received the majority of doctoral degrees for the 12th straight year, now outnumbering men, 113.2 to 100.
Men still were granted a majority of 2020 doctoral degrees in the four fields of business (53.3% male), engineering (75.1%), math and computer science (74.2%), and physical and earth sciences (65.0%).
However, in two STEM fields, biology (53.8%) and health and medical sciences (71.4%), women now outnumber men in doctoral degrees.
And, yes, that means there are more women in medical school now than men (51.9%), whereas in 1910 there were about 9,000 female doctors in our country, comprising 6% of the total.
Today, women make up about 33% of college and university presidents and 44% of provosts. In 2013, 26% of the nation’s colleges and universities were led by women, a significant increase since 1986, when slightly more than 9% of United States college presidents were women.
Prior to the Civil War, only two colleges, Oberlin and Antioch, were coeducational from their founding. Even at these schools, many classes were same-sex, and at Oberlin, women were required to do the male students’ laundry!
In the 1800s, there were plenty of women’s colleges, created in response to the fact that the men’s colleges would not admit girls. It was not until the 1970s that most of the all-male colleges went co-ed, along with many of the all-female schools.
Industry
In 1889, Anna Bissell became the first female CEO, taking over the family sweeper and vacuum business after her husband’s death. In 1972, Katharine Graham replaced her husband as CEO of the Washington Post, becoming the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company. And in 1999, Carly Fiorina — former Republican presidential candidate and Ted Cruz's former running mate, became CEO of Hewlett–Packard and the first woman CEO to lead a company in the Dow Jones industrial average.
Nonetheless, in 1980, there were no women in the top executive ranks of the Fortune 100 companies. The guarded good news is that by 2001, 11% of those corporate leaders were women.
Today, in corporate America, there are still seven times as many male executive officers as female executive officers; and male CEOs outnumber women by almost 17 to one.
For every 100 men promoted to the position of manager, only 85 women similarly advance.
And while women outnumber men in medical school, only 25-30% of healthcare executives – and just 13% of healthcare CEOs are women.
In 2020, women in the C-suite (executive-level managers) earned 75% of what their male counterparts took home. That’s the widest the gap has been in nine years, and down from 88% — a high point — in 2018. Why? Disproportionate gains from stock-based compensation.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, women were paid between 57 and 61 cents for every dollar earned by men. Today, women in the U.S. earn, on average, 83% of what men do. At the current rate of progress, it is estimated that it will take four decades for women to catch up.
And one more piece of discouraging news. Men in C-suite positions have seen a 27% increase in pay between 2012 and 2020 compared to a 10% jump for women.
Politics
Between 1921-23, after women got the vote, there was just one woman in the Senate and three in the House of Representatives. Today, women represent just 24% of the members of Congress: 24% of the House and 23% of the Senate. They hold 28% of seats in state legislatures.
Texas had a female governor from 1925-27 and 1933-34 (Miriam Ferguson), but there wasn’t another woman governor in the country until 1975 (Ella Grasso, Connecticut), and for many years, never more than two in office at the same time. Today, women represent just 18% of all governors and, as of August 2018, and only 23% of the mayors of the 100 largest American cities.
In 1872, Ohio native Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for US president. She represented the Equal Rights Party. Though Margaret Chase Smith and Shirley Chisholm tried to get their party’s nomination in 1964 and 1972, respectively, they fell short. It wasn’t until 2016 that Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win the nomination of a major party.
This is in contrast to the many countries that have had female leaders, including France, Norway, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Ireland, Israel, Poland, Turkey, Germany, Iceland, and Canada.
Sports
Before Title IX was enacted in 1972 and guaranteed equal rights for girls and women in every aspect of education, including athletics, fewer than 300,000 high school girls played interscholastic sports. By 2003, that number had jumped to 2.4 million.
In addition, the scope of sports open to girls broadened to include soccer, lacrosse, ice hockey, rugby, and wrestling. Before that, girls had been confined primarily to field hockey, basketball, and tennis, with gymnastics and track and field, swimming, badminton, and volleyball added shortly before the new law.
Since 1972, there has been a 545% increase of women playing college sports and a 990% increase of women playing high school sports.
In addition, while before Title IX, most girls’ competitions were intramural, they are now extramural.
So much for the good news. The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) spent $4,285 per men's participant versus $2,588 per women's participant in 2018-19.
The first professional female team played baseball in 1875. The Bloomer Girls followed in 1890 and continued playing pro baseball until 1934. The All American Red Heads Team was formed in 1936 to play women’s pro basketball. In 1943, the All-American Softball League gradually became the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. And that was it.
Today, baseball and football are the only professional sports that men compete in and women do not.
Nonetheless, as of May 2021, professional male athletes in basketball, golf, soccer, baseball, and tennis made anywhere from 15% to nearly 100% more than female athletes.
As an example, in 2021, the highest paid NBA player – Stephen Curry – made the equivalent of 350-plus WNBA salaries.
The wide disparity in pay is in large part due to the differences in profits generated by ticket sales because men’s sports remain far more popular as spectator pastimes than women’s athletics. Fans, owners, and promoters share responsibility for this situation.
But here’s the good news. The U.S. women's soccer team finally won their fight for equal pay this year. The U.S. Soccer Federation has just paid the women's team $24 million to settle its gender discrimination lawsuit.
The ERA
Finally, lest we forget, white US women got the vote in 1920 (Black women and other people of color would have to wait decades), ahead of Great Britain, Italy, France, and Spain, but after Norway, Denmark, Australia, Finland, Lithuania, Russia, Canada, Latvia, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Austria, and New Zealand. Yet, in 2022, we still can’t pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which would guarantee in our Constitution that no one in our country could be discriminated against in the workplace, schools, commerce, recreational facilities, or other places or situations based on gender.
Sources include Forbes, Bloomberg, NYTimes, USA Today, Wikipedia, Center for American Women and Politics, Washington Post, Variety, Reader’s Digest, League of Women Voters, history.com, the sport journal.org
So there you have it. We have come a long way, Sisters, but there is a long way to go.
What can we do?
Keep campaigning and voting for talented and competent female candidates for office, whether they are running for your local school board, city council, state legislature, the US House of Representatives, or the Senate. Emily’s List does a great job identifying and promoting women candidates, as well as raising funds for their campaigns.
Continue to encourage your daughters and granddaughters to push through those glass ceilings that still exist in boardrooms, universities, and political sanctuaries. You can find books that provide role models and inspiration for girls at A Mighty Girl.
And don’t forget the boys. When they are raised to believe that women are their equals, their worthy partners and not threats, they are much more likely to share the power and the limelight.
The crocuses are looking hopeful. If they can sense the end of winter, we can try too.
Therese
Judy
Mary
Beth
Leading Ladies Executive Team
leadingladiesvote.org
ladies@leadingladiesvote.org