April 20, 2012
Feminists opened up thousands of doors in the 1960s and 1970s, but decades later, are U.S. women where they thought they’d be? The answer is a resounding no.
Women now comprise nearly 60 percent of college undergraduates and half of all medical and law students. They have entered the workforce in record numbers, making the two-wage-earner family the norm. While women changed, however, social structures surrounding work and family remained static. Affordable, high-quality childcare, paid family leave, and equal pay for equal work remain elusive for most women. The U.S. has also fallen far behind other countries on the gender-equity front with fewer women holding federal offices and leading the nation’s top private companies.
It’s time, says former U.S. Ambassador and Governor Madeleine M. Kunin, to change that and usher in a new social revolution. Our inability to invest in families leaves us vulnerable to being reduced to second-rate status in the global economy.
Looking back over five decades of advocacy, Kunin analyzes where progress stalled, examines the successes of other countries, and charts the course for the next feminist revolution — one that mobilizes women, and men, to call for the kind of government and workplace policies that can improve the lives of women and strengthen their families.
Women now comprise nearly 60 percent of college undergraduates and half of all medical and law students. They have entered the workforce in record numbers, making the two-wage-earner family the norm. While women changed, however, social structures surrounding work and family remained static. Affordable, high-quality childcare, paid family leave, and equal pay for equal work remain elusive for most women. The U.S. has also fallen far behind other countries on the gender-equity front with fewer women holding federal offices and leading the nation’s top private companies.
It’s time, says former U.S. Ambassador and Governor Madeleine M. Kunin, to change that and usher in a new social revolution. Our inability to invest in families leaves us vulnerable to being reduced to second-rate status in the global economy.
Looking back over five decades of advocacy, Kunin analyzes where progress stalled, examines the successes of other countries, and charts the course for the next feminist revolution — one that mobilizes women, and men, to call for the kind of government and workplace policies that can improve the lives of women and strengthen their families.
