Women make up only 21% of mayors, 18% of governors, 17% of the members of the U.S. Senate, 17% of the members of the U.S. House and 5% of Fortune 1000 chief executives. [WP and Wikipedia]
Mayor Lori Lightfoot gained acclaim as one of two black women running for mayor of Chicago earlier this year. Lightfoot was elected mayor in April, and is only the second woman to be elected as mayor of Chicago. She is the first black woman and the first openly gay mayor of the city. Chicago is now the largest city in United States history to have an openly gay mayor, and it is also the largest city in the United States to be led by a woman. [GenderAvenger]
34 black women were included in the 2019 graduating class of West Point and commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants. This is the largest number of black women graduates since women were first admitted to West Point in 1980. Since that date, 5000 female cadets have graduated. 19 Hispanic women were also graduated with this class. [Various sources]
Last year, of the 462 newly appointed Fortune 500 board members, 183 of them–40%–were women. That is more than double the rate from a decade ago and the highest on record. However, the total share of seats held by women in these companies in 2018 was 22.5%. [Gender Avenger Blog 6/2/19 – 5/30/19]
“I would argue that in our society, money is a male construct,” said
Sallie Krawcheck, CEO of Ellevest, an investment platform for women
As it stands, women make 80 cents for every dollar a man makes at best.
Women earn 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees but hold two-thirds of student loan debt. They also pay more for mortgages, even though they’re better at paying them back.
Even in 2019, women are responsible than men for more cleaning, childcare and so-called emotional things like remembering and organizing birthday parties. This adds up to five years’ worth of additional unpaid labor over the course of their lives.
So, women make less money and they also pay more for consumer goods marketed to them.
Female entrepreneurs garnered only 2.22% of all venture capital funding last year. They also get fewer small business loans, even though they’re likely to be good borrowers.
Women keep 71% of their money in cash, compared with 60% of men. Women also retire with just two-thirds of the money men do even though they live five years longer. [Maya Salam NYT 6/14/19]
Only five think tanks in D.C. have at least 40% female scholars: Stimson Center – 52%; Nuclear Threat Initiative – 50%; U.S. Institute for Peace – 49%; Institute for Policy Studies – 44%; RAND Corporation – 40%.
In 2018, there was one woman for every three men (34%) on D.C. foreign policy panels and 27% of the panels had men only. Only the Center for American Progress avoided any single gender panels. At CATO, the Institute for Policy Studies and AEI, half or more of the panels were all-male. At the Heritage Foundation, Aspen Institute, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Bipartisan Policy Center, one third or more of the events were all male. [GenderAvenger 5/24/19]
As Japanese women protest companies requiring women to wear high heels at work, Japan’s labor minister Takumi Nemoto says heels are “occupationally necessary and appropriate.” The petition against the practice was submitted to the labor ministry on Tuesday. [Guardian]
28 members of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team have an open lawsuit that alleges gender discrimination by U.S. Soccer because “despite greater success than the U.S. men’s national team, the women’s team has consistently been paid drastically less.”
And it’s not only women in the United States who are highlighting the issue of soccer’s inequality. One of soccer’s brightest stars, Ada Hegerberg, is sitting out the entire 2019 Women’s World Cup in protest of the huge disparity in recognition, pay, and value of men’s and women’s soccer. [GenderAvenger 6/7/19]
As of 6/21/19, U.S. Soccer and the United States Women’s National Team have agreed to mediation of the pending lawsuit relative to pay inequity between the men’s and women’s teams. [LA Times 6/21/19]
There was a time when U.S. Men’s Soccer events brought in discernibly more money than the women’s events, but the tables have turned.
| Men’s National Squad | Women’s National Squad | |
| 2009 | $9.37 million | $3.19 million |
| 2015 |
$14.87 million |
$3.16 million |
| 2016 | $22.24 million | $24.11 million |
| 2017 | $14.61 million | $14.61 million (this is correct) |
| 2018 | $13.00 million | slightly less than $13 million |
| [Rachel Bachman WSJ] | ||
Lindsay Gottlieb, formerly the University of California, Berkeley woman’s coach, has been hired by the Cleveland Cavaliers as an assistant coach. She becomes the first women’s collegiate head coach to be recruited to an NBA staff.
Rear Admiral Shoshana Chatfield will be the first woman to serve as the president of the U.S. Naval War College.