This week the Arizona Cardinals announced that they had hired Jen Welter to be their assistant coach during the team’s training camp and preseason. The decision makes her the first woman to hold any type of coaching position in the NFL. Welter has continuously broken barriers to women’s participation in professional sports, attaining a coaching position in February from the Texas Revolution of the Champions Indoor Football league, which made her the first woman to coach in a male professional football league. As the team’s historical decision is just the first step in the process towards gender parity in sports, one begins to consider how the representation of women fares in other fields.
An article published by TheStreet in July highlighted the persisting lack of high-positioned women in technology. With an average of 30% female staffers, it is clear that technology companies are still plagued by the severe underrepresentation of women. However, the article also points out that there are many women who are working to improve the levels of female representation within this field. The remainder of the article is dedicated to the biographies of eight prominent female technology CEOs, showing that just as in the world of sports, the technology sector is slowly but surely making gains in the fight for parity.
Just like Jen Welter and these eight female tech CEOs are as trailblazers, women are making strides in the world of politics. States like Arizona continue to be a positive example of female political involvement, representation, and leadership in government. Not only has Arizona had more female governors than any other state in the U.S., but it also ranks 5th in the Representation2020 Gender Parity Index.
While these milestones certainly provide reason to celebrate, it is important that we do not decrease our efforts for further female representation until we can say we have achieved gender parity in any field, whether it be sports, technology or politics.