Making Progress But Much Left To Do

Published on the Delaware Coalition Against Domestic Violence, this article celebrates Women’s Equality Day and notes that the 2022 Gender Parity Index indicates that women continue to be woefully underrepresented in positions of government. Read an excerpt here:

Today, the United States officially recognizes Women’s Equality Day to commemorate the certification of the 19th Amendment that enshrined the right to vote for women. This amendment passed in 1920, after decades of protests and dissent by women of all generations; since the early 1800s, Americans formed and participated in the suffragist movement that ignited changes in all states to ensure that women can participate in the most fundamental aspect of our political rights.

While this amendment was a giant leap for women’s equality in the United States, it is no secret that women today have had to continue the fight on many fronts in the hopes that we one day can finish the work that was started decades ago. It is understood that the word ‘equality’ does not encompass just the basic rights afforded to women, but how women live and move through the world. As many women in these fields have realized, our political presence as women is inextricably linked to our visibility and personal lives. A common phrase among second-wave feminism was ‘the personal is the political’; this phrase is often used to help people understand that oftentimes, the personal experiences of women are directly tied to our locations within a socio-political system that give men power over women.

According to the Gender Parity Index published in 2022, women hold between 28% and 31% of Congress and Legislative positions nationwide; Delaware specifically has a C grade with regard to the state’s gender parity, indicating that women continue to be woefully under-represented in positions of government. This under-representation is a critical component of continued political disadvantage, as women do not have the political power to influence policy and law to ensure that women’s voices are heard just as clearly as men’s. This disparity also extends to economic disempowerment, as women continue to be more likely to live in poverty and less likely to be top earners in the country. In this vein, it is, unfortunately, common knowledge that women are far more likely to suffer from domestic violence at the hands of their male partners; domestic violence itself is many times at the intersection of women’s economic, political, and sexual disempowerment which is what makes this type of violence so deadly and pervasive.

Read the full article here.

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