Women’s Equality In The Workplace: It’s Time To Double Down

It’s hard to imagine, but it was only half a century ago that women were finally afforded the opportunity to compete for the same jobs as men in the workplace. I like to remind my female colleagues of that, especially the younger ones who never knew a world without working women because 50 years is not that long ago. The gains we have made as women are not backed by centuries and centuries, but rather just a handful of decades.

To be clear, there was a steady incline of women in the workforce beginning over a century ago in the early 1900s. However, most women in the workforce were there either out of necessity because they couldn’t afford not to work (or there weren’t enough men around, as was the case in World War II), or they were relegated to “feminine” positions such as secretary, teacher, nurse, etc. Many considered these roles as secondary to the primary work of men. These “secondary” positions also had little to no chance for upward mobility or increase in pay.