Deanna's Statement

"Looking back I realized that everything does happen for a reason. Every event leading up to the present led me to the way I was supposed to go, to the people I was supposed to meet. The struggles have been worth it. I’ve come to learn that every obstacle is a chance to learn and knowledge is the greatest weapon against ignorance" (full story)

 

Women as a Minority Group

Did you know that there are more women in the US than there are men? It is true. According to the 2010 Census, there are 156,964,212 females compared to 151,781,326 men. That is 96.7 men per 100 women!

 

Looking at it from this angle, it is strange to consider women as a minority group and yet until women stand shoulder to shoulder with men in pay scale, career opportunity and political representation, they must be seen to be at a disadvantage.

 

  • Women hold 17% of seats in Congress.
  • There is a 23% gender wage gap – women earn roughly 77.8 cents to the dollar.
  • Women are more likely to live in poverty than are men.

 

As a modern and enlightened country the US ranks in 17th place out of 135 countries behind Lesotho, the Philippines, South Africa and 14 other countries in terms of gender gap and equality. This is actually quite a large improvement because in 2009, the US languished in 31st place in the Gender Gap Report.

 

While it is true that in the US there is no shortage of strong women role models, women like Hilary Clinton or Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi, the Indian-born CEO of PepsiCo, to motivate and inspire the young women of America, still it sometimes takes the helping hand of an organization like Minority Action to get them started on the right path.