History of Women in the Workplace
Women have always worked hard to support themselves and their families, even though they rarely got paid for it. In British common law, unmarried women, including widows, were called “femmes soles,” meaning women alone. They had the legal right to live where they pleased and to support themselves in any occupation, as long as it did not require a license or a college degree restricted to males.
Before 1800, most husbands and wives worked together and reared their children together, whether in the country or in small family businesses. The Industrial Revolution moved work for millions of Americans from home to factory or office. If they could afford it, men became the breadwinners while women took care of the family at home.
After 1900, large numbers of women entered the workforce due to changing child labor laws, two world wars, and a rapidly rising cost of living. Today, most married couples are joint breadwinners, as they were before 1800.
Women’s Journey to Economic Empowerment
Several milestones have marked women’s journey to economic empowerment. The first woman received a patent in 1809 for a technique of weaving together straw and silk. Forty years later the first woman graduated from medical school, at the top of her class, incidentally.
Not until 1917 did a woman become president of a national bank and it took nearly 30 more years until the first American woman served as director of a major corporation, The Coca-Cola Company. Shortly after, the minimum wage was established to apply equally to men and women.
Just before the United States entered World War II, the first woman began to sell securities on the New York Stock Curb Exchange. Women flooded into factories for war work and excelled at it, but six million were summarily fired when men returned after the end of the war.
Professions Begin to Admit Women
In 1950 Harvard Law School admitted its first woman student. The Sixties brought the Equal Pay Act and the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. Companies could also no longer say, “We don’t hire women.”
In the 1970s the Supreme Court ruled companies couldn’t refuse to hire a woman just because she had preschool children. Katharine Graham took over the helm of “The Washington Post” when her husband died, making history as the first woman CEO of a Fortune 500 Company. The Seventies also saw the first women presidents of professional associations that previously would not admit women. Classifieds could no longer divide ads by “Help Wanted Men” or “Help Wanted Women.”
A steady stream of legislation brought new opportunities to women in every arena. Fast-forward to 2009 and women became the majority of employees in the workplace.
Economic Status of Women Today
In 2013, federal data show women earn an average of 78 cents to a man’s dollar, up from 59 cents in the Sixties. Among many couples today, however, the woman out-earns the man and he’s the one who quits when she needs to relocate to a better job opportunity.
Rather than fight against the glass ceiling and anti-family corporate atmospheres, more U.S. women than ever have opted to break free and start their own business. An estimated 8.6 million women-owned businesses in America generate more than $1.3 trillion in revenues. Many have no employees, yet together they provide jobs to another 7.8 million people. From 1997–2013, women-owned firms increased by 59 percent, compared to the national business growth average of 41 percent.
White, African American, Asian and Hispanic women have all accomplished many firsts. Women have been CFOs of Big Four accounting firms, directed the New York Stock Exchange, and served as a director of the largest corporation in America. More than 10 million firms in the United States are majority owned or equally owned by women.
Women—and the men who support their efforts—have never had greater opportunity in business and employment. Look around you and take the hand of another woman. What change will you work for today?