Women’s Suffrage and the Workplace

Photo from Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

Women are an essential part of the economy and the business world. However, they were only recognized for their role in the economy until the early 1920s, during the first wave of the women’s suffrage movement. During World War I, a shortage of male white workers led to the expansion of employment across all genders around the country. After the end of the war, however, men returned to their jobs, leaving women unemployed. People expected women to return to the domesticity of the pre-war era, but many trailblazing women took the opportunity to point out the gender discrepancies in the country. Backed by hundreds of jobless women, suffragists used the momentum to fight for, and eventually gain, the right to vote in 1920.

Although this amendment was a huge victory for women’s rights, the next few decades marked continuous discrimination, especially in the workplace. It was only until the late 1960’s, during the Civil Rights movement, when women began to notice the gender discrepancies they faced in the workplace. Besides being paid considerably less, women worked mostly as secretaries and assistants. Less than 3 percent of people working as business executives were women, mostly due to the lack of opportunities. Women could not get into the same colleges as men, and they therefore lacked the opportunities and resources men had access to. Additionally, the higher ups were almost always men as very few women were promoted in the workplace.

In the 1970s, the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment, which included the fight for equal workplace pay and opportunity, was at its peak. The amendment almost passed, but due to lack of public support, it was pushed off to a later time. To this day, the fight for the ERA continues. The presidency of Joe Biden has brought hope to many women who are still underpaid compared to their male counterparts.

This fight for equal rights expands much further than in the workplace, however. Women are not only fighting for equal pay, but also fighting for equal opportunity and equal respect. The male dominated workplace is changing rapidly to accommodate the exponentially increasing numbers of educated and capable women.