In March, a powerhouse group of women leaders will come together for the Newsweek/Daily Beast Women in the World Summit, a three-day event to discuss success stories, and remaining challenges, facing today's women. Nearly five decades after the passage of the U.S. Equal Pay Act, we look at some of the pivotal moments on the decades-long road to gender equality--and a fluctuating wage gap.
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Barbie gets a job other than modeling. Her first career? Registered nurse.
Wage gap: Women earn 59 cents to every male dollar.
Passage of the Equal Pay Act, which protects men and women who perform equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination. Here, receptionists take phone calls at the Western Electric company.
Wage gap: Women earn 59 cents to every male dollar.
Forty-six female NEWSWEEK employees become the first group of media professionals to sue for employment discrimination based on gender, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Their suit coincides with NEWSWEEK’s March 23, 1970 cover about feminism, “
Women in Revolt." From left: Pat Lynden, Mary Pleshette, ACLU attorney Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Lucy Howard at a 1970 press conference.
Wage gap: Women earn 59 cents to every male dollar.
The first issue of Ms. Magazine is released as a “one-shot” sample insert in New York Magazine. From left: cofounder Gloria Steinem, Freada Klein, and Karen Savigne at the Ms. Magazine office in New York.
Wage gap: Women earn 60 cents to every male dollar.
Tennis star Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs, a former Wimbledon men’s singles champion, in the “battle of the sexes” challenge match at the Astrodome in Houston. King was instrumental in the U.S. Open’s decision that year to pay men and women equally.
Wage gap: Women earn 57 cents to every male dollar.
Women surpass men in earning college degrees.
Wage gap: Women earn 62 cents to every male dollar.
Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
Wage gap: Women earn 64 cents to every male dollar
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. district court in Los Angeles, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rules that American Airlines, the last airline in the United States with inflexible weight rules for flight attendants, is violating federal sex- and age-discrimination laws.
Wage gap: Women earn 72 cents to every male dollar.
Anita Hill testifies under oath at Clarence Thomas’s Senate confirmation hearings that while he was her supervisor, Thomas had made provocative and harassing sexual statements.
Wage gap: Women earn 70 cents to every male dollar.
The fourth Thursday in April is declared Take Your Daughter to Work Day by the Ms. Foundation, an effort to expose teen girls to varied career options and help build their self-confidence. Here, three young girls sit through Hillary Clinton’s congressional testimony in April 2009.
Wage gap: Women earn 72 cents to every male dollar.
Oprah Winfrey is named No. 1 on Forbes magazine’s top 40 list of the world’s “highest-paid entertainers.”
Wage gap: Women earn 74 cents to every male dollar.
Madeleine Albright becomes the first female secretary of state.
Wage gap: Women earn 74 cents to every male dollar.
Harvard University president Lawrence H. Summers draws fire when he says at an academic conference that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers.
Wage gap: Women earn 77 cents to every male dollar.
Katie Couric, pictured here with CBS News president Sean McManus, takes the anchor chair at CBS, making her the first woman to host a network nightly news broadcast by herself.
Wage gap: Women earn 77 cents to every male dollar.
Nancy Pelosi becomes first female speaker of the House, the highest government position ever held by a woman. Here, Pelosi kicks off the 2009 session of Congress surrounded by congressional children.
Wage Gap: Women earn 78 cents to every male do.
President Obama, responding to a 2007 Supreme Court decision, signs into law the long-stalled Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which promises equal pay for equal work. Ledbetter, a retired Goodyear worker, is pictured standing directly behind the president.
Wage gap: As of 2008, women earn 77 cents to every male dollar.
2010: Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to win an Oscar for best director for The Hurt Locker.
Wage gap: As of 2008, women earn 77 cents to every male dollar.
