What Do Women See Happening Over The Coming Decades?

What do women expect to see happen over the coming decades? What do they want to see happen? This blog is based on a review of numerous articles and studies published over the past two years and presents the following major findings. This important subject is something we should all take the time to examine a bit more closely. Lets start with some high level US and Global demographics.
 
Global Demographics

• According to a UN press release, the world’s population is set to grow by 2.2 billion between now and 2050, and more than half of that growth - 1.3 billion - is likely to be in sub-Saharan Africa, where women’s rights are hampered by limited access to education, healthcare and contraception.
• The UN has noted that women represent 60% of the poorest in the world, less than 16% of parliament members, two-thirds of the illiterate and are subject to systematic violence, both in armed conflicts and in the privacy of their own homes.

• Anti-Slavery International reports that 71% of overall victims of modern slavery – nearly 30 million – are estimated to be women and girls. Forced sexual exploitation or forced marriages account for as many as 99% of victims, some as young as five years old.

• The World Economic Forum notes that a UN study says countries need about $264 billion - the equivalent cost of 110 military aircraft - to end maternal deaths, gender based violence, child marriage, and provide family planning to all women by 2030.
• According to the World Economic Forum, global gender equality will not be achieved until the year 2221. That timeline needs to change dramatically.

* Read Equality 2050 | The Remarkable Woman and the UN Report on “The Future Women Want”

US Demographics

• By 2050, the population of the US will climb to approximately 400 million people.
• According to the Census Bureau, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics and other racial minorities will make up a majority of the US population by the year 2050.
• By 2050, the female population will climb to over 200 million people.
• In 2050, there will be 7.5 million more women than men in the US.
• Women’s inflation-adjusted earnings have increased nearly 14 percent since 1979, whereas men’s have declined by about 7 percent.
• By 2050, fewer than 2 out of 5 people will be likely to get married in the US.
• Women in the US continue to report they intend to have more than two children on average, but data indicates that women are delaying having children until later in life.

* Read Views of America's future in 2050 | Pew Research Center

Definition of Women's Rights: The rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide, and which formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movement during the 20th century. Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include the right to bodily integrity and autonomy; to be free from sexual violence; to vote; to hold public office; to enter into legal contracts; to have equal rights in family law; to work; to fair wages or equal pay; to have reproductive rights; to own property; to education.

Global Expectations

The following are selected excerpts from the UN Statement on Women and Gender Equality in the World and Women Leading the World to 2030 – UN Foundation Report on Business & Sustainable Development

• The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action is a comprehensive global blueprint for gender equality and women’s empowerment. Unequal representation in politics, economy and other areas is one of the leading problems of gender inequality identified by all countries. No country has yet fully achieved gender equality.
• Power relations between men and women must change profoundly for progress to be made this century. Heads of State, CEOs, religious and cultural leaders, and parents must all be partners in the pursuit of gender equality across the globe.
• Women must participate equally in all areas including conflict prevention and resolution, climate change negotiations, in community planning, in family decisions, in collective action.
• By 2050, it is expected that all men and women have equal rights and access to economic resources and financial services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, new technology and more.

• By 2050, we need to ensure equal access for all women and men across the globe to affordable and quality technical, vocational. college and tertiary education. We need to ensure that all youth and adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.
• By 2050, we need to ensure that all women across the globe have access to health services and contraception. Lack of access to contraception in developing nations is a key issue that ought to be resolved as soon as possible.
• The world must eliminate the “global epidemic” of violence against women and girls, forced marriage, and other ongoing dehumanizing violations of human rights for women.
• The world must understand and confront the growing conservative and extremist resistance to gender equality. We see this in ongoing attacks on girls’ education, women’s public participation and women’s control over their bodies.

* Read the UN reports on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality Index: Not one single country set to achieve gender equality by 2030

US Expectations

The following are selected excerpts from multiple articles and reports on women’s future expectations through 2050.

• Nearly nine-in-ten (87%) predict that a woman will be elected US President by 2050.
• By 2050, the number of women in Congress and state legislatures should equal the number of elected male officials. See Center for American Women & Politics
• By 2050, women will be much better represented in both the public and private sector. They will be paid the same as men, will be better supported in their home and work life, and the glass ceiling will be a steadily fading memory.
• By 2050, women will continue to dominate in higher education and outnumber men on college campuses over the coming decades.

• Additional legislation will be passed and enforced to ensure equal pay and guarantees of gender equality across the US related to terms and conditions of employment, sexual harassment, parental leave, childcare, representation in corporate boardrooms and more.
• By 2050, women should no longer be penalized for choosing between a career or focusing on family as they move through life.
• By 2050, we will have done away with the outdated concept that someone needs to be in their office from 9 to 5 to work effectively and productively. When that happens, prejudice against working mothers will disappear and it will be accepted that both men and women want and need more flexibility in their work life.

* Read excerpts from What the Workplace for Women will look like in 2030

Additional Perspectives on the Future of Women in the Workforce by 2050

• Many of the needs and practical tools for the future of women in business are outlined in The Women’s Manifesto.
• A study from the Family Wealth Advisors Council estimates that more women are coming into inheritances because of longevity and demographic patterns. An estimated two-thirds of all US. wealth will be in the hands of women by 2030.
• More married women are joining single-parent women in becoming the financial heads of their households in the US.
• The number of women-owned businesses will continue to more than double over the next 20 years. The percentage of female senior executives, business owners, and entrepreneurs who are accumulating substantial wealth is rising steadily. There are also more women in the global workforce than ever before, at all ages and income levels
• Research from the Boston Consulting Group estimates that as women continue to become more educated, they’ll earn higher incomes. By 2050, it’s expected that in the US the average woman will earn more than the average man.

• Women stand to gain in job quantity from future growth in female-dominated occupations in care. However, concerns remain about job quality and poor wages.
• As the US population ages, labor economists predict a sharp rise in the number of care-based jobs in the years ahead. Roles like home health aid, medical assistants, and child care workers are projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to grow substantially by 2030.

• Employers will need to provide family-friendly solutions for working people who need flexibility for child care and elder care. These solutions may include part-time employment, telecommuting, flexible business hours and more.

* Read the 2019 Report on Equal Measures 2030 and The Future of Women at Work: Transitions in the Age of Automation

Selected Links List of Women's Organizations - Wikipedia Association for Women's Rights in Development Center for American Women & Politics International Center for Research on Women LeanIn.Org National Organization for Women (NOW) National Women’s Law Center UN Women.Org WomanKind.Org

Declaration of Women's Rights from 1848 Convention at Seneca Falls, NY

The "Declaration of Sentiments" was signed in July 1848 at the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. This historic resolution called not just for women's right to vote in the America, but also for women's right to equal pay and the right to attend college. Now, over 165 years later, we may see the first woman elected to be the President of the U.S.A.

Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

Woman's Rights Convention, Held at Seneca Falls, 19-20 July 1848

http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/docs/seneca.html

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise [Voting Rights].
• He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
• He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.
• Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.
• He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
• He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.
• He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.
• He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women—the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.
• After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.
• He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.
• He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.
• He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education—all colleges being closed against her.
• He allows her in Church as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.
• He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.
• He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.
• He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation,—in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration.

[At an evening session] Lucretia Mott offered and spoke to the following resolution:

Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.

The Resolution was adopted.

Report of the Woman's Rights Convention, Held at Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19th and 20th, 1848 (Rochester, 1848).

Prominent Women in the History of Summerton and Clarendon County, S.C.

The following are brief profiles on some of the more prominent women in the history of the Town of Summerton and Clarendon County, South Carolina:

Elizabeth Peyre Richardson Manning (1794-1873) was the niece, wife, sister, mother, aunt and grandmother of six South Carolina governors. The town of Manning was named after her son, John Lawrence Manning.

Elizabeth Manning was the niece of Governor James Burchell Richardson, the wife of Governor Richard Irvine Manning, the sister of Governor John Peter Richardson, the mother of Governor John Lawrence Manning, the aunt of Governor John Peter Richardson, and the grandmother of Governor Richard Irvine Manning.

Peggy Parish (1927-1988) was an American writer known best for the children's book series and fictional character Amelia Bedelia. Peggy was born in Manning, South Carolina, attended the University of South Carolina, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Parish became a household name by the time her final work, "Amelia Bedelia's Family Album", was published before her death in 1988.  See Wikipedia.

Althea Gibson (1927-2003) was born on August 25, 1927, in the town of Silver in Clarendon county, South Carolina. In 1930, during the Great Depression, her family decided to move to Harlem, New York.

By 1939, at the age of 12, she was the New York City women's paddle tennis champion. In 1941 she entered—and won—her first tournament, the American Tennis Association (ATA) New York State Championship. She won the ATA national championship in the girls' division in 1944 and 1945. She then went on to win the ATA national championship for women.

In 1956, Althea Gibson, a native of Clarendon county, became the first black person to win a Tennis Grand Slam title (French Open). The following year she won both Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals (U.S. Open), then won both again in 1958, and was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years. In all she won 11 Grand Slam tournaments, including six doubles titles, and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.  See Wikipedia.

Anne Worsham Richardson (1919-2012) was born in Clarendon county in 1919. She began painting at an early age and at 16 moved to Charleston and began specializing in bird paintings. She painted thousands of works and held shows across the country. Her painting “Carolina Wren and Yellow Jessamine” hangs in the Statehouse and represents the official State Bird and Flower. She also painted the State Butterfly (“Yellow Swallow-tailed with Wild Azalea”).

She was inducted into the S.C. Hall of Fame in 1991. She was a member of the Carolina Art Association, Charleston Artist Guild, Guild of South Carolina Artists, Charleston Natural History Society, National Audubon Society and Carolina Bird Club.

She was the owner of Birds I View Gallery on Church Street and the widow of John P. Paszek. Anne Worsham Richardson Paszek died in 2012 at the age of 92.

Anne Curtis Burgess (1874-1910) composed the music for the state song "Carolina", based on a poem by Henry Timrod. Miss Burgess graduated from Converse College and became a music teacher. She lived in Summerton, S.C. from 1881-1910. 

Marion McKnight was born December 19, 1936, in Manning, South Carolina. This former beauty pageant contestant won the Miss America title in 1957. As an actress, Marian has appeared in numerous television shows and countless commercials. As a public relations director or spokesperson, Marian has represented such notable companies as Revlon, Evan-Piccone, Philco, and General Foods. She married actor Gary Conway in 1958. They have two children and are owners of the Carmody McKnight winery.

Pansy Ridgeway became the first woman to be elected mayor of Manning in 1969. She served as mayor of Manning from 1970–96 and was the third woman elected mayor in South Carolina and the first woman elected president of the South Carolina Municipal Association. In 1982, Manning city hall was renamed the Pansy Ridgeway Administrative Building in her honor.

Dr. Sylvia Clark worked as a teacher, child welfare worker, school principal and Clarendon School District 2 superintendent. She was named as the Outstanding Elementary Principal for South Carolina in 1983 and South Carolina School Superintendent of the Year in 1994. Under her leadership, Manning Primary School was named a National Center of Excellence in 1984.Clark holds a B.A., M.Ed. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of South Carolina.

Betty Roper began her professional career in Clarendon County in broadcasting, as the owner of the popular WHLZ-FM, better known as "Wheels 92.5" and other radio stations. Roper also had a long political career, serving on Clarendon County Council for years. In 1988 she became the first woman ever elected to chair the County Council, a position she held for three terms.
 
Ms. Roper has been recognized by the South Carolina Broadcasters Association and included in the South Carolina Broadcasters Hall of Fame. In 1992 she received the SC Order of the Palmetto from Gov. Carroll Campbell and in 2002 was named Business Professional of the Year by the Clarendon County Chamber of Commerce.

Julia Nelson completed Senator Johnson’s term as Manning's mayor when he was elected Representative and she was unopposed in the next election. Julia Nelson was the first Black female to hold the position of Mayor in the City of Manning.

Other notable women include: Frances Richbourg, Clarendon county's first female fire chief; Edna Eagerton, S.C. Mother of the Year in 1996; Chief Summary Court Judge Annelle Powell, and many others. Visit the Historic Clarendon County web site.

If you would like to suggest additions to this list, let us know and share your suggestion with our readers.