gender

In 1980, the wealthiest 10% of households owned 68% of the total US wealth. In 2007, the wealthiest 10% controlled 73% of the wealth. Similarly, in the 1970s, the average woman earned about 60% of what the average man would typically earn. Fortunately, the gender income gap has decreased since the 1970s, with women earning about 80% of that typically earned by men. Unfortunately, the gender income gap has hit a plateau that started in 2005 (Stanford Center On Poverty & Inequality, 2011).

Today, women are more likely to hold positions of power than they were decades ago. However, female leaders tend to be put under a microscope, facing more scrutiny than their male counterparts.

For example, Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo, was blamed for the many missteps in the company. As a young woman and a CEO, her social role as a woman and as a CEO may have been in conflict.

This conflict is not unique to Mayer, or even CEOs. Women in positions of power are assumed to immediately help other women come to power—but is that assumption true?

“Okay, so that’s our world,” said Alice Eagly, The Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) 2018 Annual Convention Legacy honoree, as she explained the broad differences in the division of labor across men and women that persist to this day. Eagly is perhaps best known for her work on how gender stereotypes emerge from the social roles men and women adopt. As Eagly explained, we learn about men and women from how labor is divided.

Women make up 50.8 percent of the U.S. population and have equal voting rights, yet are politically underrepresented. The country has never had a female president or vice president. Only 3.5 percent of Supreme Court justices have been women, and women make up only 20 percent of Congress.

What does the future hold? Our enduring fascination with predicting the future is reflected on the silver screen, as excitement builds over the Blade Runner sequel. We continue being mesmerized by ancient prophecies, such as Nostradamus' Quatrains. And we certainly pay very well to pundits, economists, and intelligence analysts who try to predict coming social, economic, and political events. Unfortunately, this abiding interest in prediction has not translated into the ability to forecast future events with much accuracy.