I took a little creative license with the title, but Maria Shriver in conjunction with the California Women’s Conference has launched a project in partnership with the Center for American Progress and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. The project, A Woman’s Nation, plans to take a comprehensive look at American women who for the first time in our history make up half of all workers, and are becoming the primary breadwinners in more families.
The media is all abuzz with these new statistics, but since I come from a family where at least as far back as two generations ago the women have been going to work everyday, it just didn’t seem all that surprising to me. But, bringing these statistics to light will definitely generate discussions surrounding traditional male/female roles, how we define family in the future, how social class and economics impact these statistics, and even how men and women define themselves.
The Women at Forty Project focuses on a snapshot of women from all over the world, taken in the fortieth year of their lives, and it will be interesting to hear how women in their forties receive this news compared to women in their twenties, thirties and sixties.
What are your thoughts on the newly released findings? Does it matter that women now make up half of the workforce and are surpassing men as primary breadwinners? Should it matter? Share your thoughts in the comment section, on our Facebook Fan page, or tweet your comments to @womenatforty.
PHOTO SOURCE: The Women’s Conference
