Some Are Still More Equal than Others on Women's Equality Day

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August 26 should see citizens in the United States celebrating Women's Equality Day, the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the vote, but at a time of great social unrest in the U.S. many are questioning how much can women really celebrate. 

The statistics in teleSUR's infographic highlight that far from gaining equality, women in North America actually face all the contrary.

President Obama's proclamation about Women's Equality Day claims “women are succeeding like never before,” rallying people to "celebrate the achievements of women."

The White House even released a “fact sheet” lauding its achievements in the realm of women's equality.

“When women succeed, America succeeds,” the president said.

But women aren't succeeding. There “is still more work to do and more doors of opportunity to open,” Obama acknowledged. He attributes this to “outdated policies and old ways of thinking,” but that isn't the full story.

Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky Secretary of State and Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate looks at women in politics for Huffington Post. “Since Secretary Albright was appointed,” she writes “our country has had more female secretaries than male.” In Lundergan Grimes' state, women make just 76 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Lundergan Grimes points out that depite the fact the U.S. has more women than men, just 20 percent of senators are female. “It's the women who are getting things done in the U.S. Senate,” she writes, attributing the ending of a recent government shut down to collaboration between female politicians.

Women's Equality Day is celebrated in “workplaces, libraries, organizations, and public facilities […] putting on programs, displays, video showings, or other activities,” writes the National Women's History Project.

The Women's Rights Movement collects organizations striving for equality under the headings of education, politics and law, religion, work, social reform and health. There is not much these headings don't cover. For women in the U.S., there is still a long way to go.

As columnist John Baer writes in the Philadelphia Daily News: “enjoy 'Women's Equality Day' -- if not actual equality.”