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<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d6cd4a34-b03b-85b4-aaf9-cd4cc3e70877" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); vertical-align: baseline;">Secretary of State John Kerry said, “The United States believes gender equality is critical to our shared goals of prosperity, stability, and peace, and … investing in women and girls worldwide is critical to advancing U.S. foreign policy.” However, gender equality is not solely an international goal, it is an issue that is still faced in the United States today. &nbsp;The current issue of gender equality takes place in the workplace with the presence of a gender wage gap. President Obama addressed this ongoing issue wage disparity in his 2015 State of the Union Address. </span></p> <p> &nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;">The fight for equal rights for women, known as suffrage, began many years ago during the 1800s. In 1848, The Seneca Falls Convention was the first convention to discuss women’s rights. Historically, women have been oppressed and not given the equal rights as men. Groups such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the National Woman’s Party (NWP) were formed to support suffrage politically and socially. It was not until 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment that women obtained the right to vote. </span></p> <p> &nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); vertical-align: baseline;">In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, a federal law which aimed to eliminate the wage gap by prohibiting wage discrimination on the basis of sex. The law was quickly followed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to further outlaw discrimination based off race, religion, sex, and national origin. </span></p> <p> &nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); vertical-align: baseline;">A few years later, in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order </span><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;">11375, which banned sex-based discrimination in the workplace for federal and government contracted jobs. </span></p> <p> &nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;">Fast forward over half a century and there is still a disparity in the wages of men and women working similar jobs. While President Obama’s statement about women making 77 cents on the dollar in his 2014 State of the Union Address was not entirely correct (due to the fact it did not compare the wages of the same job, but rather the overall median income of all women working compared to men, the wage gap is still a very real thing. </span></p> <p> <br /> <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;">In 2014, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would strengthen equal pay laws, was blocked for the fourth time since 2011 by the GOP Senate members who fear it would negatively affect a women’s job prospects due to a potential employer’s fear of lawsuit (</span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/15/paycheck-fairness-act_n_5825644.html" style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/15/paycheck-fairness-act_n_5825644.html</span></a><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;">) . The GOP also stands by their decision not to pass the bill on the basis that gender-based discrimination is already illegal.&nbsp;</span></p>