This Week's Facts:

-Story Project Celebrates Extraordinary Hoosier Women

-NASA Program Profiles Agency's Female Leaders

-Women's Bureau Promotes Gender Equality in Workforce

-Census Highlights Women's History Month by the Numbers

-Celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th

Timeline Highlights Historic Firsts for Hoosier Women

The Commission for Women has also compiled a Timeline of Women's "Firsts," which features names librarians and patrons may not have discovered before in Indiana history. Here are a few, through the decades: Miss Mary Harry Peacock, the first woman admitted to practice before the Indiana Supreme Court; Adele Ida Storck, the first woman admitted to the Indianapolis Bar Association (1921); Arcada Stark Balz, the first woman elected to the Indiana Senate (1942); Dorothy Gardner, the first woman to hold the office of Indiana Auditor (1961); Z. Mae Jimison, the first African-American woman judge in Indianapolis (1988); and Una Mae Reck, the first female chancellor at Indiana University South Bend (July 1, 2002).

Celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th

Women all over the United States will unite on March 8^th to celebrate International Women’s Day. The theme for this year is Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures. Every year, around the world, International Women’s Day acknowledges the economic, political, and social achievements of women. International Women’s Day has been observed since the early 1900s. It was a time of turbulence and also a time of growth in the population, industry, and a rise in the idea that women had a voice and deserved to be heard. International Women’s Day has events all over the world to acknowledge the achievements and accomplishments of women and girls. If you don’t find an event in your town or city, you can create your own celebration! 

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Friday Facts Editorial Team:

Katharine Springer
State Data Center Coordinator

Elisabeth Hedges
Federal Documents Librarian
&
Kim Brown-Harden
State Documents Coordinator

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Story Project Celebrates Extraordinary Hoosier Women 

Every woman has a story. The Indiana Commission for Women  is celebrating women in Indiana with the Writing Her Story Project. These stories are from women in Indiana who do extraordinary things every day. The articles come from women across different occupations, backgrounds, and experiences. This series of articles will hopefully inspire and motivate you, your patrons, and members of your family. You may find that you have some things in common with one or more of these inspirational Hoosier women. The Commission has a blog with more stories, programs, and initiatives including listening sessions and surveys of women across Indiana. Hopefully these stories will encourage you to start telling your own stories. You can be an inspiration to your family, friends, and your community.  

NASA Program Profiles Agency's Female Leaders

With the idea to encourage young women to pursue careers in math, science & technology, NASA has developed the Women@NASA project. Women@NASA profiles 32 women around the agency who contribute to its mission in a variety of ways. Users can read essays and watch videos on these women and find out their stories, both on their struggles to get to where they are and what they do now that they’re here. You can also take a look at their blog, which focuses on other women in important science and military positions. Finally, be sure to check out Aspire 2 Inspire, which specifically focuses on women in science, technology, engineering, and math. Listen to women discuss the important projects they’re working on and how they’re contributing to the scientific community.

Women's Bureau Promotes Gender Equality in Workforce

Established by Public Law 259 in 1920, the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor has the objective to “formulate standards and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment.” In order to do this, they conduct studies, encourage good practices, and promote key legislation and regulations the focus on issues that women in the labor force face. Throughout their history they have conducted investigations of women’s labor issues in particular states – in fact, Governor James Goodrich of Indiana was the first to request one. Through the years the Bureau has focused on “Standards for the Employment of Women,” as well as offering advice for women joining the workforce, whether right after high school, right after college, or in later periods of their lives. Current major issues include balancing family life and work and protecting women against discrimination in the workplace. For a more complete history of the Bureau, see their history page.

Census Highlights Women's History Month by the Numbers

National Women’s History Month’s roots go back to March 8, 1857, when women from New York City factories staged a protest over working conditions. International Women’s Day was first observed in 1909, but it wasn’t until 1981 that Congress established National Women’s History Week to be commemorated the second week of March. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a month. Every year since, Congress passed a resolution for Women’s History Month, and the President issued a proclamation.

Jobs: 58.6% percent of females 16 and older participated in the labor force, representing about 71.9 million women, in 2010. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey: Annual Average 2010

Earnings: The median annual earnings of women 15 or older who worked year-round, full time, in 2010, was $36,931 - unchanged from 2009. Source: Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010

Education: 30.7 million women 25 and older have obtained a bachelor’s degree or more in 2010, higher than the corresponding number for men (29.2 million). Women had a larger share of high school diplomas (including equivalents), as well as associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees. More men than women had a professional or doctoral degree. Source: Educational Attainment in the United States: 2010  

Business: The number of people employed by businesses owned by women in 2007 was 7.5 million. Nearly half of all women-owned businesses (45.9 percent) operated in repair and maintenance; personal and laundry services; health care and social assistance; and professional, scientific and technical services. Women-owned businesses accounted for 52.0 percent of all businesses operating in the health care and social assistance sector. Source: Survey of Business Owners: Women-Owned Businesses: 2007

Military: The total number of active duty women in the military, as of Sept. 30, 2010, was 205,500. Of that total, 38,700 women were officers, and 166,800 were enlisted. Source: U.S. Department of Defense, Selected Manual Statistics, annual, and unpublished data.

Voting: 46.2% of female citizens 18 and older reported voting in the 2010 congressional election. Forty-five percent of their male counterparts cast a ballot. Additionally, 66.6 percent of female citizens reported being registered to vote. Source: Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2010 

Editor’s note: The preceding data were collected from a variety of sources and may be subject to sampling variability and other sources of error. Questions or comments should be directed to the Census Bureau’s Public Information Office: telephone: 301-763-3030; fax: 301-763-3762; or e-mail: pio@census.gov.

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