For the first time in history, women make up half of the U.S. workforce and are the primary or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of all American families. Forty years ago, women made up only one-third of all workers.

Joanne Lipman
New York Times

FINALLY! I hear we’re all living in a women’s world now.

For the first time, women make up half the work force. The Shriver Report, out just last week, found that mothers are the major breadwinners in 40 percent of families. We have a female speaker of the House and a female secretary of state. Thirty-two women have served as governors. Thirty-eight have served as senators. Four out of eight Ivy League presidents are women.

Great news, right? Well, not exactly. In fact, it couldn’t be more spectacularly misleading.

The truth is, women haven’t come nearly as far as we would have predicted 25 years ago. Somewhere along the line, especially in recent years, progress for women has stalled. And attitudes have taken a giant leap backward.

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Maria Shriver
The Shriver Report
The Center for American Progress

Earlier this year, the Center for American Progress decided to closely examine the consequences of what we thought was a major tipping point in our nation’s social and economic history: the emergence of working women as primary breadwinners for millions of families at the same time that their presence on America’s payrolls grew to comprise fully half the nation’s workforce. In addition, we were watching the Great Recession amplify and accelerate these trends. We are in the midst of a fundamental transformation of the way America works and lives.

But my own interest wasn’t just academic. It sprang from a very personal source: my mother. My family wasn’t much like what we were watching on TV in the 1950s. My parents had a tag-team work life—my father working in a factory during the day; my mother in a pink-collar job from 5 p.m. until midnight. Like millions of families today, they juggled, struggled, nurtured, laughed a lot, and fought a little so that their kids could lead good lives and get ahead. I don’t think my mother ever really thought of herself as a trendsetter, but she was at the leading edge of a wave that shaped America in the last half of the 20th century—a wave we call “a woman’s nation.” Though she recently passed away, she still serves as a role model for my daughters.

So I was delighted when Maria Shriver, who cleverly conceived of the phrase “a woman’s nation,” came to me with the idea of combining a project she envisioned with CAP’s work and together producing a landmark examination of thisfundamental change in American society. We realized that Maria could add invaluable depth to the efforts underway because she recognized not only the enormous impact of these changes on the workplace, but their import for every aspect of the American life and culture, as well. A partnership was born, and it produced a document that goes far beyond the typical findings of your standard economic policy report.

This report brings together the relentless intellect of a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning journalist who pushes beyond statistics to fully reveal the complexity of women’s lives and the academic muscle of a progressive think tank that understands how to comb through data and illuminate the trends re-shaping the American landscape.

Read the full report here

Time Magazine

In the 1970s, a majority of children grew up with a stay-at-home parent; now that figure is less than a third. A large majority — 70% of men, 61% of women — believe this has had a negative effect on society. Fifty-seven percent of men and 51% of women agree that it is better for a family if the father works outside the home and the mother takes care of the children. Asked to rank what they value most for their own daughters, 63% of men and 56% of women put a happy marriage with children first; 17% of men and 23% of women said an interesting career; and 15% of men and 20% of women said financial success.

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Time Magazine

Fifty-five percent of women strongly agree that in households where both partners have jobs, women take on more responsibilities for the home and family than their male partners do; only 28% of men strongly agree. (Fifty-four percent of Latinos strongly agree, along with 52% of blacks and 38% of whites.) Sixty-nine percent of women say they are primarily responsible for taking care of their children; only 13% of men say this of themselves.

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Eighty-four percent of Americans agree (53% strongly) that businesses haven't done enough to address the needs of modern families.

Time

Eighty-four percent of Americans agree (53% strongly) that businesses haven't done enough to address the needs of modern families. Asked what would have to change to make it easier to balance work and marriage and children, 54% of women and 49% of men said more-flexible work hours or schedules; 15% of women and 17% of men said more paid time off; and 13% of women and 12% of men said better or more day-care options.

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Nancy Gibbs
Time Magazine

If you were a woman reading this magazine 40 years ago, the odds were good that your husband provided the money to buy it. That you voted the same way he did. That if you got breast cancer, he might be asked to sign the form authorizing a mastectomy. That your son was heading to college but not your daughter. That your boss, if you had a job, could explain that he was paying you less because, after all, you were probably working just for pocket money.

It's funny how things change slowly, until the day we realize they've changed completely. It's expected that by the end of the year, for the first time in history the majority of workers in the U.S. will be women — largely because the downturn has hit men so hard. This is an extraordinary change in a single generation, and it is gathering speed: the growth prospects, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are in typically female jobs like nursing, retail and customer service. More and more women are the primary breadwinner in their household (almost 40%) or are providing essential income for the family's bottom line. Their buying power has never been greater — and their choices have seldom been harder.

It is in this context that the Rockefeller Foundation, in collaboration with TIME, conducted a landmark survey of gender issues to assess how individual Americans are reacting. Is the battle of the sexes really over, and if so, did anyone win? How do men now view female power? How much resentment or confusion or gratitude is there for the forces that have rearranged family life, rewired the economy and reinvented gender roles? And what, if anything, does everyone agree needs to happen to make all this work? The study found that men and women were in broad agreement about what matters most to them; gone is the notion that women's rise comes at men's expense. As the Old Economy dissolves and pressures on working parents grow, they share their fears about what this means for their children and their frustration with institutions that refuse to admit how much has changed. In the new age, the battles we fight together are the ones that define us.

A Quiet Revolution

In the spring of 1972, TIME devoted a special issue of the magazine to assessing the status of women in the throes of "women's lib." At a time when American society was racing through change like a reckless teenager, feminism had sputtered and stalled. Women's average wages had actually fallen relative to men's; there were fewer women in the top ranks of civil service (under 2%) than there were four years before. No woman had served in the Cabinet since the Eisenhower Administration; there were no female FBI agents or network-news anchors or Supreme Court Justices. The nation's campuses were busy hosting a social revolt, yet Harvard's tenured faculty of 421 included only six women. Of the Museum of Modern Art's 1,000 one-man shows over the previous 40 years, five were by women. Headhunters lamented that it was easier to put a man on the moon than a woman in a corner office. "There is no movement," complained an activist who resigned her leadership position in the National Organization for Women two years after it was founded. "Movement means 'going someplace,' and the movement is not going anywhere. It hasn't accomplished anything."

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Cairo University students wearing niqab stand outside a university dormitory on Oct. 7

Octavia Nasr | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Editor, Mideast Affairs

The Arab Middle East teaches minorities some tough life lessons and shapes them in ways that might surprise you. While the effect of a conservative patriarchal society is expected to keep people under the thumb of tradition, culture and tribal and religious beliefs - sometimes too much oppression and control yields opposite results.

Having lived in several parts of the Middle East as a child, I learned that a woman doesn’t exist except as someone’s daughter, sister, wife or mother. Her opinion is not required, her emotions don’t count and she has no rights whatsoever – except those granted to her by a male.

With a few recent exceptions, an Arab woman’s testimony is not accepted in court. Most Arab women can’t travel outside their countries without permission from a male guardian, and most Arab women still can’t give nationality to their children. In Saudi Arabia women are not even allowed to drive cars. A popular Arabic saying describes it best: a good woman “has a mouth that eats but not one that speaks.”

The Arab Middle East taught me that sexual expression is exclusive to men. Men can have pre-marital sex, and when they’re married, their extra-marital affairs are ignored, justified or blamed on the wives. Their bodies are their own to do with them what they want. A woman’s body, however, represents her family’s honor. So, girls and women are expected to cover their bodies and repress their sexual feelings to protect the honor of the family.

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Peers of Roman Polanski have praised him for his talent and lamented his arrest.

Leslie Morgan Steiner
Special to CNN

Historically, women's rights and status in America have been viewed by both men and women as "soft" issues - worthy but marginal.

Real problems are the serious ones - financial crises, international confrontations, nuclear arms, trade disputes, Mafia murders, the Steelers/Ravens game (if it looks close). But ills that plague the daily lives of women like rape, incest, prostitution and domestic violence - not so much.

However, with Hillary Clinton perched atop the State Department, Michelle Obama in the White House, Oprah, Katie and Diane dominating television, and Arianna Huffington running the blogosphere, so-called "women's issues" may finally get the attention they deserve.

Which perhaps explains why a 76-year-old French man who pleaded guilty to "unlawful intercourse with a minor" 30 years ago is a front page news story and one of California's prosecutorial priorities despite the financial and international crises crippling various segments of our country and the world today.

Maybe you've not heard of Roman Polanski, the 76-year-old French-born filmmaker who directed "Rosemary's Baby," "Chinatown" and "The Pianist," for which he won an Oscar in 2002.

In 1943 he survived the Nazis in Krakow, Poland; in 1969 he survived the trauma left by the Charles Manson family, which murdered his wife Sharon Tate and their unborn child; in 1977 he also survived the American criminal justice system when he fled the United States before being sentenced after he was accused of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.

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Representatives from the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the interior ministry and the UNHCR at the workshop last month.

Charity Tooze
AC360° Contributor

Syria is making significant steps to protect the most vulnerable of Iraqi refugees – women and children who are trafficked or forced into prostitution.

Last month, Syrian government officials met with representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) for a three-day workshop. The purpose of the meeting was to develop laws for the rights and duties of refugees, train local officials on refugee issues and address the growing problem of human trafficking.

An anti-trafficking bill is currently working its way through the Syrian parliament. If passed, it will be the first law of its kind in the Middle East. There are also a number of projects under way to protect women who are trafficked into the country for sex tourism or indentured servitude.

“Women at risk are a priority for the Damascus [UNHCR] office especially in view of their increasing vulnerability to exploitation under economic duress,” said Farah Dakhlallah, public information officer for the UNHCR in Syria.

The anti-trafficking law has been working its way through parliament for more than a year. It includes provisions for victim compensation, the establishment of rehabilitation centers, punishment for beneficiaries (clients), and the creation of an independent administration within the ministry of interior affairs for combating human trafficking crimes.

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A woman wears traditionnal Muslim dress in Venissieux, near Lyon, France.

Arsalan Iftikhar
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com

First of all, I am no fan of the burqa…

Secondly, I am no fan of French President Nicholas Sarkozy…

I love France…Sarkozy, not so much…

Third (and most importantly), as an international human rights lawyer, I am no fan of any government in the world (whether it is France or Afghanistan) mandating what a person can (or cannot) wear as a free member of their society.

According to a media report in Reuters, a recent French study found that only 367 women in the entire nation of France wear Islamic veils (better known as a burqa) that completely cover their faces and bodies. This report severely undermines the position of right-wing politicians who are pushing for a ban on the garments.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has stopped short of backing a ban, but has recently said the veils were “not welcome” in France. The influential French newspaper Le Monde said that in light of the tiny number of women concerned, the idea of a ban should be dropped.

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