88 years later, women still not equal; local organization works for change

Eighteen years after the founding of the Center for Women, a Charleston-based advocacy organization focused on economic equality and civic action, the South Carolina Senate is 100 percent male, and men occupy 112 of 124 seats in the House, according to the latest information from the Legislature.

Statistics cited by the American Association of University Women reveal that, all things being equal, a typical female college graduate will earn, within two years, about 80 percent of her male counterpart (which foretells hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost income over the course of her life.)

Generally, women employed full-time earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to the National Women's Law Center. Black and Hispanic women earn even less: 64 percent and 52 percent of their white male counterpart, respectively.

Median annual earnings of women in South Carolina rank 37th nationally ($26,600 for women, compared to $36,400 for men), according to Law Center statistics. Slightly more than 30 percent of employed women in South Carolina hold managerial positions or professional occupations, putting the state 31st in this category nationally. About one-fourth of the state's businesses are women-owned. Twenty-nine other states have more women-owned businesses than South Carolina.

The nonprofit Center for Women, founded by Susan Parsons and Susan Lunsford in 1990 as a peer counseling service for women coping with life changes, now has about 700 members and an array of programs designed to educate and empower, Executive Director Jennet Robinson Alterman said.

The need for such advocacy remains great, she said, and the Center is attempting to draw attention to issues affecting women by screening the 2004 HBO movie "Iron Jawed Angels," starring Hillary Swank as suffragist Alice Paul. The screening, at the College of Charleston's Physician's Auditorium on Monday, precedes Women's Equality Day, the Aug. 26 commemoration of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which in 1920 granted women the right to vote after a 72-year organizing and lobbying effort by activists.

Over the years, the Center has secured high-profile supporters. In 2006, Oprah Winfrey gave the organization a $25,000 grant and promoted the Center's work publicly. Keynote speakers include the prominent feminist leader Gloria Steinem, businesswoman and philanthropist Darla Moore, author Sue Monk Kidd, New York Times editor Jill Abramson, Maryland's former lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Charlotte Beers, Texas businesswoman and former Undersecretary of State.

"When we ask these women (to speak) they all say yes," Alterman said. "They want to give back. They appreciate that in South Carolina the deck is stacked against women."

Read more in Sunday's Post and Courier.