More people seem to agree with the ideas that women and men should have equal opportunities, and equal pay for equal work, than agree with some of the more radical ideas of the women's movement. Still, it is difficult to determine what comprises equal opportunity, as is apparent from many of the controversies surrounding the implementation of Title IX in college sports. Is gender equality primarily about equal numbers? What does gender equality look like, or has it been accomplished in this country or elsewhere in the world?
One of the first tasks is to define the concept of gender equality, and gender inequality, but this is not easy to do. Perhaps the best way to think about issues of gender equality and gender inequality is in terms of numbers, although these cannot give us detailed information about quality of experience. In its simplest form, gender inequality is gender discrimination that is enforced either by law or social practice that results in differential pay, promotions, jobs, education, and other forms of representation of men and women. In other words, if there is more scholarship money for men than women, that is gender inequality. If there are fewer women than men in law schools, that is gender inequality. If women obtain a smaller percentage of the Ph.D.'s, that is gender inequality. In other countries, if women have lower literacy rates and higher mortality rates, that is gender inequality, too. The easiest way to understand, and change, gender inequality is to look at the numbers.
In the United States, however, many people no longer want to do that. There has been somewhat of a backlash against the women's movement, and some people deny that there are still any real obstacles in the way of women's equal opportunity.
According to Deborah Rhode (1997), that is not the case. Her compilation focuses on the way in which gender is still the most significant factor in determining people's destiny. ...