Research

Gender studies have proven that the United States still grapples with its history of systemic employment discrimination on women in the workforce. While solutions for employment equality have been made, organizations must continue generating informative conversations and making tangible decisions to increase the employment rights and representation of women in the workforce. Such discussions can encourage an array of complex organizations to confront gender discrimination in the workforce to increase employment equality for women and other marginalized communities.

In the past 60 years, the United States has seen significant progress in fostering gender equality in both the public and private sectors. In light of this progression, however, it has been proven that progress has continued to stagger for women. Since the Great Recession from 2010, the ratio of women’s to men’s employment has been stalled by at least 85 percent. While gender inequality has made substantial progress since the early 1960’s, data from recent decades have concluded that this progress has slowed, and on certain indications, have stalled entirely. Possible solutions to this matter include institutional, cultural, and policy changes. Gender discrimination has been demonstrated given: a woman’s pay; amount of education; field of study; years of employment experience, and; current occupation in the workforce. Two strong solutions have been found to employment equality for women, which are improving existing employment policies and creating early exposure opportunities in young girls.

Project Implementation & Results

I have planned, organized, and executed a Volunteer Day of Service event with non-profit organization Community Bridges to support professional development and early learning exposure in young girls. The event, named “The Community Bridges College-To-Careers Field Trip,” took place on Saturday, April 9th from 11:30-3:30pm on American University’s campus in Washington, DC. The event was a wonderful opportunity for girls to receive a tour of a university campus, explore useful university departments important to the college exploration process, engage in fun activities, and interact with current university students about their unique college experiences; academic interests; extracurricular activities, and; career interests.

After applications and interviews, I was gladly offered a community service grant from American University to support funding for this event. I was able to provide free university merchandise to the girls in attendance of the event to remember this special event.

Project Takeaways

This event was in conjunction with my research topic, gender discrimination and employment equality; support for professional development and early learning exposure in girls; passion to make a difference, and; application of leadership theories into practice. I have additionally chosen this project because I wanted to partner with an existing, experienced organization in the field of youth development, and connect with those directly in the community by gaining hands on experience in my research interest. Given the positive feedback that I have received from the students and staff at Community Bridges, the Volunteer Day of Service event was successful. Most importantly, I have learned from this experience that no matter our perception of our service, it will surely be impactful to those who appreciate it.