Tucson Professor Fights for Women in the Workforce

As a society, we've come a long way in the past century. Technology has advanced beyond our wildest dreams, we've been to space, and we have the resources to cure most diseases.

In those hundred years though, we've made pitiful attempts to close the gender gap. Despite the 19th amendment being ratified, which many consider the peak of the women's suffrage movement, professional women are still kept at a disadvantage to their male counterparts.

One University of Arizona professor wants to turn the tide.

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The State of Women in the Workforce

As of 2023, only 10% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were women. This figure was a record high for women, but still stands as a huge sign that we need to do better.

One of the biggest fields that women must face challenges in is finance, a field dominated by ex-frat boys and nepotism babies. There is a huge gap between the women and men in this field, which is highlighted by the only 6% of women that hold top positions in financial institutions.

Fight Like a Girl

Dr. Mary Rigdon is a professor and researcher at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and she's had enough of women being treated like second class workers. Through her own experiences, she realized that women were set up to fail when entering the workforce.

Because of this realization, she has dedicated her life to changing the system that view women as lesser, and it starts with the companies. She noticed that the gender pay gap, thought to be long gone, still exists, it just targets minority women now.

The road is long and winding, but Dr. Rigdon has travelled that path before, and through her hard work, she thinks she can finally uproot the system that's  put her and her sisters down time and time again.