Facts about Women in the United States

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Educational Attainment, source: Census Bureau

Since when is Women’s Soccer Officially Allowed?

Soccer reached the American continent only relatively late. That women were not officially permitted to play soccer in the USA, is not a known fact. Only in the late seventies the first teams were established on a college level, the first national college tournament was held in 1981 at the Colorado College. In the nineties, soccer started to boom. 1996 women’s soccer became an Olympic sport; the USA won the first Gold Medal.

How many Active Players are Organized in Federations?

At high schools alone, more than 337,000 girls are playing soccer; more than 10,500 schools offer soccer for girls. Currently, there are about 700 women’s teams at US colleges and universities. As per estimates, a total of about 18 million Americans of both genders play organized soccer, almost half of them girls and women.

What is the Top Number of Spectators in US Women’s Soccer ever Recorded?

90,115 spectators in 1999 at the final game of the Soccer World Cup: USA against China

Average Income of Women

Women represent 46.8 percent of all employed persons in the US. 74 percent work fulltime, 26 percent in part-time jobs. The average weekly income of fulltime employed women was $657 in 2009, which is 80 percent of the $819 that men earned on average. In 1979 therefore women only earned 62 cents for every dollar man received.

Source: www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2009.pdf and http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cwg/data-on-women

Percentage of Women with Graduate and Post-Graduate Degrees

Women are without a doubt leading in the American educational landscape—even though this isn’t yet reflected in the salaries. According to the “Bureau of Labor Statistics” one in four women aged 23 has a Bachelor degree, whereas only one in seven men do (14 percent).
Of the Masters graduates aged 25 to 29, exactly 59 percent were female in 2009, of those, 55.6 percent have a Doctor’s degree (Census Bureau).

Source: Census Bureau

Is Same-Sex Marriage legal?

On a US federal level same-sex marriage was declared unconstitutional in 1996. However, some Federal States have granted same-sex couples the right to marriage over the last few years. (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, District of Columbia (DC)). In Maryland the government will vote on this issue some time in spring. Since these marriages are not recognized by the Federal Authorities, married same-sex couples continue to be disadvantaged as far as immigration and tax law questions are concerned.

Adoption Law for Same-Sex Partnerships?

Within the United States adoption by same-sex couples is permitted in 21 federal states (Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin), as well as the District of Columbia (DC). 

Domestic Violence

Because of the high number of unreported cases the number of women suffering from domestic violence is probably much higher than the official statistics suggest. According to them, in 2005, 1,181 women were murdered by their partner which is one third of all women violently murdered in the USA this year. Spouses or life partners were responsible for 23 percent of the violence against women cases in 2008.

Particularly affected by non-fatal domestic violence are young women between 20 and 24 years of age. Annually three to four million women are beaten at home by their partner or ex-partner (Senate hearing, December 1990). Poor women are more frequently affected than women from the middle or upper class, black women more frequently than white women. The rate is highest among American Indians.

Source: http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html