Six women, each from different professional backgrounds, fielded questions during “Women — Where are We Going” to discuss their own experiences in advancing feminism.

The discussion featured the struggles of women from the 1960s, as presented in The Heidi Chronicles, to the present day struggles in women’s rights.

Members of the panel stressed that to reach the point where women hold more leadership positions or have the top jobs, without it being out of the ordinary, men must be included in the conversation, as both groups mutually impact each other.

Lisa Bass, assistant professor in the College of Education, said, with respect to the gender dichotomy from an economic standpoint, men are going to have to move out of the way, as both groups fight for scarce resources, especially jobs.

Throughout the discussion, members of the panel shared past experiences pertinent to the struggles they endured during their professional careers.

One panel member even talked about her encounter with sexual harassment in a previous workplace. 

Deborah Brown, a lecturer in the Poole College of Management, shared with the audience her experience as an 18-year-old having one of her bosses invite her into his office and rubbing his crotch against her arm.

Brown also talked about an experience in the 1980s in which men had a hard time seeing women with any power when it came to money and budgets and anything considered “manly.”

An employer would refuse to call Brown by her proper job title in front of the visiting corporate officers of the company because she was a woman, and her boss was afraid that corporate bosses would not like the idea a woman was running the businesses’ purchasing orders, prompting her to leave that company.

Women have seen improvement in equality since the ‘60s and currently there are more women graduating with college degrees than men. This is most likely an effect from the passage of Title IX in 1972, which made it illegal for any discrimination based on gender for participation in anything that was funded by federal money, making its success for women’s education, according to the panel.

Members of the panel said they hope that more college-educated women translates to more women holding leadership roles in the future and that it will lead to changing the normal, white male-dominated leadership structure and that wage gaps will be eliminated.

“There are many more opportunities for my daughter than I had,” said Janet Rakes, career counselor for the Poole College of Management. “We have a long way to go, but we have come a long way too.”

The moderator for the event asked the panelists questions such as “Who is your role model and why?” Each member answered that her mother was her role model, except Rakes

“Rosa Parks was an ordinary person that did something so seemingly small by sitting down and refusing to get up,” Rakes said. “She did something important in civil rights and showed that anyone can do anything no matter what.”