A reality check on Women's Equality Day

Today, August 26, is Women's Equality Day. It marks the anniversary of the passage in 1920 of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote.

We've come a long way in the past century, but we've still got a long way to go before we can enjoy full equality with our male counterparts.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) offers the following list of areas we need to work on:

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On average, women still only make $.77 for every dollar a man makes; for women of color the percentage is even less. The boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies are still overwhelmingly male. Working women have no guaranteed medical leave for childbirth, and are often discriminated against in promotions and salary.

A woman's right to safe, accessible, legal abortion is threatened as never before -- as is the availability of birth control and family planning services. One in six U.S. women is a victim of sexual assault, and for many women violence is a part of their daily lives.

Although the proportion of women in elected office is growing, we're still a far cry from parity in policymaking roles. Women make up just 16 percent of our representatives in Congress, 18 percent of governors, and only 23.5% of state legislators across the country.

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Articles 1 and 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights assert that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights ... without distinction of any kind, such as ... sex."

But here in the U.S., women are still second-class citizens in many ways.

And as long as the vast majority of power in this country is controlled by white men, I fear that we will remain second-class citizens for a long time to come.