As we shut Girls’s Historical past Month, we have a good time the numerous highly effective girls who’ve contributed to our Nation, regardless of the boundaries which will exist and those they needed to overcome. This month has been particularly significant as I’ve had sturdy girls round me my complete life. I used to be raised by a single mom and seemed as much as my older sister as she trailblazed in her authorized profession in public curiosity. I’m deeply grateful to the numerous feminine function fashions who opened a path for me and lots of others. As Vice President Kamala Harris says, “First however not the final” and I hope to do the identical for the numerous girls who will come after me.
On the U.S. Division of Well being & Human Companies’ (HHS) Workplace for Civil Rights (OCR), we replicate on the work forward of us to handle discrimination and disparities and advance gender fairness and equality in our nation’s well being and human providers packages.
Girls make up half of the U.S. inhabitants. From suffragists and abolitionists, to our first feminine Vice President, our nation has skilled centuries of progress in direction of gender equality. But, challenges and inequalities persist:
Girls proceed to earn lower than their male counterparts. Whereas Equal Pay Day on March 12, 2024 marks how far right into a subsequent yr girls, on common, should work to earn a person’s earnings from the earlier yr, pay disparities are extra pronounced for Black girls, girls of coloration, and girls with disabilities. Latinas, who face the biggest wage hole, should work into December of the next yr to earn a non-Latino white man’s earnings.
The U.S. has the best maternal mortality fee amongst high-income nations, although most are preventable. Black girls and Native American girls face increased threat of affected by maternal deaths. Progressive actions to enhance maternal well being and delivery outcomes for pregnant and postpartum girls are essential to remove these disparities.
Transgender girls report increased charges of violent victimization than cisgender girls.
I be part of President Biden in his name issued in his Proclamation on Girls’s Historical past Month, 2024, “could all of us proceed working to construct a world worthy of the goals and objectives of all girls and ladies.”
OCR enforces a variety of federal privateness legal guidelines and antidiscrimination legal guidelines that shield affected person privateness, together with those that want entry to care, girls who’re pregnant, girls with disabilities, or girls who determine as LGBTQI+.
As a part of my workplace’s work on nondiscrimination and dedication to justice, a few of OCR’s current efforts embody:
OCR can also be a various workforce and I need to take a second to acknowledge a few of its girls leaders:
Jenny Ma serves as OCR’s Principal Deputy Director.
Genevieve Kelly is serving because the Performing Chief of Employees.
Robinsue Frohboese is the Deputy Director of Strategic Planning.
The vast majority of OCR’s eight Areas nationwide are led by girls (six):
Jamie Rahn Ballay, Regional Supervisor, Mid-Atlantic Area
Linda Colón, Regional Supervisor, Jap & Caribbean Area
Andrea Oliver, Regional Supervisor, Rocky Mountain Area
Susan Rhodes, Regional Supervisor, New England Area
Marisa Smith, Regional Supervisor, Southwest Area
Barbara Stampul, Regional Supervisor, Southeast Area
I so admire the numerous contributions of the ladies that work at OCR to advance privateness and civil rights, and the numerous girls throughout the nation who work to make well being care extra accessible, reasonably priced, and higher for all. Their arduous work every single day conjures up me to do extra.
Melanie
