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Penn Law International Dean speaks about findings of 2015 Report on the Status of Women and Girls

March 30, 2015

Penn Law's Associate Dean for International Programs, Rangita de Silva de Alwis, was one of several notable women leaders at the release ...
Penn Law’s Associate Dean for International Programs, Rangita de Silva de Alwis, was one of several notable women leaders at the release of the 2015 Report on the Status of Women and Girls in California.
Rangita de Silva de Alwis, Penn Law’s Associate Dean for International Programs, was one of a number of women leaders who spoke at the release of the 2015 Report on the Status of Women and Girls in California.

On March 19, Penn Law’s Associate Dean for International Programs, Rangita de Silva de Alwis, was one of a group of women leaders who spoke at Mount Saint Mary’s University for the release of the 2015 Report on the Status of Women and Girls in California.

Mount Saint Mary’s University, a women’s university in Los Angeles, released the findings of the report during an event which drew over 1,000 attendees.

Along with de Silva de Alwis, speakers included Academy Award-winning actor Geena Davis — who also founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media — and best-selling author Sheryl WuDunn, the first Asian-American reporter to win a Pulitzer Prize.

The report covered a wide array of topics, from education and political representation to poverty and violence.

In education, the report found that — in California — women hold 52 percent of all college degrees, including associate’s degrees, and hold 51 percent of all degrees at the baccalaureate level and higher.

But at the post-graduate level, women hold 45 percent of all professional practice degrees, and 38 percent of all research/scholarship degrees. Bachelor’s degrees in the STEM fields are largely held by men, with the greatest disparity occurring in engineering, where only 15 percent of undergraduate degrees are held by women.

And while women represent a majority of workers in healthcare practitioner and technical operations; sales and office occupations; and education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations, the largest gender imbalances exist in STEM fields and in occupations that require physical labor.

In the legal field, women represent 74 percent of legal support workers, yet account for only 36 percent of lawyers and judicial clerks and 26 percent of judges and magistrates. 

Across occupations, women are consistently paid less than men. In California, the gender wage gap is 84 cents on the dollar, compared to 79 cents on the dollar across the United States.

And in general, women in California earn less than men, have fewer occupational opportunities, are less likely to hold high-paying jobs, and are less likely to occupy leadership positions.

In California, 18 percent of women live in poverty, compared to 16 percent of men, and women are more likely to live in extreme poverty (having an income less than 50 percent of the federal poverty level). In addition, one out of every four African-American women, Alaska Native/Native American women, and Latinas live in poverty in California.

An estimated 40 percent of California women have experienced physical intimate partner violence, compared to 33 percent of women across the United States.

From 2006–2010, the number of women who were victims of homicide decreased, but the percentage of homicides committed by an intimate partner increased. Three percent of men who were victims of homicide were killed by an intimate partner; the rate was 39 percent for women.

And in California, a reported 2 million females have been raped over their lifetimes. The rate of forcible rape has been decreasing, however, and in 2013 was down approximately 17 percent from 2009.

Mount Saint Mary’s University issues the Report on the Status of Women and Girls in California each year to explore gender gaps that impact women and girls throughout the state. This was the first time that the Report examined the gender gaps through a global lens.

“Globally, women constitute 51 percent of the population and on average constitute 21 percent of the legislative bodies of the world,” said de Silva de Alwis. “If these numbers are low, the numbers of women at the policymaking and peace making table are even lower. Of the 300 peace treaties signed after the end of the Cold War, women constitute only three percent of the signatories to peace.”

Before joining Penn Law, de Silva de Alwis was the inaugural director of the Wilson Center’s Global Women’s Leadership Initiative and the Women in Public Service Project launched by Secretary Hillary Clinton and the Seven Sisters Colleges.

She is a women’s human rights scholar and practitioner with over 25 years of experience working globally in over 25 countries with a vast network of academic institutions, government, and nongovernment entities on women’s human rights law and policy making and institutional reform. She has convened several transnational networks including the Women’s Leadership Network in Muslim Communities, the Asia Cause Lawyer Network in India, and the Gender and Law Expert Group and the Women’s Watch in China.