President’s Message

As we prepare to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of NWPC Fresno, I was anxious to read “The Young Women and Girls’ Aspiration Report.” This research project was undertaken by the National Women’s History Museum (the organization we rely on for our Five-Minute Biographies) and was released in March 2025. It explores the views of young women and girls on “the challenges they face, and it shares their ideas for driving meaningful change and expanding opportunities for the future.”

I was expecting to see dramatic improvements in the lives and expectations of young American women, and certainly there have been changes since 1975, the year Fresno NWPC was founded. Today more women are in college and more women have academic degrees, but the wage gap between men and women continues. While women are earning degrees, they are not getting the same level of academic financial support as men receive. This means it often takes women longer to graduate and they incur more academic debt than do men.

You may have seen the national study that was reported locally in February showing that on average, women in Fresno earn $11,000 less each year than the men of Fresno; while the women of Clovis earned $22,000 less than the men of Clovis. Nationally, on average, women who earn bachelor’s degrees earn slightly more ($3,000 per year) than men who only have some college education or an AA degree. These are disturbing statistics. https://www.truckinfo.net/research/cities-and-states-with-the-biggest-wage-gap

Locally we have seen change in political and public leadership in the past 50 years. Women have been successful in many elected offices, especially school boards throughout the county. Fresno recently hired their first female police chief who joins the City Manager as the only female heads of city departments. We have seen women elected as Fresno Mayor (only twice), and appointed Fire Chief (once). While this is great progress from 50 years ago, but it is hardly parity! Today we see more men on the Fresno City Council, Clovis City Council and the Fresno County Board of Supervisors has no women elected to the Board.

The “Aspiration Report” shows that young women recognize these disparities. The 1,100 young women and girls that were surveyed reported that they felt “the system was stacked against them.” They told researchers they want equal pay, better support for working mothers, and more representation in leadership. These are core NWPC values. We’ve been fighting for these issues for 50 years.

The current national climate has put constraints on many of the issues that are important to women and girls. We have lost rights to control our own healthcare and bodies. We have lost the support of programs that were intended to bring about parity. According to “The Aspiration Report” we are now facing a “marble ceiling” not a glass ceiling. Sadly, the World Economic Forum reports that the US is still 106 years away from parity in economics, education, health, and political attainment. 

NWPC Fresno should be proud to know that most of the women who are elected to office in the Fresno Clovis area have been endorsed by us and financially supported by us. We will continue to fight for women and work for parity to become the norm long before our 150th celebration!

I encourage you to go online and read this report for yourself.  www.sheisnotafootnote.org

In Unity & Equality,

Lynn Badertscher