S. "' 1. by Amitai Etzioni

Nevertheless, women now hold a larger proportion of desired "male dominated" jobs. The progress is impressive when compared with the situation in the past, but it falls far short of liberationists' goals. Thus, while the proportion of women scientists has grown over the last five years from 8 to 10 per cent, a 25 per cent increase, parity is still a long way off. The number of women doctors in the United States increased by 1.6 per cent over ten years, but they still represent only 7.6 per cent of all doctors. The proportion of female doctors is higher not only in the U.S.S.R. but also in Sweden (15.4 per cent), Denmark (16.4 per cent), and West Get:many (20 per cent). The number of female medical students is slowly rising, but not at a rate that outstrips that of population growth, thus suggesting that medicine will continue to be an almost exclu. sively male domain for at least the next decade. Among teachers, from 1920 to 1945 the ratio of women increased, but since 1945 it has slowly declined. By 1967 it had reached a level similar to that of 1866! Seven out of ten women tf;achers continue to serve in elementary education while only two out of ten teach in secondary schools. According to U.S. Department of Labor statistics, the median wage for women, as compared with that for men, has been declining in recent years. It was 63.9 per cent of the men's average in 1955 and 60.8 per cent in 1969, having fallen to as low as 58.2 per cent in 1968. (More recent data,'which would cover the years in which the movement became more active, is not yet available.) Probably the most dramatic development in the area of employment thus far has not been in actual reallocations of jobs, but in the fact that the women's movement has found in the federal government an unexpected ally. The Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare has been actively aiding the fight against sex discrimination and is pushing hard to make colleges and universities open all departments and faculty ranks to women. Emotions have run high, debates have been ardent, but the new hiring and promotion of women have been quite limited in both numbers and scope. In dealings with the law, women have been treated as less competent than men for centuries. In March 1972, Congress approved a constitutional amendment that declares that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." The amendment has yet to be ratified by the necessary three-fourths of the states. If ratified, however, the amendment would greatly ease the legal battles women must wage when discriminated against. So far their legal base for action has often been shaky, especially when compared with that of litigations involving discrimination based on race or creed. For this reason, HEW previously found it necessary to rely on administrative directives and sanctions rather than on court actions. Presumably, once the Twenty-seventh Amendment is ratified, there will be greater reliance on the courts as well as a more vigorous application of the full range of federal sanctions. The need for litigation, new administrative rulings, and new state laws is still great. For every state in which progress has been made, there are four in which little has been done. Even in such relatively progressive states as New Jersey and Arizona there are still many "sexist" laws. For example, California recently empowered teen-agers to buy and sell stocks in their own right, but husbands still control the disposition of their wives' holdings. Although the California Supreme Court invalidated statutes prohibiting the employment of women as bartenders and excluding women from jury duty, Missouri still prohibits women from working with moving machinery. New York State sets the maxi-