NATION NOW

Women's Equality Day: How equal are women in 2016?

Ashley May
USA TODAY
Simone Biles (USA) carries the flag during the closing ceremonies for the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games at Maracana.

In many ways, it’s great to be a woman living in 2016. Today, more women are educated, celebrated and making change. In Rio, U.S. women outpaced men, taking home more Olympic medals than their male counterparts— 61 to be exact. A woman is even running for president.

Today, 104 women hold seats in U.S. Congress.

When Rep. Marcy Kaptur first came to Congress in 1983, the Ohio Democrat was one of only 24 women in the House and Senate. In 2013, a record 98 women — 20 in the Senate and 78 in the House — dramatically raised that number in the 113th Congress.

"Women bring a breadth of experience that will be important to the work of every committee," said Kaptur during that monumental year. "They bring life experience and perceptions that have been missing here. I hope the operations of Congress will change and be more productive and less contentious."

Not only are women holding more positions of power, but in some cases they are being well paid.

This year, we saw Amazon go against the norm when the company said a review of its entire U.S. staff, including warehouse workers, found that women’s compensation in 2015 was 99.9% of men’s in equivalent jobs. Further, minorities make 100.1% of what white workers earn, Amazon said.

Amazon pays women 99.9% what it pays men

In May, actress Robin Wright said she demanded the same salary as co-star Kevin Spacey on “House of Cards.” While she shouldn’t have had to ask, it was comforting to hear she got what she asked for.

But, the fight for gender equality still has a long way to go. This week, Forbes magazine illustrated the pay disparity.

Why men make more than women in Hollywood

The magazine's list of top-earning male stars shows that Jennifer Lawrence, who topped the magazine's female stars list with $46 million, earned only about 71% of what the top male star, Dwayne Johnson, earned, at $64.5 million.

Lawrence would be only the 6th-highest-paid star if the male and female lists were combined.

The same goes for athletes, even those of Olympic caliber.

“I’ve been working, playing tennis, since I was three years old. And to be paid less just because of my sex — it doesn’t seem fair," Serena Williams said in Glamour’s July issue. “Will I have to explain to my daughter that her brother is gonna make more money doing the exact same job because he’s a man? If they both played sports since they were three years old, they both worked just as hard, but because he’s a boy, they’re gonna give him more money?”

While fighting to earn an equal pay, women are also under constant pressure to look perfect. Body shaming is an all too common term. And, it’s not just from Hollywood. This summer, Gold’s Gym posted a photo of a pear saying “This is no shape for a girl.”

Fashion is also a sticky situation, where women can be persecuted for wearing too little or in the most recent case of burkinis, wearing too much.

Some 30 demonstrators gathered in London to protest French bans of the burkini. The protesters held a "wear what you want" beach party outside the French Embassy, saying it was unjust to tell women what to wear. A top French court on Friday overturned the ban on Muslim-friendly burkini swimsuits.

Follow Ashley on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets

Maria Puente, Kim Hjelmgaard and Catalina Camia contributed to this report.