As we shut Ladies’s Historical past Month, we rejoice the various highly effective ladies who’ve contributed to our Nation, regardless of the obstacles which will exist and those they needed to overcome. This month has been particularly significant as I’ve had robust ladies round me my entire life. I used to be raised by a single mom and appeared as much as my older sister as she trailblazed in her authorized profession in public curiosity. I’m deeply grateful to the various feminine function fashions who opened a path for me and plenty of others. As Vice President Kamala Harris says, “First however not the final” and I hope to do the identical for the various ladies who will come after me.

On the U.S. Division of Well being & Human Providers’ (HHS) Workplace for Civil Rights (OCR), we replicate on the work forward of us to deal with discrimination and disparities and advance gender fairness and equality in our nation’s well being and human providers applications.

Ladies 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 the direction of gender equality. But, challenges and inequalities persist:

• Ladies proceed to earn lower than their male counterparts. Whereas Equal Pay Day on March 12, 2024 marks how far right into a subsequent 12 months ladies, on common, should work to earn a person’s revenue from the earlier 12 months, pay disparities are extra pronounced for Black ladies, ladies of shade, and ladies with disabilities. Latinas, who face the biggest wage hole, should work into December of the next 12 months to earn a non-Latino white man’s revenue.
• The U.S. has the very best maternal mortality price amongst high-income nations, although most are preventable. Black ladies and Native American ladies face increased threat of affected by maternal deaths. Revolutionary actions to enhance maternal well being and beginning outcomes for pregnant and postpartum ladies are essential to eradicate these disparities. 
• Transgender ladies report increased charges of violent victimization than cisgender ladies.

I be a part of President Biden in his name issued in his Proclamation on Ladies’s Historical past Month, 2024, “could all of us proceed working to construct a world worthy of the desires and objectives of all ladies and ladies.”

OCR enforces a spread of federal privateness legal guidelines and antidiscrimination legal guidelines that shield affected person privateness, together with those that want entry to care, ladies who’re pregnant, ladies with disabilities, or ladies 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 embrace:

OCR can be a various workforce and I need to take a second to acknowledge a few of its ladies leaders:

• Jenny Ma serves as OCR’s Principal Deputy Director.
• Genevieve Kelly is serving because the Performing Chief of Workers.
• Robinsue Frohboese is the Deputy Director of Strategic Planning.
• The vast majority of OCR’s eight Areas nationwide are led by ladies (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 various contributions of the ladies that work at OCR to advance privateness and civil rights, and the various ladies throughout the nation who work to make well being care extra accessible, inexpensive, and higher for all. Their arduous work daily evokes me to do extra.

Melanie