It is easy to think women and girls in Utah are thriving, and indeed, many are. We can point to prominent examples of women in business (Gail Miller), politics (Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson) and education (Utah Valley University President Astrid Tuminez). Women currently serve as mayors in 58 cities in Utah, including Salt Lake City (Erin Mendenhall), West Valley City (Andrea Dea) and Provo (Michelle Kaufusi) — Utah’s three largest cities. Women in Utah attend and graduate from college in significant numbers. In 2024, 54% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded by universities in Utah were earned by women.
These examples reflect real success, but they only tell part of the story. Utah continues to rank near the bottom nationally on many key indicators of women’s well-being. Utah women earn just 73% of men’s earnings, the second largest gap in the country. One study found that fewer than 10% of Utah’s publicly traded companies have women CEOs. Another study shows that only 12% of partners at Utah law firms are women.
In a 2023 survey of Utahns, 84% agreed that sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination are problems. Beyond the workplace, 37% of Utah women have experienced domestic violence, while 32% have experienced sexual violence. Utah ranks 45th in the suicide rate and 49th in the depression rate for women. And while more women are graduating from college than ever before, they are much more likely to choose female-dominated majors that perpetuate the pay gap long after graduation.
What can we do? We must support our daughters’ goals by deliberately investing our time, attention and resources. We must invest in their futures. We must provide our daughters with additional types of experiences. Like it or not, we live in a society where organizations like schools, hospitals, government agencies, corporations and churches shape how we live, work and serve. Learning to navigate the organizational landscape is critical for helping our daughters realize their goals.
Family scholar Annette Lareau, in her book "Unequal Childhoods," found that children are more likely to develop the ability to engage effectively with organizations when their parents place them in structured activities like organized sports and music lessons, discuss issues and events with them, and encourage them to ask questions and express their opinions. As Lareau puts it, such children “have many opportunities to learn how to negotiate the world beyond their home,” which help them “acquire skills for effective interactions with institutions later in their lives.” These insights raise important questions about the activities in which we are engaging our daughters and how we are preparing them for the future.
We can also learn from the past. The women who sought the right to vote in the early 20th century were successful because they developed crucial skills while organizing women’s clubs, temperance groups and suffrage associations. Through these activities, they built networks, lobbied legislators, published newsletters, coordinated volunteers, organized public events and gave speeches. In her historical account, Elisabeth Clemens explains that women won the right to vote by developing organizational repertoires — skills and strategies developed by working in the public sphere.
Utah’s own political history is illustrative. In 1887, the United States Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act, which revoked women’s voting rights and prohibited polygamy in Utah Territory. Women like Emmeline B. Wells — editor of the “Woman’s Exponent,” President of the Relief Society in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a suffrage organizer and a delegate to national suffrage conventions — helped secure voting rights for women when Utah became a state in 1896.
Whether our daughters want to run for president of the United States, run the family farm or run a business; whether they want to become doctors, astronauts, engineers or veterinarians; or whether they want to become more effective advocates for their children, schools or communities, we must equip them with the skills, support, attention, resources and opportunities they need to succeed. As our daughters navigate these settings, they gain more than professional and academic knowledge. Proactively encouraging and supporting our daughters in these ways will be for their benefit as well as the benefit of the families and communities they will strengthen, the policies they will shape and the future they will build.