Rumors of our Progress have been Greatly Exaggerated

You may have heard the rumors:
The glass ceiling has been shattered. Gender discrimination has gone the way of the woolly mammoth. Violence against women is under control . . .
When Carolyn B. Maloney, a Democratic congresswoman and one of the nation's leading advocates for women, hears the rumors, she can't decide whether to laugh or cry.

If women have made so much "progress," why haven't their lives gotten any easier? Why do most American women say they don't get enough sleep and that balancing work and family is getting harder? Why do they make 77 cents to a man's dollar? And why must Maloney still fight to preserve rights—such as educational equality and even birth control—that seemed secure in the 1970s?