Is feminism at an end?

In the UK, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 brought major changes to the legal position for men and women, but there were still differences – not least that until 6 April 1990, a man was responsible for taxation on his wife’s income.  Revisions of the law have improved the situation and the current Equality Bill going through parliament will provide more legislation to deal with the continuing differences.  One is that gender pay gap information may be required to be published.  If equality had been achieved, why would this be necessary?
Is the gender pay gap fuelled by direct discrimination in pay rates, or is it more complex and linked to more complex patterns such as career aspirations, family life and so on?
Starting at the very highest levels in business, an Observer survey showed that “Only four chairmanships are held by women, equivalent to 1.3% of the total, and just nine women serve as chief executives, or 3%.
No fewer than 132 of the companies surveyed, including Barclays Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, are men-only zones, without a single woman at board level.”
What is frightening is that this survey was published on 23^rd August 2009.
One company where I have more detail, shows that 46% of the total workforce is female, but just 11% of the most senior roles are filled by women.

This raises the question as to why there is an inequality between management grades and the overall workforce?
The workplace follows a hierarchical structure with males predominantly filling the highest levels – a patriarchal structure.
More and more questions arise.
But what about outside the work place?

Marriage still perpetuates the hierarchical structure – the man being the breadwinner and the wife in the dependent role. Many women accept the idea of being a homemaker supported by their husband.
Of course, giving birth is something that a lot of women do, and this offers an opportunity for men to place women in a dependent situation. Even today, it is mainly women that look after children. I know of couples who tried the man looking after the children while the wife worked and this failed. The relationship eventually broke down through domestic violence and the man having been subjected to harassment by his male friends. Once again, patriarchy rules.
There are many more cases as well.
The question of the individual does need to be addressed, after all, there are many women who embrace the patriarchal society – relishing in their dependence on men.
Returning to the original question, there is much more that needs to be done. Feminism is not at an end.