Feminist history is symbolized by a handful of iconic women—like Susan B. Anthony and the suffragettes working to secure women’s place within the existing culture, or  Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan working to shift cultural expectations themselves.

Today, feminism has the voice of the internet, and leadership as diverse as the populism of our era. Addressing economic pressure on working women and families, as well as increased political pressure on individuals, this “third wave” is finding its way into business, politics, and pop culture, and reinvigorating grassroots organizations like  the newly launched New Hampshire Women’s Initiative.

“Young women are really wanting to re-craft the issues of equality for themselves in this day and age, and they are ready to do that,” said Mary Jo Brown, chair of the board for the New Hampshire Women’s Initiative and owner of a design firm and a publishing company, both located in Portsmouth.

The New Hampshire Women’s Inititiative came together in January as a merger of the N.H. Commission on the Status of Women, the N.H. Women’s Lobby and Alliance, and the N.H. Women’s Policy Institute. Together, these organizations hope to advance social, economic and political opportunity and equality for women in New Hampshire.  The initiative includes a board of directors, the Founding Mothers’ Panel, and the Gender Ambassador Panel.

“It’s been a long battle and we are starting over again,” said Mary Rauh, vice chair of the board of directors and chair of the Founding Mothers’ Panel. “I hope that, someday, women will have equity, an equal opportunity.”

Over the past six months, the Women’s Initiative has been hosting a series of citizen-facilitated listening sessions throughout the state, inviting members of the public to voice their opinions and concerns about various policies and issues affecting women.

After compiling feedback from 30 listening sessions, they found that the same issues kept turning up—the wage gap between genders and the challenge of balancing work and family life.

“We reached out to over 200 people as part of these listening sessions and it was an incredibly thoughtful, deliberative, conversational, citizen-facilitated (process),” said Brown. The research included surveys, as well, reaching a total of 500 women.

Women have been fighting for equality in the workplace for generations. Yet, according to the N.H. Women’s Law Center, women working full-time in 2010 earned 78 cents to every dollar paid to a man working full-time. That’s one cent higher than the national average.  When the numbers are broken down by race and occupation, the wage gap gets even bigger. For example, African-American women were paid only 69 cents for every dollar a man made. Women working in management, business, and financial occupations were paid 64 cents for every dollar.

Women do now have a higher profile in management roles. In 1970, a mere 15 percent of business managers were women. In 2009, the percentage increased to 40 percent, according to a Gender Matters study.

But the wage gap persists, and when it comes to leadership and policy-making in the corporate world, only a select number of women are on corporate boards in companies. Not only is that bad for women, Brown said, but it’s bad for businesses.

“All-women boards are weaker than mixed-gender boards and all-men boards are weaker than mixed-gender boards,” said Brown. “Mixed-gender boards are generally more effective because you come closer to having diversity and perspective.”

Joseph Keefe, CEO of Pax World Mutual Funds, a national investment firm located in Portsmouth, has launched the “Say No To All Male Boards Campaign” to help promote gender diversity in the workplace. He urges other institutional investors, investment advisors, and individuals to oppose nominations for boards that do not include women.

“We want gender diversity, and a year ago we thought, ‘Why don’t we encourage other investors to do the same thing?’” Keefe said.

Keefe is also part of the Thirty Percent Coalition, serving as chair of its Institutional Investors Committee. The coalition is made up of senior business executives, elected officials, national women’s organizations, institutional investors and others. Members of the coalition include Expedia, Urban Outfitters, and Chesapeake Energy. Their goal is to address the lack of gender diversity in corporate boardrooms.

“What is unique about this is that this is the first time that leading women’s organizations and investment organizations came together,” said Keefe.

On June 28, the coalition sent a letter to 41 companies within the S&P 500 Index that do not have any women serving on their boards of directors, urging them to embrace gender diversity.

The goal is for women to hold 30 percent of board seats at all public companies by the end of 2015. According to reports from Governance Metrics International and other organizations, women currently hold about 12 to 16 percent of corporate board seats in the United States. By comparison, Norway ranks highest internationally, with 40 percent of corporate board seats held by women.

One woman who has pushed for equality in the workforce is Madeleine Kunin, who served as Vermont’s first female governor from 1985 to 1991, deputy secretary of education of the United States from 1993 to 1996, then U.S. ambassador to Switzerland until 1999.

In her new book, “The New Feminist Agenda,” Kunin describes what the country will need to do in order to achieve equality in the workplace. She relates her own experiences raising four children while holding a political position, as well as those of young working women today.

“How did I do it? I realized that question is on the mind of this generation just as much as my generation,” Kunin said in an interview with The Wire. “There are still no good answers. We have to make it more possible for women to work and care for their families.”

In June, the Women’s Initiative invited Kunin to address an audience at the Discover Portsmouth Center. Brown said Kunin’s book came at a crucial time for the development of the Women’s Initiative. And groups like the initiative are just what Kunin hoped to inspire.

“I wanted to start a public conversation about these issues,” said Kunin.

She noted there are only four countries in the world that do not require employers to provide women with paid maternity leave, and the United States is one of them. The United States also has one of the highest childhood poverty rates of any developed country. This is largely because it is difficult for women to work and find quality childcare, which has a huge impact on children, Kunin said.

The United Kingdom now offers paid family leave for up to a full year, with the option to transfer six months of that over to fathers. The government boosted paid leave time from six months to a year when it realized the country had the highest childhood poverty rate in Europe. Now, parents are paid 90 percent of their earnings for the first six weeks, and then the payments dip to about one-quarter of the median income.

On the other hand, women in the United States often hold back on having children or requesting leave time because they are afraid of losing their jobs. Countries such as England and Australia have also introduced the Right to Request Law, which allows employees to request flexibility in their work schedule without running the risk of losing their job.

“Government policies like the ‘right to request’ are not a panacea for guilt or stress for working families,” Kunin writes in her book. “What they would provide is less stress and more options—two things many Americans would welcome.”

A magazine article on this topic made a big splash recently. “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” written by Anne-Marie Slaughter and published in July/August edition of The Atlantic, has received more responses than any other article in the magazine’s history, including a record of 1.3 million hits online and more than 2,200 comments from readers of different demographics, with a mix of positive and negative feedback.

In the article, Slaughter reflects frankly on the tension between  her life as a mother and director of policy planning for the U.S. Department of State. She discusses potential changes in the workplace that could create equal opportunities for all working women.

The conflicts remain unresolved, even as women now make up the majority of the U.S. workforce. Each individual must become a “one-woman ecosystem,” writes Atlantic senior editor Hanna Rosin in one of many responses to Slaughter’s article and its impact. Rosin notes that the average American worker gets 14 days paid vacation; for families with children, many of these are taken up by teacher workshops and kids’ sick days.

“When you do the simple math, the American workplace seems utterly inhumane in its unwillingness to adapt to the fact that women make up half of all workers.” writes Rosin in “The Secret Shame of the Working Mother.”

These policies affect the whole family, although women are still widely viewed as the primary caregivers. In many cases, they are also the primary breadwinner.

Mary Rauh worries current lawmakers are pushing these issues under the rug.

“It is very concerning because it is a return to another era,” she said. “It is so important for people to understand the realities in New Hampshire and understand how we are doing in a number of areas.”

A report recently released by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, titled “Who Cares for the Sick Kids,” illustrates the problem. According to the study, 52 percent of employed parents lacked access to at least five paid sick days in 2008, with lower-earning parents having the least access.

“There is no federal policy that mandates employers to provide paid sick time for workers to care for themselves or for sick children,” said Kristin Smith, co-author of the report. “Having a policy that mandates that time would definitely help parents gain access to paid sick time.”

Employed parents who have access to paid sick days have better job satisfaction and fewer work-family conflicts, the study found. Workplace policies such as paid sick leave help reduce stress and create a better environment at work and at home.

Lucy Hodder, a board member at the New Hampshire Women’s Initiative, said she hopes the organization will provide a strong voice for women in the state and keep reminding the legislature about family issues.

The Women’s Initiative came together after the legislature eliminated the Commission on the Status of Women as a state entity. The commission united several women’s organizations to work together in a formal capacity, said Mary Jo Brown.

“The organizations quickly said that they thought it made sense, because each and every one of them was working toward gender equality or significant women’s issues in different capacities around research, outreach and advocacy,” Brown said.

Brown hopes the fledgling organization will reach new audiences and help the younger generation define what gender equality means to them.

“We are redefining feminism right now, real time, through the conversations we are having with the new people we are engaging. That is significant,” she said.