What is gender equality? 50/50 or do we settle for less?

A survey was conducted by the Pew Research Center that asked for opinions on rights between the genders. One question in the survey was do men deserve jobs more when jobs are scarce. If people truly believed in equality the response would have 100% but that is not the case. In the survey, a question was asked about whether respondents believed in equality between genders, and also a question about who deserved jobs more in times when jobs are scarce. At first glance I was much relieved that in European countries and US that progress has been made, however on second review I realized that, wait a minute, the numbers are still not 100% and that continues to mean lack of support for equality. I always find it surprising how I initially look at numbers related to equality and am often grateful when the numbers are no single digits, or when a number has nudged up a few percent, and that anything above 19% seems 'almost there in terms of equality'. For example at work (engineering software company) I am use to being in a room with myself being the only female or a couple of others in a room of 10-20 people. So when we get to 5-6 women in the room it feels almost balanced.

When my family was visiting England a year ago, the taxi driver was asking my husband about women in politics, and my husband started to tell the driver that in the US things were pretty good for females in politics, he was talking merrily and one would almost think equality had been achieved, he seemed surprised when I said I didn't think it was the case. By comparison to his youth there are a lot of females in government but in fact there are only 17 female senators out of 100 today. Does this pass for 'equality'?

74 congress-women out of 448 - compared to previous decades this is significant but its not equality. How do we stay the course until the number is 224, or at least 224 plus/minus 10.

Government is one place where every senator and congress-person has a single vote so representation is important and makes a difference. What's the best I can hope for in my lifetime? 25% female representation?