Yet according to the American Institute of Architects, the professional association for practitioners, women accounted for only 13.3percentt of its members last year, an improvement from 1.2percentt in 1975 but a depressing figure nonetheless.
That depressing figure might, presumably, be improved if existing government assistance reached the people it should.The broader question is whether America's new strategy of targeting assistance overwhelmingly to the working poor should be judged a success.
And every day, conference participants have been badgered with depressing figures.
These depressing figures take us back to the time when it was cost, not ability, that determined your future".
Thanks to NBC television for those depressing figures, brought to you by the Guardian in living black-and-white.
Among the more depressing figures in our survey is the one that shows that, by a proportion of nearly two to one, people would rather work the same hours for more money than fewer hours for the same money.
Trinity Mirror, owner of the Daily Mirror and more than 120 regional titles, said that group ad revenue fell by 5% year-on-year for the period, with the election depressing figures for March and April, while circulation revenues declined by 6%.
But as the colossally depressing figures we have put together show, the chances of the average, or even well-paid, private-sector worker achieving such a retirement is now close to zero.
Stacy Ratner, 37, a social-media entrepreneur who founded Open Books in 2006, refuses to dwell on the depressing figures, choosing instead to see them as a rallying cry for her organization and its wide range of programs tutoring, online mentoring, creative-writing classes and résumé-polishing which in 2009 reached 1,500 adults and children.
In case you think killing mom is bit OTT, here are some depressing figures for you to mull over: Every baby in the UK is born owing £22,500, a share of the £1.4 trillion credit crunch bail out.
Otherwise, America's depressing budget figures will get darker still.
