With news of job growth slower than expected, an important detail is being overlooked on the state of the recovery: the jobs being restored are mainly going to men.

Nearly 88 percent of the jobs recovered since the so-called “end of the recession” in 2009 have gone to men, according to a report last week from Bloomberg.

Many different media outlets and economists like Heather Boushey from the Center for American Progress have nicknamed this phenomenon the “Mancovery.”

On its surface, the nature of this recovery would not be considered troubling news for women given that during the recession for every 10 jobs lost seven of those were held by men, according to Slate.

Upon closer examination, however, there is much to be worried about not only concerning employment but also decades of progress women have made in certain industries.

After examining 16 major sectors of the economy, the Pew Research Center (PRC) found that in only one of those sections, namely state government, were women not being outpaced by men.

What these numbers add up to is an unprecedented shift in all economic recoveries in the United States, as the report points out this is “the first recovery in which the unemployment rates for men and women have gone in opposite directions — falling for men but rising for women.”

It means that literally decades of progress women have made in employment in many different industries is being gradually eroded away with men being hired into those positions.

Retail has almost flipped entirely during the recovery, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports companies have hired twice as many men as women in those positions.

The PRC report showed that in the fields of education, health services, professional services and business services men have outpaced women in regaining jobs.

Just as troublesome is the divide along ethnic lines between men and women.

While recovery among men has been uniformly similar along ethnic lines the report points out that women have uniformly lost or regained jobs at a slower rate than men among all ethnic lines.

The painful economic reality of this recovery is playing out differently among genders as a result. While 41 percent of men polled by the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index in March felt the economy was improving, only 26 percent of women said the same.

There has yet to be any clear indication of why this is occurring on an economic level. As economist Ryan Sweet pointed out to USA Today, men are aggressively pursuing jobs they have traditionally ignored and are not encountering heavy resistance from women vying for the same positions.

Therein may lie the key to the road to recovery for women.

Where women’s suffrage movements and women’s rights movements created a visible firestorm around issues like the right to vote, inequality in the workplace and other important social issues, the reaction to this glaring inequality has not had the same force.

So while many news organizations have been reporting on this issue for nearly a year, the response has not matched the severity of the problem.

The battleground has been redrawn back from equality in the workplace to simply having a presence in the workplace and aggressive pursuit of jobs across all industries is the newest benchmark in an ongoing struggle for gender equality.

Yet there is little visibility of an aggressive response and it is sorely needed before the end of this recovery.

Questions range from the underlying economic reasons for this trend to holding politicians and business leaders accountable over hiring practices and the role of their economic policies.

To be fair, there are already many who are tirelessly working towards these goals, but just as generations of women in the past responded to flash points of injustice and inequality around them, so to must the current generations of our society among both men and women respond in turn.

Without it, women will find that positions which previous generations had opened the door to are suddenly closed shut yet again.

Even more alarming is the possibility of the beginning of a vicious cycle wherein economic recessions and subsequent recoveries allow for decades of progress by women in the workplace to be gradually and silently eroded away.

Benjamin Franklin once commented, “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”

The economic improvements, achievements and successes garnered by generations of women are currently being threatened. What will be the response?