NEWSEQUAL PAY

On April 12, the Wall Street Journal decided to honor Equal Pay Day with an anti-fair pay oped. While Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Rosa DeLauro were reintroducing the Paycheck Fairness Act, WSJ devoted its pages to wage gap denialism, courtesy of Executive Director Carrie Lukas of the conservative Independent Women's Forum. Though the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics have calculated that women make 23 cents less on the dollar, the editors at WSJ didn't see fit to present a balanced editorial or even a companion oped to the inaccurate anti-fair pay complaint.

But the Women's Media Center isn't letting WSJ get away with this biased coverage, misrepresenting the issues women face when it comes to equal pay. They've launched a call to action to hold the WSJ accountable, including a Change.org petition telling the Editorial Page Editors to run "fair and balanced coverage" of the wage gap "in order to adhere to the high journalistic standards WSJ attempts to embody." WMC also helpfully suggests that there are "several members of the National Coalition for Pay Equity to choose from" in looking around for somebody who can provide an oped.

Sigh ... it's Equal Pay Day again, which means that American women have finally earned as much as their male counterparts for 2010. That's right: because women make only about three-fourths of what men do for the same work, they'd need to work for over fifteen months to earn an equivalent amount. Bringing us to today, April 12.

This 23 cent discrepancy doesn't take into consideration the situation of women of color, who make even less on the white male dollar. Or the added discrimination against mothers. But the message remains the same: women continue to await the day when they can celebrate making the yearly salary they deserve on New Year's Eve. What could hasten this day along? Barring everybody in the United States suddenly having a light-bulb go off over their heads and realizing that unequal pay is wrong, the Paycheck Fairness Act represents a good place to pin our hopes.

New research on the "motherhood penalty" confirms that when poorer women have children, their careers suffer more than their wealthy counterparts'.

While studies have previously confirmed that women's wages and careers suffer when they have children, a new study by sociologists Michelle J. Budig and Melissa J. Hodges looks at the motherhood penalty for women at different income levels and stages in their careers. The higher a woman climbs, the less likely she is to be a mother, forced to make a choice between career and family that men don't generally have to. Women who do make it to the top of their fields and manage to have children benefit greatly from family-friendly policies (as well as the resources to hire a nanny) and their careers do not suffer. But for the bottom 95% of women, the opposite is true.

From who's suffering from the recession to who's dropping out of schools, the answer is always those who have less.  As the report states, women who are less affected by the motherhood penalty earn more, are farther along in their careers, and work at organizations with women-friendly policies that prefer to cultivate talent over high turnover. That's rarely true at the other end of the spectrum, where women are fired for taking too much time if they suffer medical complications or because they can't afford expensive childcare. This not a random cruel joke society is playing on the poor: it's a direct result of state and federal laws that allow employers to punish women, especially young and poor women, for having children. As economist Nancy Folbre on the Economix blog concludes, "More universal family policies, such as early-childhood education, paid family leave, paid sick days and paid vacation time could help most working mothers substantially increase their earnings."

As if being laid off during the recession wasn't bad enough, it looks like Citigroup may have used the economic downturn to engage in massive gendered firings. This is particularly contentious since Citigroup has taken federal bailout money while continuing to lay off workers. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday, the company has been accused of intentionally overlooking female employees for promotions, raises, and other company benefits. Filed on behalf of six women, it seeks class action status and unspecified damages.

Citigroup has a history of "boys club" hiring and promoting practices, and looking at their high-ranking committees — 5 women to 39 men on the Senior Leadership Committee and 19 men and no women on the Executive Committee — gives you a pretty good idea of what even the most capable senior-level women leaders are up against when it comes to advancing within the financial conglomerate. I'd also be remiss if I didn't note that Citibank was recently the subject of another lawsuit after they fired a female employee for "being too sexy." The current suit states that at least 50 women have complained about the sexist atmosphere (either on their own or someone else's behalf) since early 2007, many of whom then faced retaliation from the company.

The lawsuit points out that it's difficult to believe that the "statistically significant percentage" of female to male workers fired was random. It also says that despite being put on Working Mother magazine's Best Companies list for several years, female Citigroup employees who become pregnant or take child-related leave from work are actively discriminated against. At lease one was demoted after returning from maternity leave.

While we watch to see how the lawsuit plays out, you can tell Citigroup that you won't tolerate sexism in the workplace, especially under the guise of recessionary lay-offs. Stand with the lawsuit plaintiffs against gender discrimination.

Photo Credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

We're number 19! We're number 19! Hm ... that doesn't have quite the snazzy ring we might like. But the United States ranking number 19 on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report (pdf) is big news, because we've never broken into the top 20 before. Actually, last year we were ranked number 31. Yikes.

Of course, it would be nice if being number 19 wasn't such a big deal for us: you'd think the U.S. of A. could put itself into a better position when it comes to gender equity. But we're just not competitive with the gender progressive Nordic countries, which consistently dominate the top four. To be fair, we're quite a ways out of their league, with a number of other countries between us too.

So what's the good, the bad, and the ugly of America's position on gender equality? We're among the top ranked countries when it comes to education, with high literacy levels and educational enrollment for both men and women, so Americans can feel free to gloat over that one, at least. And we're none too shabby on economic participation and opportunity: we come in at number six, with 68% of women in the labor force and 80% of men, a decent ratio of women in managerial positions, and a women's income increase that gives a boost. Unfortunately, with a high perceived wage inequality when men and women do work of the same kind (putting us at 64 on that sub-item), we lose points.

Twenty-three cents: That's the gender wage gap. In 2010, women still only make an average 77 cents on every dollar a man makes; for women of color, this gap can widen even further. From the minute they walk in the door, women are paid thousands less than their equivalent male counterparts. Over the course of a lifetime, this adds up to a loss of an average $700,000. Do you know how much stuff you can buy with nearly three-quarters of a million dollars? Particularly in food, clothes, and shelter for yourself and your family.

On Moms Rising, Ruth Martin reminds us that Senators will be headed home soon (and who knows who will be coming back after the midterm elections), so we're in the eleventh hour to getting the Paycheck Fairness Act passed this session. Having already cleared the House, this bill was meant to join the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to truly stop sex discrimination in the workplace. The PFA woud shield women against retaliation should they organize or challenge unfair pay practices by their employers, mandate the same penalties for sexism as racism in the workplace, and insist that employers prove any significant wage gaps really and truly have nothing to do with sex discrimination.

We've seen the Paycheck Fairness Act on the slow journey to death, we've cheered up at its sudden revival, and now we're just feeling kind of jerked around. To tell the Senate that you're tired of waiting, sign this petition from the National Partnership for Women and Families. We shouldn't have to wait any longer for the kind of protections to be put in place to make certain that employers can't get away with discriminating against women with impunity.

Photo credit: Tracy O

It's all over my news feed: young single women in urban areas now make more money than their single male counterparts. Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and numerous other outlets recently reported that unmarried, childfree women aged 22 to 30 earn eight percent more than men of equivalent status, according to the research firm Reach Advisors.

Partial yay!

Partial, because it would be nicer if the sexes earned the same amount. Young single women are more likely than the men to have attended college, putting them in a higher earning bracket, while at the same time less educated men are losing jobs due to the recession and associated "decimation of the manufacturing employment base" that previously provided them with well-paying jobs, according to USA Today.

So let's not break out the champagne yet. Single, young, childfree urban women, while an important demographic, are only one slice of the female populace, a populace that overall still earns far less than men. Single women -- not necessarily of the young, childfree, urban persuasion -- still earn less than married women. They still suffer particularly hard from the recession, as reported by Afro and The Huffington Post, in part because government and commerce perpetuate policies that force singles to subsidize married people, and also because the gender gap tends to hit harder on women of all ages who do not have a (normally higher-earning) male's income to fall back on. Women of color, who statistically and historically speaking start from a baseline of less privilege, feel the gap more acutely and have the most to gain from its obliteration.

No court has decided whether Walmart discriminated against over one million female employees from 1998 onward, but four times federal courts have ruled the that such a suit may proceed as a legitimate class action. Preferring to handle each allegation one-by-one, in an endless torrent of legal maneuvering, Walmart appealed certification of the class action decision to the Supreme Court this week.

The suit was filed in 2001 by six women who had worked at Walmart and were armed with a study showing that only 1/3 of the corporation's managers were female, but women composed 2/3 of the company's overall workforce.

In a statement released by the mega-retailer this week, Walmart claimed that its is "an excellent place for women to work and has been recognized as a leader in fostering the advancement and success of women in the workplace." Walmart argues that the class action cannot move forward because the allegations of gender discrimination vary too much among over one million women who work or worked at Walmart.

"Only the size of the case is unusual, and that is a product of Wal-Mart's size and the breadth of the discrimination we documented," argues Brad Selignman, lead attorney for the plaintiffs. There is no 'too big to be liable' exception in civil rights laws."

Whether a class action can be too big is now a question before a Read More »

If you ever doubted that women's rights, equality, and protection were not scorned by the Republican/libertarian pro-business ethos, think again.

On Wednesday, the 90th anniversary of women's suffrage, blogger Brad Peck of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce posted an offensive blog entry, "Equality, Suffrage and a Fetish for Money," blaming women for the wage gap. For starters, as Firedoglake noted, he put "full equality" and "pay gap" in scare quotes, to demonstrate that these are not "real" problems. According to Peck, women are to blame for inequality in achievement and pay because they choose to have kids. Moreover, he wrote, women who do want professional success have a "money fetish" because the other (baby-making) side of life doesn't fulfill them.

The cherry on top is when Peck compares women's demands for government intervention like fair pay laws to — well, just read it for yourself: "Are gym-man’s broad shoulders, bulging biceps, and ripped torso appropriate objects of envy by couch-potato man?  Is this envy a social problem demanding government action? ... Should government force gym-man to share his beautiful babes with couch-potato man?"

To start, let's just acknowledge how man-centric this world view is, that Peck can't even make a point without glorifying men with bulging biceps and referring to "babes" as objects that can be passed around. Next, there's Peck's, and his gym-going Adonises', fear of unequal treatment, citing progress for women as dangerous subjugation for men. In reality, the push for equality and opportunity exist to remedy the systemic inequality of our society, much of which manifests in the workplace. Even affirmative action policies, which vastly helped women, were aimed at creating a more equal world. Peck reaps the benefit of an unequal society and wants to keep it that way; his fear of unequal treatment is a fear of losing his privilege.  The dizzying lack of respect, much less comprehension of what it is like to be anything but a white man, is staggering.

The wage gap is a sore spot for me, and I write about it frequently as a result. If it bothers you even half as much as it bothers me (or 74% ... get it?), you'll likely be as encouraged as I am by a new report (pdf) from the Labor Department about how the gap is actually closing among younger generations. But it's not all good news: the astoundingly unfair pay disparities among older men and women remain as they ever did.

In what is a pretty remarkable shift, women under 35 working full time made up to 90% of their male counterparts' salary (though of course, actual equal pay would be truly remarkable). Some of this may be attributed to the fact that women now earn the majority of college diplomas, and as a result, may be entering higher-paying fields and jobs. So, while the study didn't control for types of jobs entered, this looks promising.

Less exciting, women over 35 held steady, earning around 75% of the men's salaries. This is particularly troubling because, as Catherine Rampell points out over on the New York Times Economix blog, 35 is roughly the age when people start moving into higher level and managerial positions. That opens up a whole other question: Why aren't women being promoted at the same rates as men? Is this once again about having children? Talk about unfair to mothers. I can only hope that with fewer women opting to have children in this generation, maybe the percentages of women keeping pace with their male counterparts will finally even out a bit more, and stay more consistent over our lifetimes.

But, that shouldn't be the only way we can achieve pay equity, and mothers don't deserve to suffer because the system doesn't support them. How can we, as women, all work towards financial equality?

Photo Credit: Photos8.com