As a woman who will be entering the work force in three months, I have often considered the degree to which my gender will affect my career aspiration to one day try to run for public office. I see women from my generation graduating from colleges and universities at a higher rate than our male counterparts, yet I worry that these numbers do not correspond to our career paths.
Women remain a minority in traditionally male-dominated industries, and are even more under-represented in senior posts. Regardless of the high numbers entering the business sector at middle-management levels, today only 10 Fortune 500 executives are women.
Also, despite the influx of women in the legal profession, in 137 of the 200 largest law firms only six percent of managing partners are women.
Finally, in the U.S. Senate only 17 women occupy the 100 available seats. Where is the missing link between the copious numbers of women entering these professional fields and the few that actually make it to the top?
Pay inequity was one of the primary issues tackled by the second-wave feminist movement, but has since lessened as an issue of primary importance over the past 20 years.
Many assume that for women at least that the glass ceiling broke in the 1980s when women’s participation in work and public life increased on a mass scale. We assume the issues of pay inequality have diminished.
Contrary to public opinion, the most recent employment data estimates that even in jobs that women do attain, white women earn approximately 78 percent of what white men earn and the gap is even greater for African American women. Even more surprising, educated women with upper-level jobs have the most significant wage gap when compared to men.
When analyzing this data, it becomes clear that there is no one reason behind pay inequity in our country other than admitting that discrimination remains a pervasive problem.
“Discrimination is subtle and often is unintentional,” said Assistant Professor of Political Science Maria Rosales. “Employers often give plausible reasons for paying women less.”
By signing his first bill, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, into law on Jan. 29, President Obama reminds women everywhere that the government will no longer ignore our struggle for equality.
The new legislation corrects the 2007 Supreme Court decision that told Lilly Ledbetter that she ought to have filed a pay-discrimination case within 180 days of receiving her first discriminatory paycheck. She wasn’t even aware of the employer’s offenses during the first six months of her employment at Goodyear.
Now thanks to the new law, workers discriminated against have up to 180 days from the most recent instance of discrimination to file a complaint.
“Psychologically it’s going to have a big effect (on the lives of women),” said Rosales, “because it shows women that they are considered as important as men.”
Unfortunately President Obama’s symbol of America’s intolerance for gender discrimination, may be just that-a symbol.
In signing the Fair Pay Act, our nation takes an important step forward, but by itself, this new law is unlikely to close the wage gap between men and women-because pay discrimination is only one part of the problem.
In order to understand why women are paid 78 percent of men’s earnings, we must compare the disparate salaries of women working full time who have children to women without children.
According to the American Prospect, single women without children earn 98 percent of men’s wages, married women with children earn 69 percent, and single mothers earn 58 percent of the income earned by a married man with children.
These statistics prove that there remains an omnipresent stigma in American society that assumes that men are the primary breadwinners, but the facts prove otherwise. Today many women are the primary income-earners of their households, and although it is uncommon, there are more stay-at-home dads then ever before.
If President Obama really wants to close the wage gap, he shouldn’t stop with the Fair Pay Act. It’s important that our lawmakers remember there are still many goals we can continue to strive for as a nation searching for gender equality, going beyond the issue of equal pay for equal work. We should also strive for equal representation within all departmental levels and fields, and for creating a workplace environment that does not penalize women for being mothers.
I feel solidarity for the Lilly Ledbetters of the world, who will once again be able to file discrimination law suits against their workplaces. But as a single woman without any dependants I don’t have to worry as much about the discrimination that I will experience five or ten years down the road when I’m planning to start my own family.