You've Come a Long Way, Baby?

   I AM DISTURBED !!!!

Street Feet here. What can I say? I am disturbed. Why? Because of today's news concerning the gap in pay between genders.

What exactly is the news?

1)According to ABC News, if a man and woman work at the same job over a lifetime, the woman will earn (gross) 1.2 million less than the man!

2) According to the American Association of University Women (AAUW), women who are just one year out of college, earn 80% of what their male counterparts earn. This is before taking time off for motherhood comes into play.

3.) 10 years after college, women earn only 69 percent of what men earn.

4.) Education doesn't seem to help close the gap. According to the AAUW's report, "Women who attended highly selective colleges earn less than men from either highly or moderately selective colleges and about the same as men from minimally selective colleges. "

What can I say? WE'VE COME A LONG WAY BABY (sic).

Now I was a kid during the Women's Rights Movement. I wore the Virginia Slims button (pictured on the left) because it celebrated that female athletes could be powerful and earn prize money just like men! (I had no clue that Virginia Slims was trying to get me to smoke cigarettes. I never took up smoking, BTW.)

Around this same time, I sang  the National Organization of Women song, Women are real people we want equal rights and Helen Reddy's I am woman hear me roar.  I was sure I was singing about my mother's generation's  quest for equality; I never imagined that that battle could/would belong to my generation of women or those that came later.

Yet here we are, and truth be told, when I heard the news last night, I was shocked. Yesterday was Gap Day, (ABC News explained that a woman has to work all year AND until April 24 of the following year to earn as much money as a similar man does in twelve months)and I honestly thought that the Women's Rights movement had closed the gap for the most part.

Now the main reason I believed this was because of my own experience. I've owned my own company for more than 20 years and my rates are at least as high as most men's. And when I negotiate salaries for women OR men I use the same criteria and argument regardless of sex.

But I live and work in a microcosm of sorts and negotiation is one of the ways in which I earn my living. Guess what  ABC News says is  one of the main factors that influences the gender pay gap-- apparently  women don't negotiate salaries as well as men. According to Tory Johnson, workplace correspondent for ABC News, "Men Are More Than Four Times More Likely to Haggle Over Pay Than Women."

If you don't haggle, or don't know how, here are some tips courtesy of ABC News.

I think another way to even the playing field is for groups of women to ask their employers to reveal and explain their gender pay gaps. I'm not suggesting that any legislation be created, instead I think companies that pay members of both sexes on the same level be called "Level PAYING Field" businesses and label their products or services accordingly.

And guess what? If we did that, then I wouldn't give companies that weren't Level PAYING Field firms, very much of my money. And I'm pretty sure that my husband, my father, my brother, and my guy friends would follow in kind.

Now I'm not looking to re-launch the women's movement, but you and your coworkers might try to discover what the gap in gender pay at your company looks like. If the folks in HR/Compensation don't know, ask them to find out. I'll be happy to post the results on this site. Will it do any good? Just posing the question to your employer might.

At the end of the day, you get what you accept not what you deserve. Expect and accept more!