Equal pay for equal work

The Paycheck Fairness Act of 2010.

Hell, we don’t need that, do we?

As columnist George F. Will wrote for Monday’s Newsweek, women last year got themselves more doctoral degrees than men, and they even live five years longer than men on average (Because that really relates to, you know, gender equality).

Women are so darn lucky now. Isn’t it just plain “ludicrous to argue that women should be regarded as victims in a patriarchal, phallocentric America?”

Yes, Mr. Will, but only if you completely skew the facts (which you did). Sure, women have made progress — but underlying cultural norms still persist, and (can you imagine!) disparities still exist. I’ll try to keep my asperity restrained while I explain.

First, pay disparities do not “largely reflect women’s choices” to spend more time with the family than in the office.

Even women who do not intend to have kids, go to the best schools and aim high earn $4,600 less than their male peers in their first jobs out of business school, according to a survey from Catalyst.

And then we have the women who, God forbid, do choose to marry and have munchkins. What terrible life choices, what faulty decision-making.

You see, marriage and kids affect women more than men in the workplace. People employ “bias avoidance strategies” if their care-giving commitments seem negative to their bosses and co-workers.

A study on tenure-track parents employed at Pennsylvania State University found that 37 percent of fathers and 46.2 percent of mothers skipped their kids’ important events because they “did not want to appear uncommitted to their jobs.”

And looking at the study as a whole, 23.9 percent of men and 49.6 percent of women reported “at least one productive bias avoidance behavior,” meaning they minimized family time.

These perceived biases are legitimate. Women in management with children are still earning 79 cents per every dollar male managers with children make, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s latest glass-ceiling report.

Female managers without children have seen their average pay rise from 81 cents to 83 cents per every dollar a male manager makes between 2000 and 2007.

In fact, women who use their partner’s surname are viewed as “more dependent, less intelligent, more emotional and less competent” than single peers and are less likely to be hired, as a study at Tilburg University
discovered.

And in dual-earning households, women still shoulder two-thirds of the housework, leading to what is called the “second-shift.”

But suck it up, ladies. After all, it was your choice, and a 20 percent wage gap is practically zero, am I right?
We must stop purporting misleading half-truths about the wage gap. After all, women are not out to surpass men. This is a struggle for equality, not a cause for defensiveness.

I am not saying that we are all sexist — at least, not consciously. Both men and women are barraged by cultural influences, some good, some bad. I only ask that we try to be aware of these often unconscious biases and that we don’t shy from legislation dealing with them.  

Now to the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Where our president sees a common sense measure that ought to pass, Will sees merely a way for trial lawyers to fill their coffers. Yes, yes, the act allows women more ease in suing employers who pay them less than men.

But if those cases are legitimate ones with real discrimination (and I’m sure most women would hesitate to cry “victim”), then what’s the problem?

Moreover, as Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., writes, this isn’t just a problem for women — with “more two-income couples stretching every single penny in their possession to make ends meet, the problem of women earning smaller paychecks for no good reason becomes even more acute for the entire family.”

And, as Will notes, construction and manufacturing were particularly hard-hit in this recession, which could lead to women comprising the majority of the workforce for the first time.

However, this exacerbates the problem because that extra 20 cents or so per dollar could really help out
struggling families.

Perhaps, if passed, the act truly will be an “invitation to litigation,” as Will puts it.
But fighting for pay equity shouldn’t be slanted negatively as a battle between men and women — because “women’s liberation,” as activist Gloria Steinem said, “is men’sliberation too.”


E-mail: celgrund@indiana.edu