Campus Voice 2.92011 1 The Blue Banner 1 15 The Blue BamefsN’i^-w Gender pay gap robs women of half a million dollars Penis envy is appropriate if having one means earning an extra half a mil lion dollars in a lifetime. In 2009, the Department of Labor ' found the average woman earned 77 cents for every dollar a man earned. Men can buy an extra guraball an hour. Over time, those quarters add up. According to the Center for American Progress, women lose $434,000 on av erage in 40 years because of the gender pay gap. Sexual discrimination in the work place seems like a problem of the past. Didn’t women solve that problem when they burned their bras in the 1960s? Isn’t that what all the fist shaking and hairy armpits were about? It’s the 21st century, but executives still promote men more than women and women still have to work more hours for the same amount of money. On Feb. 1,8,000 female employees filed a $100 million lawsuit against Toshiba’s U.S. business for alleged discrimination against women. The lawsuit said Toshiba underpays females, slows or stops their promo tions, punishes them more harshly and ignores their complaints. All of Toshiba’s board of directors and executive officers are male. They said they are not discriminating, but simply have not found the proper fe male candidates. The Equal Pay Act should protect women from discrimination, but it is difficult to police such an abstract idea. Promotions are subjective, and CEOs can promote as many men as they want and say the men were simply more qualified. Diversity quotas or government incentives for hiring women create ten sion because they undermine women’s value. Women want to be hired based on performance, not because Uncle Sam says to put more ladies around the office. However, when women’s merit is overlooked and undervalued, it is a vicious cycle of unregulated discrimi nation. The women studying in college today expect to graduate and enter a work place of equal opportunity. Unfor tunately, the progress we’ve actually made is less impressive than what we project. Armed with an education, we don’t anticipate that our gender affects our pay, but the wage gap only increases with education. Women with a bach elor’s degree or higher lose about $713,000 in their lifetime. According to the U.S. 2010 Census, that is enough to buy almost three houses at the me dian price for houses in the U.S. The problem comes from the people in power. We are waiting for the para digm to truly shift instead of projecting an illusion of progress. Men and women are equal. Most of us would readily admit gender has no effect on worth or performance in a workplace. Yet, women are still under valued. They are paid less, restricted to low- paying positions with little chance of promotion. Women are more concen trated than men in part-time positions, which do not qualify for health care benefits and often offer inconsistent hours. In retail, women, on average, make 64 cents per dollar that a man makes. This is equivalent to the wage gap of 30 years ago. Now, that is progress. In 2001, a group of women filed a lawsuit for general sexual discrimi nation against the retail supervillian Wal-Mart. They accused Wal-Mart of paying women less and promoting fewer women, more slowly, to manage ment positions than men. In December, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take the case. It will decide if Wal-Mart is too large to be held accountable for the company-wide discrimination. The women prepared statistical evidence of the large pay gap and the higher concentration of men in manage ment positions and anecdotal evidence of male managers making snide com ments, inluding telling a woman that she belonged in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. If the Supreme Court sides with Wal- Mart, the women will not receive any compensation for the discrimination. This is the opportunity for the Supreme Court to acknowledge the inequality, compensate the employees and take preventative measures to limit future discrimination. Each person has their own strengths and weaknesses. A certain woman may be an asser tive leader. A particular man may have excellent people skills. These traits come from their individuality, not their gender. A vagina should not be a set back. 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