Equal Pay Day April 14th: Gender Wage Discrimination Alive and Well

Patricia Arquette was right when she spoke up about wage equality at the Academy Awards.  But it will take more than an actress to turn things around.

If you're a woman who has encountered gender wage discrimination, you know it hurts.  Especially, if you're the breadwinner at home.

While a woman will receive support from equals who are aware of the situation, everyone in power will tell the woman who claims gender wage discrimination:  "You're crazy" or "That's offensive to even suggest."  And eventually, the woman who speaks up will be squeezed out of a job for attempting to stand up for herself.

The fact of the matter is that men and women are treated differently.  Some people of power prefer men over women and that includes the number of clients fed to male vs. women salespeople, when executives hand out raises, and when a promotion opens up.  Who is going to be promoted?  The woman who was strong on the job a year earlier or the man who was quiet, didn't ruffle feathers and arrived a year later?  The performance reviews show a difference in approach when it comes to gender.  Men judge women differently than men, while women also judge women differently than men.

There are huge gender discrimination lawsuits filed awarding millions in damages, of course, but those are few and far between.

Most women who are passed over for sales calls, raises, and promotions or are assigned far fewer clients than men, simply retreat into their shells while they look for a greater opportunity elsewhere.

So, the question remains, does gender equality exist anywhere?  It depends on the business.

I've been very fortunate that I never experienced any gender wage discrimination in the film, television or radio business.  The job paid what it paid whether you were a man or a woman.

Read this article from the Institute For Women's Policy Research.   The opening paragraph from that article says it all:

"Women are almost half of the workforce. They are the equal, if not main, breadwinner in four out of ten families. They receive more college and graduate degrees than men. Yet, on average, women continue to earn considerably less than men. In 2013, female full-time workers made only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 22 percent. Women, on average, earn less than men in virtually every single occupation for which there is sufficient earnings data for both men and women to calculate an earnings ratio."

There are options to level the playing field, which are not being embraced by all businesses.

I support this approach from the American Association of University Women which encourages CEO's to conduct salary audits and address gender-based pay differences.  An update to the Equal Pay Act would also help because right now it isn't working or being enforced by all companies.

I hope something changes because as it stands, retaliation against workers who voice their concerns about gender wage discrimination is real.  When a woman speaks up or voices a concern, any good CEO would do an internal audit for the same job comparing the salaries of men and women.  At the end of the day, the proof is in the audit.