Equal Pay
So, it's Blog for Fair Pay for Women day.

This issue is important to me. Here's why:

A woman related to me in my parents' generation grew up in a really conservative Christian family. She went to Christian high school - because she wanted to. But we all know that conservative Christians are pretty attached to traditional gender roles. So when she graduated from a Christian University with a B.A in Home Economics, she pretty much had 4 somewhat self-imposed choices: nurse, secretary, teacher, or housewife. Since she wasn't married at the time, housewife wasn't an option  yet.
And for whatever reason, she became a teacher - at a Christian elementary school.  And because she wasn't married yet and was a good Christian girl, she still lived at home.
And because she was an unmarried woman, still living at home, the school she worked for paid her hugely, massively, significantly less than her male colleagues. And she had no idea. She was an adult, working full-time and yet not being paid enough to support herself since, obviously  as a woman, her income was just pocket change and the real financial burden would always be on her father or her husband.
This continued up until the 1990s when the school changed administrators and the new admin felt that women should be paid fairly - or, at least, more fairly than previously (Which in the case of this particular school meant: still not as much as public school teachers make. No kidding.) . I assume they got away with all this because of being a religious organization or whatever, I don't know. But this is an absolutely true story. I've seen my relative's income figures and they were dismal. Unfortunately, I've got no head for numbers and can't remember them.

These people had no justification whatsoever for paying her less other than that she was a woman. They used the fact that her father - and later her husband - worked to justify paying her less for doing the same job as her male colleagues. In the fricking 1980s and 1990s, people.

So I want to know: for all of you out there who, unlike me, are actually employed: how would it feel if your boss felt like it was perfectly OK to pay you less because your spouse - or your parents! - also works? Is that crazy or what?

And then there's the whole issue of men making more than women right off the bat because men are more likely to ask for more money to start with, an advantage that compounds with every future raise.  Because women are told by the culture that they are worth less; that they're lucky to be getting a job at all; that it's rude to find out how much others in the same position make and expect to be paid comparably.

And then there's the fact that women are more likely to be working low-paying or part-time jobs for a host of reasons.

The statistics are even worse for minorities.

Gas is heading for four bucks a gallon and minimum wage is still below $6 an hour, even with the recent jump from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour. And rising gas prices are causing rising food prices.
And who do you think gets hit the hardest by those? The answer is: poor people, many of whom are, you guessed it: women! (And also college students who survive on scholarship money but that's not what this blog entry is about).

So here's the thing: if you are a woman, do the research. Find out how much people in your position make and if you're not getting paid that much, ask why.
If you're a man: understand that women may not have been taught to navigate the system as well as men may have and don't take unfair advantage by paying them less than their male colleagues when their male colleagues know to ask for more money while the women don't. Or something. I don't know.
And everybody should support legislation that tries to protect fair pay.

And... I don't really know what else to say other than: getting paid less for doing the same job as somebody else really sucks and it shouldn't have to happen to anybody.