Equal Pay Act: 47 Years Later

47 years ago yesterday, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act. According to the Wage Project a professional woman will make $1 million less than a professional man in her lifetime.

I’m going through a phase right now where I’m not quite sure where I’ll end up in 5 years, most likely fighting the good fight in Women’s rights/Human Rights or still in school, but I will definitely be a professional woman, and it really upsets me (putting it lightly) that I could be missing out on ONE MILLION DOLLARS during the span of my lifetime. I mean just think of all the things you could do with some extra cash.

What's worse is that the stats we hear like "A woman makes 77 cents to every dollar a man makes." are not entirely true. That statistic should read something more like "A professional Caucasian woman makes 77 cents to every dollars that a man makes." Statistics can be presented in many ways and unfortunately pay equity statistics, in my opinion, are spun to look like the wage gap is much smaller than it actually is.

What about women and men who work blue collar jobs? How much less do those women make than men? (Correct me if I am wrong, but the statistics from the Wage project do not include these women)

Women of color make significantly less than 77 cents, African American women make 68 cents to every dollar, and Latina women make 58 cents (Que?!) It's just extremely disgusting to think that in 2010 women still get paid less because they are women.

"Because they are women"
Everytime I say this I take a moment to let it sink in, so that I always remember that I am a second-class citizen and that there still is a lot of work left for feminists.

Check out what President Obama said about Pay Equity yesterday.

I found this very interesting link from WAGE "What Are the Costs of the Wage Gap", check it out!

Oh a much happier note! Today Iceland made same-sex marriage legal! Yes! Equality Wins!

Photo Credit: AMagill on Flickr