What are some of the things we can do to make the playing field even?

Know what you are worth and negotiate accordingly. Do not accept less than what your demands are unless it is worth it to you.
Be a good example when you receive opportunities that are alternative to the norm.
For instance, I left a job when I gave birth because they refused to offer me part-time.
Guess what? Within 7 months I was back working as the first part timer in my office. It was difficult to leave for financial reasons but in the end I got what I wanted.
I try to take my responsibilities seriously so that I leave a good impression and another woman will be given the same chance.

Not backstab one another.
Be more supportive.
Work together instead of against each other.
Ask for a raise. It's amazing how many women goes years without asking for a raise.
Be willing to walk if you don't get what you want.
Know your job inside and out.
Have a punching bag at home to take out your frustrations on.
Know you are worthy of more and if you don't believe it, fake it. Eventually you'll believe.

Where did you get the idea that women make substantially less than men do for the same job when both the man and woman have the same education and same experience? In some fields, women's salaries actually surpass men's.

Because, for the most part, studies STILL show that women make--on average--only about 75 percent of what men do at the same age, in the same jobs, with the same qualifications.

Check out the current GAO Study.

Oh, I don't think so! The women who work part-time, even a couple of hours a week have their "earnings" included in these studies. So, many women making a tiny bit of money on the side are compared with the entire group of men, most of whom are working full-time. Unfortunately, the hateful feminists have skewed the statistics to make women weak and appear like they aren't making as much as men (vital point, when education, experience, and other factors are nearly identical) when the opposite is true. Unfortunately, no one really bothers to look further into the situation.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/CAREER/trends/12/12/womenpay/

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba392/

Both the BLS and GAO studies (which are both broader and more recent than the NCPA study you've cited here), as well as many others are adjusted so that earnings are calculated at full-time equivalents. Earnings of women working full-time and men working full-time are compared on an equitable level. The gap widens even further for women in certain ethnic groups.

You can find numerous (current) studies at http://www.pay-equity.org/info.html. The AAUW study is one that especially shows the differential in wages of men vs. women with college degrees. If you don't like those, try http://www.bpwusa.org/files/public/101FactsonWorkingwomen2005.pdf.pdf.

When wages of working women with children (full time working women) and working men with children (full time working men) are compared, disparities are even greater.

When education, experience and other factors are nearly identical, women still earn less than men for the same job.

The inequity in pay has nothing to do with "hateful feminists" or women appearing weaker. It has everything to do with an employment market that, for the most part, gives preference to men over women (as employers continue to operate under the false assumption that a woman will be less productive because she may potentially marry and bear children).

I just wrote a huge reply to you, and I must have taken too much time because the forum "ate" my response! Aargggh.

AAUW has been completely discredited. Their research has been exposed for what it is: nearly non-existent and highly biased for the outcome to be what they wanted it to be.

The other link you gave does not work for me.

I don't have time to re-write my post, but a couple of things to consider: what is "similar" is not at all what is "equal" when comparing men's to women's wages.

Meanwhile, here is an article that explains why some of the statistics are very misleading:

http://www.ciaonet.org/pbei/aei/oti/fud01/

Also, the book "Who Stole Feminism" by Christina Hoff Sommers is excellent and highly recommended. She used to buy into a lot of things that she later learned were completely fraudulent.

Hi Lynn,

Okay, I was thinking about this last night some more. Btw, unfortunately, all of the links you gave will not open for me.

You said that the earnings are adjusted so that calculations are for full-time equivalents. One problem with that. A full-time employee, in many cases, will have benefits such as health insurance and other perks that part-time employees will not have. Thus, the salaries are not equivalent. And more women work part-time (generally because of children) than men.

Let's compare apples and orange. Both are fruit. Both are lowfat. Both are high in fiber. Both can be naturally very sweet or rather sour, depending on variety. Apples and oranges are very similar! But, you're still comparing apples to oranges, not apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

Second, if women in the SAME job, with the SAME experience, working the SAME amount of hours, with the SAME outcome as men are earning less, where are the stories? If it happened to me, I'd be the first one to sue for discrimination! Men can nearly have their careers ruined just by women claiming sexual harassment at hearing an X-rated joke. If women are so much more underpaid than men for not similar, but the SAME circumstances, where are the millions of lawsuits that these women should be filing?

Is geographical location included in these statistics? If NYC lawyers comprise 65% men (I'm just making this figure up for the sake of argument) and only 39% in the Midwest, the statistics are still not going to be equal because salaries vary greatly depending on where one lives. My husband and I make good salaries for where we live. In NYC, we'd starve.

So many of the statistics gloss over these seemingly minute, but paramount differences. They tout the huge wage gap but never bother to explain exactly what it is.

Apples to oranges.

Ally: The citation you give is to a 2000 document. Again, multiple current studies continue to demonstrate that the gap exists. The data is analyzed in such a manner so that the researchers are comparing apples to apples; and researchers have indeed examined differentials based on place (differentials in pay by gender are greater in the Southern states, for instance).

Lawsuit after lawsuit exists related to this--most are primarily large, class-action suits which involve hundreds of women (for instance, the suit against Wal-Mart which is still settling out).

The issue has hit such a point that almost half of the states in the U.S. now have laws on the books regarding pay equity for both public and non-public employees.

Even a differential in pay by gender of 10 percent should be cause for concern.

Lynn, (your sources still do not appear; "Object not found" is what appears when I click on your link)

I've never seen impartial studies that show that in EQUAL circumstances, women make substantially less than men. What I think is happening is that while the same "pay gap myth" keeps regenerating without any real evidence, there have been so many articles that have disproven it that they don't want to keep reiterating the message. But apparently, some people still desire to believe it.

This article is from 2002, but it is yet another example of why those figures are not interpreted correctly. It's by the "National Center for Policy Analysis."

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba392/

From a year ago, an excellent article by John Leo, editor for US News and World Report:

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/johnleo/2005/03/14/14792.html

An excerpt: "A new book, Why Men Earn More by Warren Farrell, goes further, examining a broad array of wage statistics. His conclusion: When reasonable adjustments are made, women earn just as much as men, and sometimes more."

and

"Some of Farrell's findings: Women are 15 times as likely as men to become top executives in major corporations before the age of 40. Never-married, college-educated males who work full time make only 85 percent of what comparable women earn. Female pay exceeds male pay in more than 80 different fields, 39 of them large fields that offer good jobs, like financial analyst, engineering manager, sales engineer, statistician, surveying and mapping technicians, agricultural and food scientists, and aerospace engineers. A female investment banker's starting salary is 116 percent of a male's. Part-time female workers make $1.10 for every $1 earned by part-time males."

and

"Surprisingly, Farrell argues that comparable males and females have been earning similar salaries for decades, though the press has yet to notice. As long ago as the early 1980s, he writes, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that companies paid men and women equal money when their titles and responsibilities were the same."

Again, for a good starting place, I'd highly recommend Christina Hoff Sommers' book on how many groups are convincing many unaware people of just how bad life is for women in the United States when nothing could be further from the truth.

Actually it is very simple. Go through the same training, start and end your work days at the same time while having the same amount of breaks, have the same vacation time, do the same work and retire at the same time. Then it is equality and you deserve the same pay as the men get. I get called a traitor to my gender and I received many insults everytime I say these things but it still remains the truth that equality is not only with the pay and benefits but also with everything else that goes with every jobs! And as far as children goes it is not the responsability of your boss or anyone else to take care of them, it is yours!