The gender based wage gap is a myth: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga...</a>
Besides the gap myth (or misconception, I would call it) that others have already pointed out, this article contains some other questionable statements.<p>> Numerous studies have shown that equal pay for women would significantly boost the American economy—in one year, the U.S. would have produced $447.6 billion more income<p>Surely this income not going to women is going to someone else -- male workers, presumably, or to shareholders. $450B wouldn't just come out of thin air, would it?
The linked page doesn't explain how they came to this number. I'm assuming they just took the difference women earn on average times the number of working women.
I know there have been a couple of companies that are making the move to openly discuss employee pay. It's something that surely needs to happen. Twice in my short career I've run into very obvious pay discrimination revealed after an employee on the way out told me their salary. Once to me, once to a fellow female developer. Excited to see both voluntary moves toward this as well as legislation.
Framing the problem as "benefits gap" as opposed to "pay gap" sounds like a good way forward I think. The article rightly points to the difference in terms of parental leave and other benefits, which are usually not brought up when talking about pay gap.
These studies have been debunked countless times. When all is equal (hours worked, degree, and experience), women get paid pretty much the same amount as men.<p><a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wage-gap-myth-that-wont-die-1443654408" rel="nofollow">http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wage-gap-myth-that-wont-die-...</a>
Not that I expected greatness from a website called womenwanttobeontop.com but this article is just bad. Not in the sense that the issue isn't important, but that the authors points are flimsy which does more to harm her message more than help it.<p>> women still make 79 cents to a man’s dollar<p>If you're opening your article with this line you're already pandering to your base. Nobody who would read this article critically would take that line seriously. Especially since the cited link isn't a study or any kind of evidence, it's another uncited article which simply parrots her statement.<p>Taking aggregate values is useful in the sense that it signifies that <i>something</i> is probably wrong, but then she assumes that the aggregate data is meaningful on the individual level.<p>If men and women were paid exactly the same for the same work it's still possible to wind up with a wage gap in aggregate. That doesn't mean that there isn't a problem, but it would mean that the problem isn't wage discrimination.<p>> For women of color, this gap is even higher.<p>She linked the exact same useless 'article' for this statement that she did for the previous one. Worse, the linked article doesn't even <i>mention</i> the gap between different races.<p>The question that's actually interesting is if there's a wage gap between whites and blacks (yes) and if the gap for black women is larger than the combined gap between men and women and whites and blacks. One outcome is more significant than the other.<p>> Numerous studies have shown that equal pay for women would significantly boost the American economy—in one year, the U.S. would have produced $447.6 billion more income<p>The "study" (not a study, singular) cited in the paragraph is from the Institute for Women's Policy Research which provides no evidence for her claims and seems to be founded on the completely fallacious economic reasoning that the money required to fill the gap doesn't come from anywhere and will have no other economic effects.<p>Well no shit the economy will improve if you just magically create 21% more wealth from nowhere.<p>> The income women bring in is also increasingly critical to the financial security of family units, and when women make less that means less money for groceries, gas, rent, college tuition and other things families need.<p>This has nothing to do with women. This has to do with the current state of the middle class, job security, and having a functioning social safety net.<p>> Women in senior leadership positions need to mentor younger women and advocate for their advancement in companies.<p>The hypocrisy is staggering. Women should be using their positions of power and influence to advantage other women simply because of their sex.