Male Matters Quoted In Newspaper

Battle for equal pay continues

State women make just 74% of what men collect

By Pete Bach
Post-Crescent staff writer May 8, 2007

The longstanding gender pay inequity fight rages on.

Statistics show that women, on average, are paid 77 cents to every $1 men are paid. The gap is the reason behind the April 24 Equal Pay Day rally by the national Business and Professional Women/USA group and recent “Unhappy Hour” event sponsored by the Mid-Day Business & Professional Women, Appleton, at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel.

Autumn Hill, incoming co-president of the Mid-Day BPW, said the pay disparity that goes back decades is well documented. And it’s no myth.

“I know it for sure in my own life in my career experience,” Hill said. “And I also know it anecdotally from my friends and colleagues in the business world. I know for a fact this goes on in women’s lives.”

Gains have been made, but the pace is slowing, especially in Wisconsin, which lags behind the national average in pay inequity, said Hill. In Wisconsin, women on average earn 74 percent men do for the same work, she said, citing statistics from the American Association of University Women.

The Mid-Day BPW points members in the direction of Mid-Day BPW and a Web site, www.wageproject.org, for information on gender pay issues.

The Wage (Women Are Getting Even) Project said the wage gap results from a variety of forms of sex discrimination in the workplace. They include discrimination in hiring, promotion and pay, sexual harassment, occupational segregation, bias against mothers and other ways in which women workers and women’s work are undervalued.

Jerry Boggs of Livonia, Mich., author of the blog, Male Matters, discredited studies by the AAUW and statements on www.wageproject.org. “because they appear to be politically motivated, consisting of organized feminists who give false reasons for the gender earnings gap.”

In an e-mail, he said millions of couples make decisions that help create a wage gap between the sexes. But he questions whether that constitutes discrimination. A husband, say, may choose a dangerous, higher paid job so he can support his wife and children. His wife chooses a lower-paying, flexible one so she can be more available to the children, Boggs said.

“Yes, women on average receive less than men, but do they ‘suffer’ a wage gap as feminists say? Women control more wealth than men, enjoy better health and live longer. These are not signs of oppression but of privilege — which is exactly what feminists would say if men controlled most of the wealth, enjoyed better health and lived longer.”

Boggs said workers also have to keep another workplace gender gap in mind: the accidental death and injury gap. Men account for at least 90 percent of the accidental deaths and injuries, he said.

“Feminists do not talk about this gap, but would complain about it every day if women incurred most of the deaths and injuries,” he said. “That’s why I say feminist groups are political.”

Mid-Day BPW held its Unhappy Hour recently to observe Equal Pay Day on April 24, which symbolically demonstrates how far into each year a woman must work longer to earn as much as a man earned in the previous year.

The organization charged women $5 to attend the event. Men were charged $5.77, the extra 77 cents calling attention to the pay disparity. Hill said about 30 women attended. One man showed up.

Mid-Day BPW advised members to start a wage club, bring pay inequity to the attention of employers by asking them to conduct a self audit and contact Congressional representatives to express the importance of the issue.