Our country recently witnessed the one year anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, more commonly referred to as the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act. The law provides legal recourse for women who are paid less money for working the same job as a man.
This is an enormously important law, and it is named after a woman who was denied the ability to have her day in court against her employer because she realized she had experienced gender discrimination through her pay after the statutes to file these charges had passed.
Her case was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co, which led to Congress passing the Fair Pay Act, the first piece of legislation which President Obama signed into law.
While this is an important step, a report I read today demonstrates that our society has yet to live up to the law. ABC News reports that the research firm Catalyst has released a study called “Pipeline’s Broken Promises”.
The report states that the pipeline “of women into senior leadership” is not being fulfilled. The report controls for all the factors that one might use to justify the gender inequality in the workplace, including: aspirations, parenthood, experience, and other factors. The report states, “the findings hold even when considering only men and women who aspired to CEO/senior executive level” and “the findings hold even when considering only men and women who do not have children.”
I would encourage you to read the 16 page report, which includes the results of the Catalyst study as well as reactions and recommendations from members of the corporate world, to which the study was focused.
The ACLU is deeply concerned about pay equity between men and women, and supports the Paycheck Fairness Act, which was sponsored by then-Senator Hillary Clinton in January of 2009. According to Deborah Vagins at the ACLU, the bill would “addresses the shortcomings of the Equal Pay Act by requiring employers to show that any wage differences between employees performing the same work must be based on legitimate reasons unrelated to the employees' sex. The bill also prohibits retaliation against employees who inquire about their employer's wage practices or disclose their wage information to other employees. The Paycheck Fairness Act would also ensure that women who are discriminated against in the workplace can obtain the same remedies as those who suffer from discrimination based on race or national origin.”
This report demonstrates that there is plenty of work ahead in closing the gender equality gap in the workplace. Learn more about the Women’s Rights Project of the ACLU and its work on women in the workplace.