gender

How Sexism and Racism Can Be Harmful to Your Health

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Sexism and racism are two forms of systemic injustice where people are treated unfairly by a network of social institutions because they belong to a certain social-identity group. For example, much has been written about the gender-pay gap and obstacles to promotion for women in many fields. In addition, the Black Lives Matter movement has raised our awareness of the higher rates of incarceration and killing of African Americans by police and the judicial system than is true for Whites. Gender and race are not the only social-identity categories where discrimination occurs, of course. Let’s take a look at some recent studies on how sexism and racism can be harmful to our health. (Be aware that these findings probably apply to other marginalized groups, such as the LGBTQIA community, as well.) One example of sexism is the barrier for women in certain fields, such as engineering and construction, that reduce the number of women in these professions. Jenny Kutner reports that a new study by researchers at Indiana University found that token women—defined as having 15 percent or fewer female colleagues in male-dominated industries—experienced “abnormally high stress levels.” Specifically, the researchers found that being exposed to stressors such as lower pay, isolation and invisibility, obstacles to promotion, and sexual harassment causes “irregular patterns of cortisol, the hormone that regulates stress.” Token women, the researchers explain, “exhibit more unhealthy cortisol fluctuations throughout the day than do their male counterparts or women who worked in offices with a more balanced gender ration.” Kutner notes that the fluctuating cortisol levels of the token women in the study are the same sort of hormone irregularity associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and can have lasting repercussions on health and well-being. Another example of sexism is the objectification of women and girls that can begin in adolescence or earlier and continue through adulthood. Objectification includes (but is not limited to) the following:

  • Leering by men who may be colleagues, acquaintances, or strangers
  • Catcalls of a sexual nature on the street from strangers
  • Groping and flashing by men that can start when girls are quite young
  • Online sexual harassment
Jessica Valenti of the New York Times reports on research showing that these examples of “the ways women and girls are looked at and dehumanized” affect their mental health, sense of self, and sense of safety. Acts of objectification are microaggressions—small moments of being diminished or demeaned—that add up. These are not to be confused with macroaggressions like rape and other forms of sexual violence, but nonetheless they are harmful in the long run for girls and women. The psychological toll of racism and the resulting daily cost of micro- and macroaggression is an old story for black people in our country. Jenna Wortham writes that the killings of black women and men by police officers recorded on cameras and made public—including the recent killings of Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Sandra Bland, and Korryn Gaines—have produced “rage and mourning and angst that . . . eats you alive with its relentlessness . . . and leaves you feeling helpless.” She explains that the resulting traumatic stress response for many African Americans makes them physically sick with rashes, depression, insomnia, and emotional exhaustion. As a white person, I’ve been upset by these killings and incarceration rates, but I realize that I do not feel the same fear and trauma as my African American friends and colleagues—I do not think the police are going to arrest me or shoot me because of the color of my skin, which is a reality for them. What can we do? One thing that matters a lot is to listen to each other to understand the impact of racism and sexism—men can listen to women, whites can listen to people of color—and take whatever action we can together to change the systems that damage our health and our lives. It will take all of us to change these deeply rooted systems. Do you have stories of people from different social backgrounds coming together to address systemic injustice? If so, please let me know in the comments.   The image in this post is courtesy of businessforward (CC BY-SA 2.0).    ]]>

What Sexism Looks Like in Politics and Life

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Examples of sexism are rampant in the United States as demonstrated in our presidential contest, sexual harassment scandals, and other public-sector examples like the gender-wage gap. Let’s be clear—both women and men can hold sexist attitudes about women. Sexist attitudes usually include negative stereotypes that create barriers or unfair double standards for women. I have written about many ways that internalized sexism makes it difficult for women to support strong women leaders in my book, New Rules for Women: Revolutionizing the Way Women Work Together. Below are some examples of sexist attitudes currently on display. Gail Collins of the New York Times notes several instances of sexism in the current presidential race demonstrated by Trump and his supporters:

  • Yelling. Collins notes that Trump and his supporters complain that Clinton yells too much. Collins also notes that Trump yells all the time. She goes on to explain that voice is a sensitive issue for women, who have learned that for their ideas to get heard, they must speak as assertively as men. Yet messages about the sound of women’s voices being unacceptable in public roles are deeply ingrained in our culture. Collins reflects that not too long ago, no women news anchors were on television because it was thought that no one wanted to hear the news from women’s voices. I remember being told when I was growing up that “women should be seen and not heard.” It seems this message is still operating in the underbelly of our culture.
  • Being Weak. Collins notes that Trump and his surrogates like to describe Clinton as lacking in stamina. Nobody who watched Hillary Clinton as secretary of state can accuse her of lacking stamina. This is sexist code language reflecting a negative stereotype of women being too weak and indecisive to be leaders.
  • Not Looking Presidential. Trump likes to talk about how he looks presidential because he is tough, and that Clinton is not tough and therefore does not look presidential. One of the other criticisms of Clinton has been that she is not feminine or emotional enough. This seems to be a classic double bind and makes me wonder if only men are allowed to be tough.
  • Failure to Smile. Collins notes that Clinton has been roundly criticized for not smiling enough during debates. Really? This is actually a common critique of women in leadership roles in organizations as well. The same criticism is not leveled at male leaders. And besides, how can you communicate toughness (if this is what’s required to be presidential) if you are smiling all the time while talking about very serious matters of global importance?
  • Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, writes that she endured many of the same sexist criticisms about her appearance that Clinton now endures, including unending criticism about her hair style, for not wearing heels or enough make up, and for wearing too many bracelets. Kennedy Townsend notes that we have no archetype for a powerful woman in our culture and few role models.
Andi Zeisler writes in the New York Times about another expression of sexism in our presidential contest—the use of the B word by Trump and his supporters to describe Hillary Clinton. Zeisler points out that calling a woman a bitch “has long been an effective way to silence women because so many of us have been brought up to believe that remaining likeable to others—even those we ourselves don’t like—is paramount.” She suggests we reframe the word to be positive, using it to mean these traits:
  • Flexing influence
  • Standing up for your beliefs
  • Not acting according to feminine norms and expectations
  • Wanting to win and going for it
  • Rejecting the expectations, assumptions, and double standards that have always dogged women in American politics
In other words, Zeisler suggests that we reframe the term to mean being a strong woman who gets things done. Isn’t this what we need from women leaders and from our president? Count me in. I’m with her. If I am ever called a bitch, I will be proud that my strength is showing. Why are you proud of being a strong woman, or what do you admire about the strong women you know? Let me know in the comments section.   The image in this post is courtesy of businessforward (CC BY-SA 2.0).  ]]>

New Mothers in the Cockpit: Challenges for Female Pilots

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The commercial aviation industry remains one of the toughest and least accommodating for new mothers. Annalyn Kurtz of the New York Times notes that “pilots are exempt from a provision in the Affordable Care Act requiring employers to accommodate new mothers.” Perhaps because only 4 percent of the 159,000 certified commercial airline pilots are women, and only a portion of these are childbearing age, the issues of paid maternity leave and accommodation for breast-feeding are not priorities for union collective bargaining efforts. Many male pilots are also not supportive of fighting for these policy changes on behalf of their female colleagues because they do not see the policies as important. For these reasons, female pilots have begun to join forces to pressure their male colleagues and unions to support demands for paid maternity leave and alternative work assignments so that women can keep their jobs and support their families during pregnancy and while nursing newborns. Female pilots are in a unique situation in that providing accommodation, time, or privacy for breast pumping while on the job is no simple matter. Because female pilots are on the job in the cockpit of an airplane, they cannot easily gain privacy for pumping without leaving the cockpit, usually for about twenty minutes at a time, which can raise safety concerns. While a flight attendant can enter the cockpit while the female pilot is pumping in the bathroom to meet the requirement of having at least two people present at all times in the flight deck, not everyone feels this arrangement is acceptable for safety purposes. For this reason, female pilots are demanding paid maternity leave or temporary ground assignments while pregnant or nursing so that they can continue to support their families. Without paid leave, they must choose between earning a living or breast-feeding their babies. Some airlines also force pregnant pilots to stop flying between eight to fourteen weeks before birth, which means lost wages. While some airlines offer unpaid leave, this does not allow the female pilot to pay her bills. Paid leave and temporary ground assignments would be reasonable accommodations for female pilots. Female flight attendants face many of the same issues. It’s time for the aviation industry to change their antiquated policies and create a more inclusive workplace.   The image in this post is in the public domain courtesy of Poli.]]>

How Men Can Help Close the Gender Equity Gap: Examples of Success

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“Sisterhood is not enough; men must be involved in efforts to equalize workplace culture,” writes Peggy Klaus in the New York Times. Klaus goes on to quote Belinda Parmar, head of the tech consultancy Lady Geek, as saying, “gender equity is not a ‘women’s problem,’ it’s a society problem.” I could not agree more, and we need to do more to change workplace culture. Klaus notes that over the past twenty-five years, many large organizations have invested significant resources to promote women’s leadership conferences and workshops as their way of supporting the advancement of women, yet not much has changed in the representation of women at the senior levels of management. Women comprise only 3 percent of CEO positions in the United States. Women’s leadership conferences and training programs create networks and provide crucial support, especially for women working in male-dominated industries. They help women face the challenges of cultural biases and stereotypes that men don’t have to deal with. For example, women have to negotiate differently than men to be effective, and they have more difficult challenges around executive leadership and self-promotion because of the “likeability factor.” The issue is that American corporations think that investing in conferences is enough to fix deep and systemic issues. Klaus notes, “Relying on women’s conferences and trainings to fix the problem amounts to little more than checking a diversity box and sidelining the issue of gender equity.” Women cannot change organizational cultures, which are held in place by policies, procedures, and deeply ingrained society biases, without the engagement of men. Men hold the power and must be part of the solution. Fortunately, Klaus reports that we have some positive examples of how men can become allies:

  • Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, conducted a gender-pay audit at his company and spent millions correcting the gender-pay gap that he discovered.
  • Bradley Cooper announced that he would do his part by sharing information about what he was making on a film with female costars before they signed their deals after several Hollywood actresses, including Jennifer Lawrence, discovered they were being paid significantly less than their male costars.
  • The investment firm BlackRock developed a women’s leadership program that addressed gaps in leadership skills, global networks, and sponsorship. The CEO and other senior leaders invested significant time, energy, and resources into the program, which led to advancement for the majority of the 160 participants. This was not a program that sidelined the issues. This program made a comprehensive commitment to changing the organization’s culture.
Nicholas Kristof writes about the ways that men, organizations, and society win when women win, and I also wrote about this in a previous article. Here are some of the benefits for men and organizations when women are more involved:
  • Bringing on more women makes work teams more successful.
  • Women bring knowledge, skills, and new networks to the table.
  • Women take fewer unnecessary risks.
  • Women tend to collaborate in ways that strengthen teams and organizations.
  • Successful venture-backed start-ups have more female executives than failed ones.
  • Firms with more women in senior leadership generate more market value.
Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant note that “economists estimate that raising women’s participation in the work force to the same level as men could raise GDP by 5 percent in the United States,” which means more jobs and wider prosperity. As Parmar noted, this is not just a women’s issue, it is a societal issue. We need to work together, women and men, to change societal attitudes and organizational cultures that limit opportunities for women. We will all benefit in the long run.   The image in this post is in the public domain courtesy of Unsplash.]]>

Stopping Harassment in the Legal Profession: The ABA Takes a Stand

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The American Bar Association (ABA) recently passed national standards that prohibit harassment of opposing counsel, witnesses, coworkers, court personnel, and others in the course of practicing law. Elizabeth Olson of the New York Times reports that according to the new standards, “harassment includes sexual harassment and derogatory or demeaning verbal or physical conduct” based on race, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, or marital or economic status. In a separate article, Olson explains that harassment has long been intentionally used in the legal profession to intimidate or fluster opposing counsel and witnesses as well as to reinforce male-dominated attitudes in the legal profession.  She reports that a recent ABA study found that “stereotypical sexist remarks to female lawyers contribute to their underrepresentation in the legal field.” The study also revealed these statistics:

  • Only 18 percent of partners at top law firms are women.
  • In civil cases, men are three times more likely than women to appear as lead counsel and trial attorneys.
  • In criminal law, men are four times more likely to appear as trial attorneys.
Female lawyers explain that they usually try to ignore sexist and racist comments “for fear of imperiling their careers or being labeled less than a team player”—until they can’t anymore and leave the profession.  These are real concerns, and change will only happen if both male and female lawyers and judges hold offending attorneys accountable with the fines and penalties, such as disbarment, now possible when complaints are made and investigated. The National Association of Female Lawyers, the ABA, and individual male and female attorneys and judges have shown courage and determination in pushing for these national standards.  Let’s celebrate a step in the right direction that has a chance to make the legal profession more welcoming and inclusive for its nondominant members, and the courtroom a place where positive standards of professional conduct are on display.   The image in this post is in the public domain courtesy of David Mark.]]>

Why Sexual Harassment Is Still Happening in the Workplace

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“I am worried about my new boss,” reported my client, Julie, a bright young woman in her thirties. “I had to leave my last job because my boss demanded sexual favors from me in order to keep my job. I had no one to turn to for help because he is so powerful and respected in the small world of our profession. Reporting him would have been career suicide, so I just quit. Now I am worried that my new boss is starting to show signs of the same expectations. I need this job and I don’t know what to do! Can you help me?” Has nothing changed since 1991 when Anita Hill, an obscure law professor, reluctantly described the lewd behavior of her previous boss, Clarence Thomas, during the Senate confirmation hearing for his nomination to the Supreme Court? Unfortunately, the answer is “No, not much has changed.” Professor Hill helped us give a name—sexual harassment—to an ancient practice by powerful people (usually men) over less powerful people (usually women) in the workplace. Since 1991, new laws and organizational policies have been passed to prohibit this behavior, but it has not stopped. In fact, James B. Stewart of the New York Times reports that the problem is still massive and pervasive. Consider the recent sensational cases of Roger Ailes of Fox News and Bill Cosby, the comedian. And consider the experience of my client Julie. Why is this still happening? I believe that sexual harassment continues to be a fact of life for many women because of these factors:

  • Power, unchecked and unchallenged
  • Career damage for women who come forward
  • Employment contracts that require sexual harassment claims to go to arbitration as a condition of employment
  • Isolation of women who are forced to sign nondisclosure agreements when they receive settlements during arbitration of their claim
  • The silence of men and of people in key functions in organizations, such as the HR, legal, and finance leaders at Fox News who helped cover up the misdeeds of Ailes
Sexual harassment happens, for the most part, because it is a power game. Julie’s case is a clear example of an older male boss using his power over a younger female employee to demand sexual favors that she may feel powerless to refuse. Yes, I have seen women with power demand sexual favors from less powerful men, and I have also seen same-sex sexual harassment, but the latter two types are much more rare. Nonetheless, the key to the dynamic is that one person has real power to promote, demote, or fire the lower-power person—to retaliate—if the employee refuses the demand for sexual favors. Fear of retaliation is what makes many women leave good jobs and even walk away from a profession they may have spent years training for. According to Noam Scheiber and Sydney Ember of the New York Times, studies indicate that “the great majority of sexual harassment incidents at work still go unreported” because of fear of retaliation. Carol Costello of CNN, who experienced sexual harassment earlier in her career but did not report it, agrees that women who come forward verbally or file a lawsuit still face consequences. In fact, Scheiber and Ember explain that many plaintiffs’ lawyers argue that the risks to women of coming forward have increased over time as the Internet allows a label of “troublemaker” to follow a woman throughout her life. Jen Agg, writing for the New York Times, describes this challenge for women building careers as chefs. Relatively few top chefs are women, and women know that if they complain about the rampant sexual harassment in the testosterone-fueled environments of most restaurant kitchens, “you get a reputation for not being a ‘team player’ and you will not advance.” Women know they have to stay quiet or leave the industry. Isolation also keeps sexual harassment alive and well. When women go to HR and complain about a high-level boss, they are sometimes offered a settlement to leave and keep quiet—an option that may seem preferable to being fired or demoted—by signing a nondisclosure agreement in exchange for a payment. In this case, no one talks, so each woman thinks that she alone has been subjected to the abuse, and the perpetrator can continue abusing other women for years without consequences, as did Ailes and Cosby. Furthermore, those who know what is going on may collude to protect the powerful man, as happened in the case of both Ailes and Cosby, and women really don’t have anyone they can talk to who will help them. What can be done? We must eliminate nondisclosure agreements and employment contracts with arbitration requirements so that powerful perpetrators can be held accountable, and we need women and men at all levels to break their silence when they know that sexual harassment is going on. It’s time for this to stop. Julie should never have to quit her job or be afraid of her boss again, and neither should anyone else.   The image in this post is courtesy of Sharon Mollerus (CC BY 2.0).]]>

Three Tips for How to Get More Women on Corporate Boards

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The United Kingdom and Australia have significantly increased the number of women on corporate boards in recent years, while representation in the United States has stalled. Nneka Orji of The Glasshammer reports that female representation in the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 company boardrooms increased from 12.5 percent in 2011 to 26 percent in 2016. Similarly, Alexandra Spring writes in the Guardian that 26 percent of the director positions in Australia’s ASX 200 companies are now held by women, with a target of 30 percent by 2018. In contrast, Linda Colby of Bloomberg News reports that only 19.9 percent of board seats in S&P 500 companies were held by women in 2015, up from 19.2 percent in 2014. At this rate, Colby notes, it will take more than forty years for women in the United States to reach 30 percent representation on corporate boards. How have the United Kingdom and Australia made so much progress? In the United Kingdom, the Davies Review found that setting a clear five-year target in 2011 of achieving 25 percent representation by women, along with a public commitment from senior leaders to proactively address unconscious bias and other obstacles for women, resulted in the increase. In Australia, research from 2005–2011 found that companies with more women on boards showed higher financial performance. This research led to a 2011 report that called for organizations to set numeric targets and report on them. Australia’s implementation of these recommendations also increased the representation of women on corporate boards to 26 percent in 2016. Why does it matter that more women be on boards? A 2016 study by EY and the Peterson Institute of International Economics showed that “companies with at least 30 percent women in leadership may boost profit margins by 15 percent.” In addition, an earlier study by the index provider MCSI found that companies with more women “delivered 35 percent better ROI since 2010 than those groups lacking board diversity.” It just makes business sense to have more women on boards—but talk won’t get us there. Here are three important components of what worked in the United Kingdom and Australia:

  • Setting specific and time-bound goals
  • Being transparent about committing to those goals
  • Building in accountability and linking remuneration to progress against gender diversity targets
These are important lessons for the United States. We have not yet made these commitments. Are there other steps that you think would increase the representation of women on boards? Please share your ideas in the comments section.   The image in this post is in the public domain courtesy of Hillyne Jonkerman]]>

How to Close the Gender Pay Gap: Massachusetts Leads the Way

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The Massachusetts legislature just unanimously passed the strongest equal pay law in the country. In spite of a legal prohibition against gender-based pay discrimination passed by the state in 1945, the gender wage gap has persisted. Shirley Leung of the Boston Globe reports that currently

  • Women in Massachusetts, in general, make eighty-two cents for every dollar a man earns
  • Black women fare worse at sixty-one cents for every dollar a man earns
  • Latinas fare even worse at fifty cents per dollar
Clearly, having state and federal laws prohibiting pay discrimination on the books for decades has not worked to close the pay gap. The Massachusetts law, which takes effect in July 2018, addresses the wage gap in the following ways:
  • The new law takes steps to promote salary transparency. While companies are not required to publish salaries, employees in Massachusetts can now openly discuss their salaries and join together to compel employers to monitor and fix wage gaps. Employees are still responsible for demanding that wage monitoring occur, but a group of fifty companies in Boston have volunteered to do wage-gap audits and publish their results, which could influence other organizations to act before their employees pressure them to do so. The state treasurer has also set up a website, equalpayma.com, to help women understand how underpaid they might be.
  • The law sets new standards for determining comparable work. These standards did not previously exist, so winning a lawsuit claiming unequal pay for comparable work was almost impossible.
  • The law provides companies with new incentives to monitor and correct wage discrepancies—if they do so, they get legal protection if workers sue for gender-based discrimination. They will be given three years to demonstrate they have corrected the problem if employees sue.
  • The new law also prohibits employers from asking the wage history of applicants until after the employer makes an offer with a salary figure attached. This can help prevent women and minorities from being locked into lower salaries.
This new legislation arose from Boston mayor Tom Menino’s establishment of the Women’s Workforce Council in 2013. This council included representatives of many stakeholder groups and drew upon extensive research reported by Iris Bohnet in her new book, What Works: Gender Equity by Design. Transparency and accountability, two of the most important findings reported by Bohnet, are at the core of the new Massachusetts laws. Focusing only on the gender-wage gap is not enough—we must also address the race-wage gap. New state and federal laws must be passed to provide transparency and accountability for pay equity across race and gender. As Shirley Leung notes, wage gaps are often not intentional. In fact, they are often the result of unconscious bias. But as noted by Katie Donovan, founder of Equal Pay Negotiations, “as long as organizations do not analyze and publish salary data, they have ‘plausible deniability.’” While I believe the Massachusetts law could have gone further, it is a great start, and I hope other states will follow with their own innovations until we finally close the gender- and race-wage gaps.     The image in this post is in the public domain courtesy of Thomas Breher.]]>

Wage Gaps and Work Gaps: Implications for Women’s Lives

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Recently, during a women’s leadership program I was facilitating, a participant, Amy, had an insight. She had been complaining about being exhausted and stressed all the time while trying to juggle a full-time job and family life—she loved her demanding job and her family, but she had no time for herself and was tired all the time. What was her insight? She realized that her husband expected her to do almost all the work of maintaining their home and family and did not really do much to share this load. She had never seen so clearly that she was carrying an unfair share of the burden, and she had also taken it for granted that this was her role. She now began to question these assumptions. In a previous blog, I wrote about the costs to relationships and women’s careers when both partners do not share the responsibilities for family and home care equally. I also wrote about the ways that we, as women, collude in keeping this imbalance in place as Amy was doing as well as the ways we can reverse this imbalance. Tyler Cowen of the New York Times writes that in several ways, women are in fact working more while men are working less. He explains that the Great Recession had a major impact on labor supply numbers:

  • In 2014, about 12 percent of American men ages twenty-five to fifty-four neither had jobs nor were looking for them, compared to 8 percent in 1994.
  • Fewer than 20 percent of men over the age of sixty-five are in the workforce.
  • Fewer teenagers have jobs—35 percent, compared to 55 percent several decades ago.
Cowen points out that women’s increased participation in the workforce has supported American economic growth. The unfair part is that women continue to carry a bigger share of the household chores and childrearing while also working full-time. The distribution of stress is uneven, and Cowen notes that while barriers are falling for women in the workplace, the distribution of work in the home is uneven and results in another type of inequality. No wonder Amy is so tired! But while women are working more, the gender wage gap continues, and women are still paid less than men who do the same work. Suzanne Woolley of Bloomberg News reports on new studies showing that one of the implications of the wage gap for women is a sleep gap. The author explains that people tend to lose sleep over things they feel are not in their control. In a poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, the sleep gap for women has increased by 8 percentage points over the past year. The survey found that the biggest cause of sleep loss is fear of not having saved enough for retirement—56 percent of men reported losing sleep over money compared with 70 percent of women, for good reason:
  • Lower earnings from the gender wage gap mean less savings and social security for women.
  • In 2010, women received one-third less than a man’s average benefit for social security.
  • At age sixty-five and older, women are 80 percent more likely than men to be impoverished.
Yes, the wage gap is important, but it is not the only gap that needs attending to. We also need to pay attention to the inequality of work itself. The implications for our health and our security in our later years are serious. If you and your partner have successfully addressed an imbalance in household responsibilities, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section. Tell us what has worked for you!   The image in this post is in the public domain courtesy of Public Domain Pictures. ]]>

A Gender Pay Gap for Female Physicians: New Research and Solutions

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To the surprise of many, a large new study found a persistent gender pay gap for female physicians. Catherine Saint Louis reports in the New York Times that contrary to previous studies of physician salaries, which drew from incomplete data and could be easily dismissed, this study draws on a large objective sample of ten thousand physician faculty members at twenty-four public medical schools in the United States. The researchers carefully controlled for a variety of factors that can influence income, such as volume of patients seen, years since residency, specialty, and age. Saint Louis reports that after adjusting for these factors, the researchers found the following discrepancies:

  • Female neurosurgeons, cardiothoracic surgeons, and other surgical specialists made roughly $44,000 less than men in those positions.
  • Female orthopedic surgeons made nearly $41,000 less than male orthopedic surgeons.
  • Women made about $38,000 less among oncologists and blood specialists, $36,000 less among obstetrician-gynocologists, and $34,000 less among cardiologists.
  • Only in radiology did women make more—about $2,000 more than men.
  • Female professors made about the same salary as male associate professors even though the female professors outranked them.
Dr. Kim Templeton, the president of the American Medical Women’s Association, notes that while this new research is important, “just having it out there isn’t going to fix the problem.” What will fix the problem? I am proud to report that the state of Massachusetts, where I live, is moving closer to passing legislation to close the gender pay gap, which has persisted in spite of the legal prohibitions against gender-based pay discrimination passed by the state in 1945. Michael Bodley of the Boston Globe explains that the new legislation, if passed, will take the following proactive steps:
  • Require all companies in Massachusetts to undertake a study of their gender-based pay practices and publish the results.
  • Protect employers from being held liable for pay-discrimination lawsuits if they can show that they have undertaken a study of wage disparities in the past three years and can demonstrate reasonable progress toward eliminating the gap.
  • Prohibit employers from asking applicants about their salary history until the employer has made a salary offer. This helps eliminate the negative impact of women’s historically lower salaries.
As long as organizations do not analyze and publish their salary data, they have “plausible deniability,” explained Katie Donovan, founder of Equal Pay Negotiations. But as we know, tracking and researching the numbers are not enough. Both employees and legislatures need to hold organizations accountable for closing the gender wage gap. Do you have success stories for closing the wage gap? I would love to hear them.   The image in this post is in the public domain courtesy of Darko Stojanovic.       ]]>