Yes, AAUW Executive Director, Michele Wetherald, was at our conference on Friday and announced that there would be heavy press coverage of:
Behind the Pay Gap
I would accept a broad-based conclusion that women, as a class, receive less pay than men for similar jobs.
However, before I can accept the more detailed conclusions I need an understanding of how data are normalized for unbroken years on the job.
Because many women take time off to build a family, they will always be behind the curve in earnings compared to men their own age. Also, because second-earner women are more likely than men to take "satisfying" jobs, they will again fail at an age-to-age comparison with men.
So, I believe that there always was, is, and always will be, indeed, should be, a wage gap between Men and Women. That said - I still suspect that there is an
unreasonable,
unjustifiable wage gap which requires action. I wonder how well this report addresses these issues.
When I was managing defense projects for Hughes Aircraft I raised holy hell when some gal was assigned as a software designer to my team - I didn't want to have to cope with managing some engineer wanna-be. (I was also notorious for my foul language tirades at project meetings!) I put management on notice that though I couldn't stop the assignment, I sure as hell was not going to cut her any slack - she was going to be treated as one of the boys - fish or cut bait. On my very next project, I again was saddled with a gal from software engineering - and grumble I did. On a third project the same damn thing happened. I was furious - I marched over to the VP in charge of software development (who was a bridge playing crony) and asked him why the hell was I the dumping grounds for his lady engineers. He broke out in a big grin, "Because, Bruce, my best female engineers request to be assigned to your team." "Why the hell would that be", I queried. "Because they say you treat them as equals, challenge them to be their best, and they can learn more from you than from any other project engineer". So now what is a MCP to do?
Sometime later there was an opening in our Project Office for a Project head - one of the leading candidates was another gal from software engineering. The boss said no way did he want to hire her -she had no hardware expertise. I explained that that was no a big deal, it was my project, and I'd rather have her SW expertise - I could crutch her on the HW issues. No deal - No women! So, who gets the job - a dimwitted male SW type, with zero HW expertise, and not the will nor wit to learn. I spent years wishing for my ladies back!
der Brucer