Right. This often gets lost in the shuffle.

A LOT of the pay discrepancy is because men and women “one year out of college” aren’t doing the SAME jobs. Entry-level pay is almost always dictated in this day and age, based on job class–everywhere I’ve worked or interviewed, the employer didn’t have the LEEWAY to pay other than the rate that was written into the job description.

Yup, that experience-in qualifier is significant. The greater pay inequities happen in positions of white-collar power, which typically go to people right out of college. Even those of us who think we know discrimination probably grossly underestimate the power/pay disparity between genders.

For example, how many Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs? Less than half? Less than a third?

>>>Try less than five.

How many women are CEOs of major media companies in the US?

>>>None

Now, tell me: how many women are in very-top management (C-level, president) at your company right now?

Bush has put the EEOC to sleep and many states are doing the same with their state Human Rights Agencies. This ought to be a TOP DRAWER ISSUE. We are talking about more than 50% of the population here!

The reason for Title VII’s short statute of limitations “SOL” (180 day SOL / 300 day SOL in states with a state HR Agency) was to encourage the immediate reporting of job-related bias and permit the EEOC to quickly mediate the claim – that was the goal in 1964. The EEOC has never been fully-funded and the short SOL has been used as a defense rather than an encouragement to act fast.

One final ironic point: the term “sex” was amended into the bill that became Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq.) by Strom Thurmond – because he wanted the bill defeated and he assumed that “sex” would kill the bill!

Kevin Lyda, Co. Dublin @ 42

I like FDL, but the near-daily “advertise on firedoglake” posts are getting annoying. You guys do original reporting, you write great pieces and I’d like to keep this blog in my RSS feed. I’ll even toss in some scratch when I organise my finances a bit better.

But the daily pitch repeated over and over is annoying. If I wanted repeats, I’d still own a TV.

It’s your blog, it’s your choice, but it’s losing readers.

Do you own a car?

Just asking.

I do, but I almost never use it.

If you are a man the threat hangs over your head that you can be replaced for less if you share knowledge. And if you are a woman who has managed to achieve pay equity the unspoken threat would be that rocking the boat would end it.

The obvious course with this sort of logic is that pay scales should be public. Since many business would not want to be required to reveal their hand, the legislation is nothing but a way to continue keeping women at a disadvantage.

I remember reading about a policy in western Canada (IIRC) regarding native populations and farming. It was legislated that they could farm but they were only allowed to use the implements they had historically used prior to the arrival of Europeans.

Given the argricultural advances since the 1700s this was nothing but white men doing everything in their power to keep them poor.

I like FDL, but the near-daily “advertise on firedoglake” posts are getting annoying. You guys do original reporting, you write great pieces and I’d like to keep this blog in my RSS feed. I’ll even toss in some scratch when I organise my finances a bit better.

But the daily pitch repeated over and over is annoying. If I wanted repeats, I’d still own a TV.

It’s your blog, it’s your choice, but it’s losing readers.

Do you own a car?

Just asking.

Things are not always what they seem.

Samuelson’s summation frames the MSM’s portrayal of that beast called the Economy. The take-away is that recession isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Gee, could it be that one is nigh? The article sounds quite hopeful in that regard. I wonder if they are counting on one. Hmm. I wonder why? What could they want here?

Notice the recessions in the past correlate with “new” republican administrations. The recession Samuelson wants would start in 2009 with a new republican administration.

The one he’s going to get starts in September of 2007. Hmm. I wonder why?

So it is actually only a 5% difference which is *unexplained* and *could* be discrimination. Ok, it’s bad, but not nearly as bad as the AAUW plays it up to be, since they focus on the widely misinterpreted 80% number.

Right. This often gets lost in the shuffle. A LOT of the pay discrepancy is because men and women “one year out of college” aren’t doing the SAME jobs. Entry-level pay is almost always dictated in this day and age, based on job class–everywhere I’ve worked or interviewed, the employer didn’t have the LEEWAY to pay other than the rate that was written into the job description.

Some sexual discrimination does exist, but if employers could routinely get away with paying women 20% less than men, they’d be hiring women hand over fist to save money.