ChickSpeak

Last Friday I dragged myself out to the annual Career Fair, struggling to push through the crowded ballroom in search for any booth that wasn’t occupied by an investment banking company. That was a little depressing for a liberal-arts-majoring, business-uninterested senior like me.

There may be some reason for a young woman like myself to be optimistic about entering the real world of work, though: According to a recent study by a sociologist at Queens College, women in their 20s are earning higher wages than men in the same age range in certain U.S. cities, in particular, New York, Chicago and Boston, places where Georgetown grads are likely to end up. The difference is particularly striking in New York, where 20-something women make an average salary of $35,653, compared to $30,560 for men.

So this is good news, right? I guess we can put away all those picket signs and applaud ourselves for winning the battle, huh?

Actually, no.

As much as I’d like to tally a victory on the chalkboard, the truth is that the only women who benefit from higher salaries are those who are young, well-educated and live in cities or, if you read between the lines, the type of women who are most likely to postpone marriage and children. It is only the women who are willing to sacrifice their personal lives who are treated as well as the men.

When you look at salaries nationwide, there is a higher proportion of women living in suburban and rural areas who may not have the same job opportunities in their area, or who may have to provide for children, or who may still face discrimination because they live in less progressive areas. In fact, nationally, women our age are still behind, only making $25,467, compared to $28,523 for men.

And even for those single women in the city, there’s a funny side effect to financial success: Making money appears to be unattractive. The New York Times just ran a story featuring women who said that they could not maintain long relationships because their boyfriends could not handle the idea of their girlfriends making significantly more money than them. One of the women featured in the story even admitted to hiding shopping bags and price tags so that guys wouldn?t get jealous of her disposable income. So now we have to worry about offending our dates ? as if working tirelessly to achieve our career goals wasn?t already enough of a struggle.

The most frustrating part about the situation, however, is that at some point, the magic runs out. The gender gap principally manifests itself as women get older. Getting your foot in the door, when everybody is coming in at the same level, is one thing, but competing for leadership positions and raises is a whole different ballgame, especially in a world where only 13 women run Fortune 500 companies. Eventually many women will want to have children, which is sadly still considered a career setback. In fact, just yesterday the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against the Bloomberg L.P. for discrimination against women. According to the lawsuit, several women who were pregnant or who had recently given birth were replaced by lower-ranked male employees, excluded from management meetings and were subjected to stereotypes questioning their ability to work and take care of their homes.

Maybe things will change in 10 or 20 years, when we are the generation moving into leadership positions. It’s hard to say, though, when there still is no regulation for equal pay.

Take the case of Lilly Ledbetter. You might recognize her name because Congress is currently deliberating on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would allow a longer timeframe to report pay discrimination, but she’s really just a regular person who worked as a supervisor at Goodyear for 20 years. She had heard her boss disparage women in their business from time to time, but she did not know until after she had retired that she had been grossly underpaid during her entire career. In 1999, when she retired, men in her same position at the company made between $51,432-$62,832 yearly, but her check was just $44,724.

Now, here’s the really fun part: The Supreme Court ruled against Ledbetter in May because Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires that a complaint has to be filed within 180 days after the initial act of discrimination occurred. That means that Ledbetter would have had to file a claim six months after receiving the very first paycheck that differed from her male co-workers. It’s basically a statute of limitations on discrimination. Apparently, the government finds civil rights to be a good thing, as long as it doesn’t have to enforce them. (Oh, and guess who wrote the opinion. Sam Alito! Gotta love President Bush’s judicial appointments.)

Besides, how you’re supposed to even find out about salary discrimination is a mystery to me. Salary information is generally kept confidential, and I can’t imagine myself asking my co-workers how much they made every time we got paid. Ledbetter herself did not find out about her male co-workers’ salaries until she received an anonymous package in the mail with the information included.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would allow workers to file claims 180 days after any act of discrimination, such as a paycheck, giving workers an opportunity to report discrimination on the most recent time that it happened. It passed the House 225-199 in August, and the Senate is starting to deliberate on a companion bill. If it gets through Congress and survives President Bush’s veto threat, we will really have something to celebrate.

Emily Liner is a senior in the college at Georgetown University and layout editor of THE HOYA. She can be reached at liner@thehoya.com. SKIRTING THE ISSUES appears every other Friday both online and in print.