Women’s rights and the gender pay gap are all over the news, entertainment and even the presidential campaign. While the pay gap or pay parity is the narrowest it has ever been, progress seems to be waning.
Women in the U.S. still make 79 cents on the dollar compared to men. And that amount gets smaller for African-American (63 cents) and Latino women (54 cents).
According to a report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the national gender wage gap won’t close until 2058! That’s 43 MORE years of making less than a man for the
same work.
What’s worse is the pay gap is against the law. The Equal Pay Act was signed into law in 1963. In 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which overturned the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc., 550 U.S. 618 (2007)—a decision that severely restricted the time period for filing complaints of employment discrimination concerning compensation.
Some believe the wage gap is not based in discrimination but in other factors. Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn, the authors of a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, suggest making high-paying, male-dominated industries like STEM fields and tech companies more welcoming to women.
Image: Center for American Progress
Pay transparency could also help with getting equal pay. Knowing what others in your position or company make can help when negotiating pay or raises. It used to be against the law to discuss salaries and wages with co-workers, but not anymore. The National Labor Relations Act, enacted in 1935, protects workers from retaliation by their employers for discussing pay.
Sometimes it’s not always about the cold hard cash. If more money is not an option ask for more vacation days or a better title. Until pay
is equal, negotiating is the best way to get what you deserve.
Join WNBA on Thursday, April 21st at 6pm as the issues of diversity and pay equity are discussed more in depth with four influential voices in the literary world.
Diversity and Pay Equity in Publishing: The importance of Industry Surveys and Activism panelists include:
Amy King, winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize and 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. King is co-editing the anthologies Bettering American Poetry 2015 and Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change.
Jamia Wilson is a TED Prize Storyteller, former Executive Director of Youth Tech Health, the Vice President of Programs at The Women’s Media Center, and the principal for Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s youth outreach program. A leading next-generation voice on feminism and gender justice, her work and her words appeared in and on outlets such as New York Magazine, The Today Show, CNN, The Washington Post and more.
Jim Milliot is editorial director of Publishers Weekly and vice president of PWxyz, the company that acquired PW from Reed in April 2010. He has been with PW for 22 years, starting as the business and news editor. Milliot served as co-editorial director of the magazine between 2010 and June 2014. He served on the statistics committee of the BISG and is now a board member at IBPA.
Preeti Chhibber is the Senior Editorial Manager for the Teens & BookBeat Scholastic Reading Clubs in New York, NY. She sits on the Scholastic Diversity Committee and the CBC Diversity Committee. Chhibber is a contributing writer for Book Riot and co-hosts the Bookrageous and Oh, Comics! podcasts. She earned her B.A. in English at the University of Florida and her M.S. in Publishing at New York University.
Sona Charaipotra is co-founder of CAKE Literary, a boutique book packaging company with a decidedly diverse bent. She proudly serves as VP of content for We Need Diverse Books. Charaipotra has also written for everyone from the New York Times to Teen Vogue. She’s co-authored the dance drama Tiny Pretty Things and its sequel Shiny Broken Pieces. Find her at SonaCharaipotra.com or on Twitter: @sona_c.
Moderator: Jane Kinney Denning is the President of WNBA-NYC and the VP and President Elect for WNBA-National. Denning is also the Executive Director of Internships and Corporate Outreach for the MS in Publishing program at Pace University.
