Why you should care about Pay Equity

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Written By Angie Truitt

When I was a young attorney, I worked at a boutique litigation shop that represented a large group of automobile dealerships throughout Texas.  There were three of us second and third-year female associates at that firm, and each of us ran a docket of cases for those car dealers, divided up geographically.  We handled everything for them from soup to nuts.  The Big Boss supported when needed, but the three of us, his designated “Charlie’s Angels,” provided full-service litigation support and advice and counsel on employment law matters to some major dealerships from Dallas to Austin to Houston to Beaumont.  We answered discovery, argued motions, deposed expert witnesses, tried cases, and explained to dealership leaders why they couldn’t tell their female sales staff to wear “really short” skirts to work on the sales floor.  We did a good job.  Our clients were happy.  So, the Big Boss was happy.

I’m too old now to remember what hourly rate we billed out at back then for all that work, but all of us made around $75,000 a year.

After I’d been there about 3 years, the Big Boss hired a new crop of first year associates, all male, to join the firm.  They were all fresh out of law school with no real-world litigation experience other than summer clerkships under their belts.  And he paid them all six figure salaries.

Of course, we weren’t supposed to know that.  And again, I’m old, so I don’t remember how we found out, but it was a big deal when we did.  The three of us left the firm.  Not immediately, but not too long after, for other opportunities.  As much as we loved the work we did and the team we worked with, the Big Boss very clearly communicated that we were far less valuable to him than the three inexperienced male associates he hired.  And we just couldn’t stay.  (My next opportunity came with a doubled salary).

That was the early 2000s, and while I’d love to think we’ve made strides towards resolving pay equity issues—and the attitudes around them—in the last 20 years, the statistics don’t really support that.  In 2000, women earned roughly 76.3% of what men earned, and today, that number has only risen about 10% to 88%.  (National Committee on Pay Equity; It’s Equal Pay Day.  The gender pay gap has hardly budged in 20 years.  What gives? )

“In 2000, women earned roughly 76.3% of what men earned, and today, that number has only risen about 10% to 88%.”
— National Committee on Pay Equity

While a few external factors like working fewer hours or in lower paying jobs that offer more flexibility so women can spend more time with their children affect the data, an unexplained pay gap still remains.  “Although statistics clearly indicate that women are often better educated, the reality remains that they are still truly undervalued,” Erica Lockwood, Director of DEI Services at Joseph Chris Partners, shares. Erica’s right.  More women are now graduating from college and law school than men, and medical school graduates are about half women now. 

So what is it?

It's not for lack of legislative trying.  To date, 42 states have passed some form of pay equity laws that go beyond federal discrimination protections offered in 1963’s Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.   And several have pay transparency laws that require salary ranges to be disclosed in job postings and forbid inquiries into existing salaries. 

As a former litigator, I understand that when business leaders see statutes designed to protect employees’ rights, they just see more potential for expensive litigation.  It has been quite expensive for those companies who are accused of unequal pay, as in Google’s recent $118 million settlement of a case brought by four women.

But other than avoiding paying for costly litigation, why should you care about pay equity?

It’s the right thing to do. 

While the cynics out there believe that most businesses are only focused on the bottom line, in recent years we’ve seen a shift toward doing what’s right just because it’s right.  They do it quietly without a lot of fanfare and a celebrity appearance in a Super Bowl ad.  There is nothing inherent in the work performed by a woman that merits lower pay.  You’ll always have differences in education and experience that justify higher or lower pay, but all things being equal, all things should be equal.

I was raised Catholic, and I used to ask my dad why I couldn’t be a priest.  He told me I could be a nun, but I couldn’t be a priest.  I was no Biblical scholar, but I asked him where in the Bible it said I couldn’t be a priest.  He mumbled something about a letter from Paul who, I pointed out, wasn’t Jesus or God.  At which point he got frustrated and just said, “because that’s just how it is.” 

I had no desire to be a priest, but I left the church as soon as I left for college because I was not valued, I was not seen as capable, and I was told “that’s just how it is.”

“That’s just how it is.”

I need to defend my dad here.  He never once discouraged me from doing anything I wanted to do.  The church was his blind spot, and I attribute that to years and years of being told he had to believe without question or hell awaited him.  My dad made me want to become a lawyer, and he supported me when I told him I couldn’t be one anymore.  My dad is a great man with a properly calibrated moral compass and the highest ethical standards who worked hard his whole life, put himself through college and law school, served in the Army, including a tour in Vietnam, for 23 years, and raised a very outspoken feminist. He’s my hero.

Most daughters feel that way about their dads. 

And I bet if you ask the top male executives at the Fortune 500 companies who have daughters whether they deserve to be paid as much as a man doing the same work, 100% of them would say yes, of course they do.

My partner’s mother passed a month before I met him, so I never got to know her, but to him, she was a hero.  She was a strong woman who grew up in the type of poverty most of us can’t even imagine in rural West Virginia, and after she got married, they moved to Texas looking for better lives.  His father passed away when he was 13, and while he can’t remember a time when she didn’t work, she had to find a job that paid her more so she could fully support him and his two sisters. 

She found a job as an estimator for a construction company working in the Houston Ship Channel, the first female her company had ever hired in a non-clerical role.  She was good at her job.  Great, actually.  So great that several of the engineers would only work with her.  She was smart, knew her worth, and she knew she was being paid far less than her male counterparts, so she asked for a raise.  

Her boss politely explained to her that he couldn’t possibly pay her the same as the male estimators.  They have families to support.  “And you don’t think I have a family to support?” she pushed.  “We just can’t do that; it wouldn’t be right,” he apologized.  “That’s just how it is.”

“That’s just how it is.”

The company apparently worked on federal contracts, and as a result, was audited from time to time for compliance with various laws and regulations, including Title VII.  On one of the auditor visits, the employees were given surveys to complete, and she was honest in her responses about not being paid the same hourly rate as similarly-experienced male estimators.  About a month after the visit, she noticed her pay was raised. 

Forty-ish years ago, pay equity wasn’t a conversation anyone anywhere really had.  She would have never described herself as a feminist or an activist of any sort.  She just knew what was fair, and she knew it was the right thing to do.  And she wasn’t afraid to speak up.  

One would expect pay inequity to be common 40 years ago.  And maybe even 20 years ago when it happened to me as a young lawyer.  But today?  Why is it that women who are someone’s daughters or mothers (or sisters, nieces, cousins, grandmothers, wives, or friends) are still paid less? 

I think it’s because the executives making the decisions stopped thinking about the women in their own companies as someone’s daughters or mothers (or sisters, nieces, cousins, grandmothers, wives, or friends) and saw them as calculations on a balance sheet. 

There are many legitimate reasons to pay people differently.  I work in recruiting, and I dissect compensation packages for a living, and I know some people deserve to be paid more for the job they’re doing.  But all things being equal from an education or experience perspective, women should not be earning less than men just because they’re not men.  But still, we are. 

And you don’t have to be a feminist to care about it.

You just have to ask yourself if you are good with discounting the work of your female employees just because they’re not men. 

Of course, no one is good with that.  Not when you look at it that way. Not when you strip away all of the noise and focus on the fact that someone’s daughter or someone’s mother (or sister, niece, cousin, grandmother, wife, or friend) currently makes 88 cents for every dollar a man makes, and far less if she’s a woman of color.  Today.  In 2023.

That’s just how it is. 

But it doesn’t have to be. 

 

“That’s just how it is.  But it doesn’t have to be.”
Angie Truitt
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