Fight for equal pay not over
More needs to be done to make sure wage gap decrease
COMMENTARY
Josh McDonald

Protests these days are seemingly a dime a dozen; putting issues with Iraq aside for a moment, it’s worth remembering that there are other wars left to fight, wars far closer to home. Today the battle for equal pay for equal work comes to the front lines. Women’s organizations around the nation are asking members to protest gender discrimination in the workplace by wearing red as a symbol of the wage gap between men and women.

As the most recent statistics indicate, women earn just 76 cents for every dollar men make. This gap means that a woman would have to work three more months at a given job just to keep up with her male counterparts. Census results indicate that this gap broadens for women of color, with black women earning 66 cents and Hispanic women 54 cents to the dollar. Coupled with the widely noted glass ceiling on advancement for women, the wage gap constitutes a social ill as devastating as it is pervasive.

There remains, despite the above statistics, a sense among most people that the working status of women is constantly improving. While comparing the woes of past centuries to current conditions may yield what looks like impressive progress, the reality is much worse. As the National Organization for Women notes, the wage gap has narrowed by a “snail-like increase of less than a cent per year since the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963, when women were paid 59 cents compared to a man’s dollar in wages.” If we fail to improve the current trend, women won’t achieve equality until the year 2042.

This injustice hits even closer to home, impacting institutions of higher education since advanced degrees do little to bridge the wage gap. While the majority of bachelor’s degrees in America go to women, those with a college education earn just 72 percent of what similarly educated men make. Since the student body is predominantly made up of women, our campus in particular ought to be alarmed.

So, you happen to notice a larger than normal number of concerned citizens dressed in red today, don’t dismiss it as mere fashion phenomenon. Carefully consider the issue of wage discrimination, its impact on the nation and on TCU. Maybe even strike up a conversation with someone dressed in red. Hopefully, much like a touch of color brings excitement to an otherwise drab wardrobe, the effort for equal pay will draw concern to an otherwise apathetic campus.

Josh McDonald is a senior English and philosophy major from Garland. He can be reached at (j.r.mcdonald@tcu.edu).