Over 50 years ago, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The Equal Pay Act prohibits discrimination between employees on the basis of sex.
Over 50 years ago, our American Congress realized that the gender wage gap was more than a myth and decided to act against it. With the signature and approval of President John F. Kennedy, American men and women were freed of unfair wage discrimination.
50 years ago, this was a rule, and that rule was written down, but every national leader since then has failed to find a way to enforce this rule and to secure the financial rights of American women.
In 2010, an analytics firm, Reach Advisors, used the results from the Census Bureau to find that the number of pregnancy and maternity discrimination charges filed has gradually increased since the late 1990s. Women are finding that employers are less likely to hire them if they are currently or expecting to become mothers. Employers argue that they decide not to hire these women because they fear that mothers will be less devoted to their work.
Joan Williams, a University of California Hastings College of Law professor, believes that the idea of motherhood is scaring employers away from hiring women.
It’s easy to argue that women can simply choose between a career and a family, but who decided that a woman could only manage one successfully? Why are current or potential fathers not faced with as pressing an issue?
In an NPR interview with Williams, she said that the wage gap should not be framed as a matter of choice for women.
“Women choose to have babies; they don’t choose the discrimination that goes along with it,” she said.
