Every occupation celebrates days that are specific to that occupation. Presumably tree growers pay more attention to Arbor Day than lumberjacks, seafarers celebrate the Feast Day of Saint Catherine, the patron saint of sailors, and here in feminist-land we celebrate Equal Pay Day.
It is always held on a Tuesday in April because it takes women until Tuesday to make what men made during the last week; it is held in April because that is when women catch up to men's earnings from the previous year.
As I turn the page in my calendar and see next Tuesday marked as Equal Pay Day, a bone-crushing weariness settles over me and I cannot possibly imagine why we are still having this debate.
And what is worse, the debate itself is getting more ridiculous.
Forty-five years ago, President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law, making it illegal for employers to pay men and women differently for substantially equal work.
Pay differences based on gender for exactly the same job are clearly illegal, and according to the poll by Lifetime Television and the Center for Policy Alternatives, almost all Americans find this objectionable.
The first round of debate concerned defining which jobs are substantially equal. Is a nurse equal to a plumber? I would certainly argue yes, particularly if I was choking in a restaurant.
Some states have used a gender-neutral model to evaluate jobs and restructure salaries based on the qualifications necessary to do the job. Minnesota started this trend in 1982, and found that when measured by objective criteria, a senior corrections agent and a registered nurse needed to possess the same or equivalent job skills and should be paid the same.
The net result was a nine percent increase in pay for women state employees, and the world did not come to an end.
Now that we have exhausted the argument that it is impossible to evaluate jobs based on objective criteria, a new and more insulting argument has settled into the debate. The new argument is that women choose lower paying jobs because we want to.
Yes, we are underrepresented in fields requiring math and science backgrounds (which generally pay more), but is that really because as a high school freshman we were able to forecast our future job earnings and on that basis take fewer science classes?
No, it is because we are told over and over again that girls are not good at math or science.
They also argue that women in higher paying professions like law and investment banking choose the slower and less lucrative track in order to spend more time taking care of children.
Again, is this a choice freely made between husband and wife?
Not in my experience. While it is true that women provide more childcare than men, it is almost always true that women would prefer a more equitable sharing of childcare duties.
The latest round in this debate concerns the Paycheck Fairness Act, which aims to strengthen the Equal Pay Act originally signed by President Kennedy. It was passed by the House on January 9, 2009 and is awaiting action by the Senate.
The most important provision of the Act is to prohibit employer retaliation when employees discuss their salaries. The Act specifically prohibits employers from punishing employees who share salary information with their co-workers.
This is fundamental to employees learning about wage disparities and allows them to evaluate whether they are experiencing wage discrimination.
The Act is partly in response to the Supreme Court decision last year involving Lily Ledbetter in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.;550 U.S. 618 (2007). Ms. Ledbetter sued, claiming gender pay discrimination upon learning she had started with the same pay as her colleagues in 1979 but by retirement in 1998, she was earning $3,727 per month. This paled in comparison to fifteen of the lowest paid men who were earning $4,286 per month, and the highest paid man who was earning $5,236 per month.
Had she known what her male colleagues were being paid for the same job, she would have brought suit years earlier.
My preprinted calendar from the Staples catalog is filled with days to celebrate or commemorate - the Lunar New Year, Benito Juarez' birthday, Armed Forces Day, Canada Day. While I certainly hope these days remain printed in the calendar that my son will undoubtedly order from the Staples catalog, let's fix the problem and do away with Equal Pay Day.
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Katie Buckland is the executive director of The California Women's Law Center and can be contacted at katie.buckland@cwlc.org.