Getting Even

Perhaps it was appropriate that the Mass. State Senate unveiled it’s paid family leave plan yesterday, because it was also “Equal Pay Day.” However, perhaps we should think of paid family leave and equal pay as separate issues because the calculated wage gap in the US, is that women earn about 77 cents to every dollar a man earns, and that is absolutely NOT because they are taking time off work to take care of kids. We need BOTH equal pay and family leave for women to be equal in the work place and to facilitate a healthy balance between work and family.

One of the leaders on this issue is of course another strong Massachusetts woman who recently spoke at a Fletcher event on enlightened power. Former Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, Evelyn Murphy has been writing books and starting grassroots campaigns called ”wage clubs”
to try to remedy the wage gap, a problem that is not going away anytime soon. One thing she mentioned at the Fletcher event is that if women can learn to talk about sex, they can learn to talk about money. So start keeping track of the men you work with and make sure you aren’t being paid less for the same work.

Surprisingly enough, one of the things women can do for empowerment is to make tons of money. We need more rich women who control companies! Some women feel that being a business woman is not a job that involves integrity and generosity. Women gravitate toward the non-profit sector, and are grossly underrepresented in business schools and top company positions. Perhaps if they took more leadership and didn’t feel guilty about making profits, we would have less corruption and more creative business strategies. The point is, if you are a woman, please, please go get rich.