something to be upset about

A friend of mine a few weeks ago told me about a situation going on at his company. He had been on the interview committee that had selected a female candidate for an open position in his office. He somehow discovered the terms of the offer made to her, and it was those terms that made him very irate.

"She has had no previous experience in this field like I do, no graduate degrees or coursework like I do, nothing. Yet she gets a fat signing bonus, and she's being paid a higher annual salary than me, right off the bat!" And he made sure I knew she's about to make more money than I do now. "That's so unfair. I didn't even get a signing bonus."

And I won't lie, it does sound a bit unfair. I should probably be outraged. And I was-- just not about what he was mad about. I only half-heard him anyway. I was still fuming over this particular stat line:

Matt Cassel, QB (New England): 30-for-51 for 400yds passing, 3 TD, 8 rushing attempts for 62yds, for a whopping total of 39.20 fantasy points, easily more points than anyone else in the NFL that week... sitting on my bench. (I won that week over my best friend, Adam, by only 0.4 pts, for anyone who cares. I was relieved.)

In all seriousness, I for a split-second considered the indignity of being out-earned by a woman with as few or fewer credentials as myself in a comparable field making more money than I do. But it was actually this collection of stats that I thought of, after I put away my frustration at my fantasy football misfortunes (encapsulated by a quick web search I did on this topic):

A recent article in the Southeast Missourian finds--
In her 2003 study on women, families and the workforce, Arlie Russell Hochschild noted that for the last 100 years, women have earned about 60 percent of what men earned, and today, that number is only up to 70 percent...

Women in medicine make only 63 percent of what their male counterparts make, including the female-dominated field of nursing, where women represent almost 90 percent of all registered nurses.
Robyn Gautschy, Business Today, Nov 18, 2008

Gautschy lists some average salaries for women and men in various different occupations and the percentages of women in the occupations (top and bottom 5's), and the disparity can be seen in this admittedly small sample size:

Senior software developer
Female Salary: $81,000
Male Salary: $87,400
Percent female: 9 percent

Registered nurse
Female Salary: $56,900
Male Salary: $64,200
Percent female: 86 percent

Human resources manager
Female Salary: $55,000
Male Salary: $62,900
Percent female: 80 percent

Electrical engineer
Female Salary: $72,500
Male Salary: $72,800
Percent female: 8 percent
(What I want to know is, when do I start making THAT money? Geez.)

Paralegal
Female Salary: $43,700
Male Salary: $48,100
Percent female: 86 percent

Senior financial analyst
Female Salary: $70,700
Male Salary: $76,600
Percent female: 37 percent

Attorney
Female Salary: $89,800
Male Salary: $99,100
Percent female: 36 percent

Accountant
Female Salary: $43,600
Male Salary: $49,700
Percent female: 74 percent


And this other article from the Washington Post reports that even female rabbis make less than their male counterparts! No profession is immune.

My own wife is working her butt off to survive medical school, and for what? To make 63% less than her male colleagues for doing the same thing they're doing? Isn't that something to be upset about? Other than my improper use of prepositions at the end of a sentence?

Given this reality, I think it will be okay. Really, fellas. Just because this lady is making a little more coin than you (as the ETrade baby might say), none of you is going hungry over it. You don't know her whole situation or anything else about her. Good for her. As long as women are still being paid inexplicably less than their peers, I can cheer for any woman who gets hers. And then I got back to pouting about starting stupid Matt Hasselbeck over the guy who could've won me the week without the nailbiting.