Monthly Archives: January 2006

I am so tired today. I got the week off to a bad start, I stayed up late on sunday working on my presentation for the water and environment association meeting session that I’m giving next week. I had to deliver it today at work – it’s one of my annual goals. So I was up past my bedtime on sunday, and then up early on monday because my sweet brother calls me sometimes before he gets to work (which is plain old 6:45 AM for me) and it throws me off sometimes to wake up like that. Don’t get me wrong – I love talking to him and have assured him that it’s ok. but YAWN.

last night were two late doctors appts. I didn’t get home until 10ish. I meant to get straight into bed but that was too hard to do, and I ended up staying up until almost 12. SAD. I fell asleep while on the phone with the mister. Today has been gruesome and brutally hard. Tonight I am going home, doing laundry, and then it’s early to bed with me. for sure.

I just found out that over the course of my lifetime I might make 1.2 million dollars less than my male counterparts.

Seriously, the list over at mother jones is very chilling. I went around the office and said to the ladies: “I may be getting all radical feminist on you here, but did you know…”

here are a few of my favorites (a dubious honor):

• For full-time working fathers, each child correlates to a 2.1% earnings increase. For working moms, it’s a 2.5% loss.
• Women make 80¢ on the male dollar, even accounting for time off to raise kids. If that factor is not accounted for, women make 56¢.
• Over her career, the average working woman loses $1.2 million to wage inequity.
• Since 1963, when the Equal Pay Act was signed, the wage gap has closed by less than half a cent per year.
• Magazines that run lists of “best” firms for women to work for often accept pay-to-play advertising or use self-reported data. Working Mother lists firms facing class-action suits for sex harassment and pregnancy discrimination.
• Women over 65 are almost twice as likely to be poor as men.
• Actresses over 40 account for 9% of movie roles. Actors over 40 account for 30%.
• Chances that a Best Actress winner portrayed a prostitute, a nun, or a mute: 1 in 8.
• 69% of men believe America would be better off if women occupied more top political jobs. Only 61% of women agree.
• Among Republicans, that split is 52% to 34%.

These statistics really run the gamut of economic, social, and cultural inequalities. it’s amazing. a friend of mine mentioned hearing on the news (BBC or something) that we need to start couching these inequalities in terms of marriage: if a man finds out that his wife will end up losing 1.2 million dollars, that impacts his household, and himself, directly. if that’s what it takes to effect change, then so be it. y’all ALL could be millionaires!