remained unchanged since the 1970s” (Banerji 27).
Sara Zeigler explains the problem from a litigatory perspective. She references a tool on the AFL-CIO website that can calculate “the economic cost of being female,” which for academic women averages at well over $1 million across a lifetime. Despite the blatant losses, most lawsuits fail or never launch. Zeigler blames this on the gaps in the Equal Pay Act (1963). She explains that the Act specifies that it is only illegal to pay women less if “seniority, merit systems, and incentive systems” are absent; thus, “signaling to the unscrupulous employer how one might justify or rationalize a discriminatory practice” (201-2). Academia is entirely shaped around these three components, as the tenure track is a seniority system. There are too many gaps for a university’s lawyer to object that a female faculty member was refused promotion or a salary increase because of some merit or seniority classification. Even if her merits and seniority are superior, the presence of these systems excludes her hypothetical case from litigation under EPA.
I researched one case that was filed under EPA for my forthcoming novel, The Burden of Persuasion. This case is called Carolee Koster, Plaintiff, v. The Chase Manhattan Bank and Allan Ross, Defendants: No. 81 CV 5018 (RJD): 687 F.Supp. 848 (1988): United States District Court, S.D. New York. Carolee Koster attempted every available appeal for over eight years. Her continuing losses drove her father (an ex-NYPD cop) to assassinate the last federal judge on the case who rejected a new appeal, District Judge Richard Daronco, on May 19, 1988. The judges had been poking fun at Carolee and her father (forcing him out of the courtroom) during the trial, while making her relive the sexual harassment as well as sex-based pay discrimination she suffered at the hands of her supervisor who forced her into an affair and then fired her when she refused him. The law and the way sex-based discrimination cases are prosecuted has not changed since the 70s, so women are still going through this torturous process (even if few have fathers that assassinate the judge). Zeigler observes that on average and in the present day: “The relief available to litigants is limited, seldom reaching six figures, and sometimes languishing in the mere thousands” (204). If you read my previous article on my attempt at pro se litigation, it might be easier to see how after eight years of continuously spending money on travel, finding evidence, and other expenses, winning a few thousand would not cover expenses of the lawsuit, and this is only if you file pro se, whereas filing with a lawyer would leave a woman six figures in debt. Carolee was blacklisted during this ordeal and could not find new work in the financial industry. Thus, without support from donors, family, friends or other income means, no truly disenfranchised woman can survive this fiscal trial. Thus, every component of this system is designed to continue the bias against women in the workforce. In Carolee’s case, her harassing manager filed negative performance evaluations for her after she ceased sexual relations with him, and these were used as evidence of her lack of “merit.” In her final year at the bank, she was also not allowed nor offered a chance to perform the type of functions that might have proved her “productivity.” Any woman that works in America should be familiar with these tricks as they are the norm rather than exceptions.
Another popular category of study in this field is evaluating potential reasons for the gap other than blatant and illegal sexual discrimination. One study by Melissa Williams and others concluded that women earn less because of the “male-wealth stereotype,” wherein hiring managers expect that men are supposed to be wealthy, while women are associated with vulnerability and impoverishment. The existence of the publicized wage gap might be the excuse employers use to continue the gap in their organizations, but the study found that few employers were willing to admit that they were biased by the gap or otherwise in their salary setting decision. Obviously, who would confess to bias in such a study when sex-based discrimination is in a way illegal in the US?
Jeffrey R. Lax proposes an alternative explanation for the gender gap: requests for salary history are used to justify paying women less. Under EPA, salary history is considered a “factor other than sex,” which is used by employers to explain the gap in pay as not falling under the Act’s scope. This explains why my academic salary has not changed since 2010: I keep offering my past salary history, and new employers adopt it as a rate I should re-accept. He also points out that males’ salaries are 7.6% higher than females, and that this percentage mirrors the