into play in Juneau's workforce. Does not not reflect any workforce I've ever applied for.
Call me naive, but, if it is so illegal and identifiable why is the Department of Labor not moving on this?

Teachers? Something smells in the data. That is a union only job in most of the country so the unions must have a dual scale.... one for females and one for males.

In the Private sector, there is no presumably about it. If a business can hire females to do the work cheaper than males you will not find any males in the workforce. IT IS all about the bottom line. Any board of directors would send a ceo packing if they found out that a readily available 20 percent savings in labor expense had been passed up.

That is what I was thinking as well. It is the same for the glass ceiling; heard about it, never have seen it in action. And I have worked for some questionable companies that cut corners, and they didn't practice this; so I am not sure who would be the lowly company that would give it a try. There are women in the highest ranks of business, and yet they still teach about it in schools.

My opinion is that it is that it may be bad feelings carrying over by the older generations from the days of women being treated differently. Some of the statistics are likely a by-product of this as well; in that, when there was separation, the men would have been gaining experience where the women would have not. Now, if those older gentlemen (who gained experience before things were equalized) are being included in the stats of what is happening in our modern times, they would skew the figures; because of course they are paid more, they have more experience.

I think we are all on the same page these days, that it is unacceptable to discriminate. People who do not get what they want often find scapegoats to explain why it is that they are not being given this whatever-it-may-be; e.g. higher pay in this case. It is because I am this or that. When in reality we often cannot see ourselves as the problem. If I am wrong about this I apologize; and if there are women out there that are truly being paid less because of gender, then I encourage you to step up and let the authorities know.

Did you vote last week?

Ever notice how the loudest and most confident commenters on gender issues are usually men?

I find it kind of interesting.

Not sure if it's naivete or willful disregard for the facts, though. I guess it would all boil down to to whether the commenters in question are aware of cultural biases against women in the workplace (they're so gossipy! And they just aren't as career-minded as men!), or how child rearing is penalized in our society (hey, it's her choice to have kids! She could just choose not to have them, like men, who don't have to carry a baby and aren't expected to take time off work to breast feed, pick the kids up from school, or take care of them when they're sick), or how women are raised in such a way as to make them worse at negotiation (which is why jobs in the public sector, where one typically does NOT get to negotiate a starting wage and is given raises on a fixed schedule, tend to pay men and women much more equally).

So of course the glass ceiling is a myth. I say this with the utmost certainty because I, as a man, have never experienced it.

@Paul: most biases and prejudices individuals hold are subconscious. Few people today are overtly racist or would admit to thinking women are the weaker sex, yet attitudes and assumptions persist and pervade.

When a woman interviews for a position, one thing a hiring manager wonders is whether she has kids. If she does, are they grown? If not, will she take excessive time off to take care of them? If she doesn't have kids, will she have them later? How much time off work will she take? When a man interviews for a position, this doesn't factor in to whether he will be hired.

Or take cultural assumptions. We assume, as a culture, that women are more family-oriented and less career-oriented in men. This reflects in how they're treated at work. Why give a woman a raise or offer her a promotion if you think she takes the job less seriously than Jim in accounting?

We also assume, as a culture, that men are more aggressive than women. This results not only in aggressive women being overlooked, but also valuing aggression in women less (resulting in socialization habits that less befits a career-oriented society--while John and Daniel learn how to fight for what they want in friendly competitions at school, Lisa and Annie are learning how to cooperate, which is a great skill that is too often undervalued, but doesn't translate as well in a greedy institution like the business world).

And, of course, people like to be around people like themselves. Ralph likes to talk to his co-workers about how hot the girls on Baywatch are. They all love it. So he hires Tom over Sally. On paper, it's because he "interviewed better." In reality, Ralph doesn't want to make work less fun for himself. Ralph is also a very unsubtle example of this sort of thing.

Mostly, though, we are privileged white men who take for granted all that we have. People assume we're competent, that we're looking to be breadwinners for our families, that we're more than willing to be part of the institution, and, perhaps most importantly of all, that we're just like the people who are hiring us. When we, as men, apply for a job, these things are generally assumed until proven otherwise. Prejudices and assumptions are a two-way street, and it isn't only women who suffer at the hands of them, but they certainly do bear the brunt of this disadvantage.

And one last thing: it irks me when people say sexism or racism has been stamped out. Overt forms of prejudice are largely gone, sure. But not the less obvious forms. Think about it. The racist, sexist, anti-semitic, and other prejudiced individuals of just a few decades ago are still around. Most of them have not died, and they controlled basically everything in the country (businesses, government, institutions, etc.). Many of them have quit or retired, but many are also still in power, and those who aren't most certainly had some say in who succeeded them.

The system was created and run by white men for centuries. All symptoms--cultural and applied--of this power dynamic have not been erased in a few short decades.

I am sure everyone would prefer to enjoy 'paycheck fairness' but whenever a label is attached the subject begs for an argument. Perhaps each individual case should be discussed without labels to insure fairness to all. When does 'Women's Liberation' simply mean 'Liberation for everyone but males!' Sounds rather silly if you say it that way, doesn't it? How about the sinking of the Titanic, when they said "Save the Women and Children first!" Was that really their polite way of saying - 'Drown all the men first!' Sure, it was a great idea - unless you were a guy and there were not enough lifeboats. In that case you were left out, huh?

There have been studies indicating that Women actually spend more money than Men. How can that be? In our culture it is considered perfectly normal for Women to grade or judge men primarily on their economic status. There are many factors that influence compensation values. Do women take more time off from work than men do? Are they as assertive as men in taking on responsibilities? How do their domestic issues effect their value as employees in a given situation?

In my Government job in Juneau, Women are hired more often, promoted more often, and do not have the experience or the workload that the men do. The pay rates are the same as men, at least until they are promoted. It appears that in this specific department, that Women are doing just fine.

There are many departments where Women are doing the hiring. I am confident that those Women would not discriminate against other Women. I only hope, for fairness, that they hire the best person for the job, because I am a guy, and perhaps I have put in a lot of time and money and experience into being the best applicant for that particular position.

I have grown weary of women bragging or complaining about the way they are being treated as 'women'. At some point, in fairness, they need to throw out their labels and except the fact men are just as important as they are and we are all people, employees or applicants, and all of us should be considered by merit on the job. If a women with one leg is the first woman to climb Mt. Everest with one leg, then she has had a remarkable experience. I don't want to seem sexist, but geez, a guy who climbs Mt. Everest with one leg has also had a remarkable experience. So why mention the sex of the person? Was it really more difficult to climb Mt. Everest with just one foot just because she was a woman?

And as for that 'Women's Liberation' thing - Why exclude the Men? Perhaps we did need a social liberation - but that Women's Lib thing was SO '80's. They forgot the men! I know a lot of women who are doing really well these days, and they are not complaining about how they are treated.

Paul, did you read what I wrote? ALL men are like this. More importantly, all PEOPLE are like this. This isn't overt prejudice. Most of us don't even know we display these traits.

A few years ago, some sociologists performed a study where they sent job applications to a number of businesses. These applications were identical except for one thing: some of them had black sounding names, and some of them had white sounding names. Applications with black sounding names were chosen for interviews half as often as those with white sounding names. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that none of those hiring managers would consider themselves racist, and none of them consciously thought about whether the applicant was black or white. Yet their actions suggest otherwise.

It is naive to think just because a person doesn't consciously hold malice towards a group of people that he/she isn't prejudiced. We are all socialized in various ways that instill biases, prejudices, assumptions, and values that make us view groups of people differently. It's idealistic to say, "we're all one group: Americans," because there are so clearly differences between us all. Maybe one day we will live in a Star Trek utopia, but acting as if we already are only stops us from making progress towards that goal.

Have we had a female President of the United States yet-No?
...then I'm sorry but there is a glass ceiling.

Pay equity or social issue of all get equal pay regardless of their output or actual duties.
Aggregate statistics are useless. What are you considering equal work, exact same job or some concept of the value of the work performed.
Unionize and negotiate for higher wages. If employer and employee can agree that sets the wage.
Most higher paying jobs are unionized and have gotten the higher wages through strikes. Nationwide the highest paying union manufacturing jobs have many times been the ones sent overseas or to lower cost states.

To p and Paul - be careful what you assume...

I meant exactly what I wrote about "whining" women. But actually there must not be many "whining" women because I only hear the few screaming the loudest.

Isn't it funny though how p and his progressive buddies will shout from the mountain tops how the poor, weak woman can't get a break in America but when a strong woman (think Sarah Palin) comes along they try to take her down as quickly as possible. So which way do you want it - strong, independent women or weak, whiny women that you can lead around with your agenda? I'm confused.

So that leads me to believe that "women", as such, are nothing more than another group of pawns that can be used to further the progressive ideology.

Look how women are always used in elections to garner votes for the Democrats. "Vote like your lady parts depend on it" - this is how low they'll go.

You know which group is really being minimized in the workplace and elsewhere, don't you? That would be the white male.

We've come a long way but there is still a long way to go. In our 240+ years as a nation it wasn't until 1920 that women were given the right to vote; after much protesting and inspite of physical and mental torture by our own government. Unless you have african american blood running through your veins, as a member of the male gender you've never been denied the right to vote.

Geraldine Ferraro broke the Vice President glass ceiling long before She who must not be named came along. I have no respect for our former governor who quit on us as Alaskans, all she has done is work to set women back.

Cynthia McKinney and Jill Stein, Green Party Presidental candidates in 2008 and 2012 were given absolutely no air time to let their educated voices be heard. I find the media to be at fault for what they feed the american public but we eat up what they serve and ask for seconds.

As for equal pay for equal work, we're getting there but I've seen first hand that even in the government sector it is still not as fair as it should be. My concern isn't even so much between women and men it's between worker bees and upper management and the huge wage gap that exists on that level. Hard working support staff that carry the weight of departments or companies and keep them running and their supervisors that really have no idea what that support staff does.

Look at any major corporation and the CEO of that corporation. Getting millions of dollars even when they do a horrible job and get "let go" (with a large severance package). What are their assistants getting paid and the folks below them that are doing the actual work. that is where the wage inequality truly lies.

My partner said I shouldn't bother posting in the blogs; I guess I should have listened. We can all agree to disagree but, in the end I hope that no matter what our race, gender, political, or religious affiliation we can all come together for the betterment of Humankind.
~Diane