Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst

Many people think of fair pay as a women’s issue but it is a men’s issue as well.

In 2009, wives earned more than their husbands in more than one-third of all married couples.

Until recently were part of this one-third. We’ve been married for nearly three years and for about half that time I’ve been the breadwinner in our family, contributing more financially than Michael.

In the spring of 2010, I was offered my position at the National Women’s Law Center. Michael encouraged me to take it, even though it meant us moving to a DC where he didn’t have a full-time position. For our first year-and-a-half in D.C., he worked part-time as a Research Assistant for a professor at the University of Michigan while completing his dissertation.

For the last decade, the wage gap for women has barely budged – the typical women who works full time, year round still only makes 77 cents for every dollar paid to her male counterpart. As highlighted by a recent Bloomberg Businessweek article, there is a gender wage gap in virtually all jobs. Out of 265 major occupations, women’s median salary only exceeded men’s in one – personal care workers. The wage gap also occurs at all education levels, after experience is taken into account, and it gets worse as women’s careers progress. All told, even when accounting for a number of factors that can be expected to impact wages, it still exists. In fact, recent research shows that more than 40 percent of the wage gap is still unexplained, even after considering educational background, occupation, industry, work experience, union status, and race.

Despite this evidence of persistent unfair pay, recent weeks have also seen two oddly optimistic articles about women’s earnings. Let’s see what they’re so excited about:

First, Anya Kamenetz tries to reconcile why women’s earnings haven’t increased while their levels of education have. She concludes that women’s earnings are falling behind because (1) they have kids, (2) they chose jobs that don’t pay well, and (3) they are not “bold” or assertive. The onus in her explanation falls for the most part on women themselves – though she notes the structural element of some of these pieces, her answer is largely about planning correctly and making different choices. Who knew it was so easy – women can just make different choices and they’ll be paid fairly! This answer ignores the fact that even women who aren’t mothers see a wage gap. It ignores the fact that “women’s” jobs pay less precisely because women chose them – because women’s work is devalued – and, as noted above, that women are paid less even when they do chose the same profession as men. It ignores the fact that women often get punished for being bold or assertive. And the idea that these women might face discrimination? Not even mentioned.