Perspectives

Reproductive health issues cannot be swept under the rug if our state hopes to close the gender wage gap for real and achieve economic equality.  Regardless of the national climate, Massachusetts has a responsibility to serve as a leader on these issues. I’m optimistic that we can do that and more.

Assuming women achieve pay parity sometime before the century turns, a tricky assumption in and of itself, a complementary issue remains – are women financially savvy enough to navigate safely through the economic and financial challenges that surround our lives?

Women’s Equal Pay Day passed us by on April 12—the day the average woman must work into the next year to earn the equivalent of what the average man earned in the previous year. African–American Women’s Equal Pay Day followed much later in the year on August 23. Now, it’s November 1st, and finally it’s Latina Equal Pay Day.

In the midst of the pay equity legislation recently passed in Massachusetts and increasingly coming up throughout the nation, a lot of people are talking about the wage gap. What is often left out of the conversation, however, is the direct link between domestic violence and economic inequality.

I first became aware of the gap between women’s and men’s earnings right after graduating from college. That summer, I was told that the young man working with me was paid more because he had “management potential.”