fuckyeahfeminists:

Women have to have a PhD to make as much as a man with a BA.

Men with some college but no degree earn about the same a women with a BA.

Definitely depressing. Also I’d like to point out to people following me to question anyone who dismisses this as something acceptable because "businesses have to account for women often leaving to have children/women are taking too much time out and miss the equivalent education of a man,"  because this is not an acceptable rebuttal.

A) not all women have children

B) What they are acknowledging is an actual problem, so we should be following the lead of other countries and increasing the protections of women who are having children rather than just throwing our hands up and saying "Oopsie doopsie, guess that happens when you have a baby."  Women should not be punished for wanting to work and procreate in a lifetime.  

C) part of the problem is that our country does not have paternity leave rights either.   Long gone is the time when this is a burden only for women to shoulder.   And yet the few protections business or law grant parents, it is usually to the mother.   Fathers should have equal responsibility and opportunity to care for their children.

D) As a society we should accept the responsibility, desirability, and prioritization of making sure that parents can adequately work and raise children.   This is necessary in order to have a well-functioning society, especially in a society where the stereotypical hetero-married-middleclass couple where mom’s at home while dad works is not (and never has been) representative of the majority of (American) families, especially with a now shrinking middle class.

E) we must also be incredibly wary of the fact that these pay gaps disproportionately affect women and families of color in comparison to their white counterparts. 

[citation for chart: “This is from the most recent report [PDF] from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce”]