I recently watched the Amazon series “Good Girls Revolt” with my Mom when she was visiting. If you haven’t seen it, you should: it’s very good. It’s based on the book “The Good Girls Revolt,” by Lynn Povich – a fictionalized account of the struggle of women working for “News of the Week” (Newsweek) in 1969. The women were relegated to lower-paying positions of researchers, supporting “their” male writers, who took home significantly higher salaries. The women ultimately filed a discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and in real life, won the right to become reporters.

Not only does the series tell an amazing and frustratingly accurate story of how women were treated in the workplace, it depicts the dress, music, and culture of the times very well. I loved the flawed characters trying their best in a difficult environment.

When the women first discover that their male colleagues were making 3 times their salaries, they react as expected: with shock and anger.

When I first discovered a male colleague with less education, less experience, and less responsibility was making more money than me – over 20 years after the Newsweek complaint – I was also shocked and angry. Laws had been in place for years requiring equal pay for equal work. I was certain that management had made a mistake, and would correct the situation when I brought it to their attention. I was young and naïve.

At first I was told my manager knew about it, and wanted to correct it but had no ability to raise my salary by that much and certainly didn’t want to hold back on the man’s raises. Then the director got involved, and the back-pedaling began. “You don’t know the value Joey brings to our customer.”

I was pretty sure I knew my value, having co-written a multi-million-dollar proposal which I then worked on as system engineer and program manager. Joey was an individual contributor on a much smaller program.

But there was no convincing the director, and no changes were made to my salary. I took the next opportunity to leave the company.

Nearly 30 years later, my friend Tina looked up the publicly-available salaries of her government coworkers, and noticed a similar disturbing trend. Men with less experience and less education were being paid more than women in the same jobs. Not one to sit quietly and tolerate injustice, Tina scheduled a conference call with her regional manager, Amy. When she presented the numbers, Amy reminded her that she was still on new-hire probation, and that she could leave at any time if she didn’t like the salary. Tina persisted, saying she loved the job and wasn’t going anywhere, but was concerned about the gender difference in salaries and wanted to make sure Amy was aware of it. Amy told Tina there were no guarantees any changes would be made, and that Tina could lodge a complaint with the EEOC if she wanted.

Five months later, six of the women were given a raise to bring their salaries closer to the men’s. Other adjustments were made in the months after that, narrowing the gap a little further. But there is still a gender wage gap.

Though we have come a long way since the women of Newsweek banded together to complain about unfair treatment and salary discrimination, we still have not achieved equity. It saddens me that we still have to fight this fight. But we must remain vigilant, and ensure that women are given the opportunities and salaries commensurate with their work – not their gender.

Photo Credit: IMDB