One of the largest class action suits around women getting less pay and less promotions over a period from 1998 until the present day is in the news and in the courts. The culprit corporation? Wal-Mart. For more, please read the following:
http://www.videtteonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32201:wal-mart-women-fight-for-equal-pay&catid=44:viewpointeditorials&Itemid=56
Apparently, the corporate giant has not felt its female employees were worth the time or expense to invest in and, over the years, have had numerous complaints brought against it.
It is the year 2010, a science fiction year to many of us, a year when the electronic devices in the United States make us feel so shiny, so special. Yet we still face such an old dilemma of undervaluing women in the workplace, struggling to find peace about it, struggling to understand how to be proactive when we're enraged, struggling to understand how it's even possible.
In other news, the vilifying of Sarah Palin, while it may be accurate and amusing, is a distressing blow to the notion that powerful public women can be turned into walking, talking cartoons of themselves, torn to shreds and picked apart by the vultures of our media. I understand that her politics, not her gender, are what get her into trouble. But it's just so disappointing!
Not only does Wal-Mart's class action shed light on the confounding inequality which can go on for, obviously, years and years, it also calls into question every other big business and even smaller institutions who claim not to discriminate on the basis of gender or anything else.
I fear sometimes women expect too little for themselves and fall asleep in the car rather than taking the wheel. When we are short-shrifted we sigh and go on, thinking that to complain is to whine, is to bring everyone down. It's still not too late to take the wheel, to drive ourselves in the future of true equality, where women are taken to be valuable employees whether the business is big, small or in between.
Aimee Boyle teaches business math and writes regularly for EmpowHER.