Gender Equality

I have long been familiar with the common belief that women make 72¢ for every dollar earned by a man, all other things being equal. I even believed it — for some (male dominated) professions. Once I graduated University and got that first job, and compared my salary with my coworkers and friends I was pleased to learn that (at BigNameCompany at least) gender was, apparently, a non-issue for my position.

At ConsultingShop I made more than some of my male counter-parts.

At InternetCompany I think I'm making less than I could, but probably pretty close to even with my male colleagues.

However, tonight I was comparing salaries with a friend of mine. He has yet to graduate, and I'm not fully convinced that he is any better at programming than I am. The biggest difference between us is our job titles. That being said, I'm make 83¢ for his dollar. Better than 72? Very much so. Equal? Far from it.

The only difference I see is that he is a bit more "generous" with his skills descriptions on his resume, where I may be a bit more humble — perhaps 'honest' is a better word. It's not that I'm jealous (at some point it's just money), I'm just annoyed that the equality I had hoped and dreamed for doesn't really exist. What good has the Women's movement done, if not to propel us to more equal footing with men?