Hi vandrunv. That professor is giving out inaccurate information. It sounds like he hasn't done his homework on the pay gap at all - it does exist!

The pay gap/pay equity is a major issue for the American Association of University Women and here are a few publications from their site on the topic: http://www.aauw.org/advocacy/issue_advocacy/actionpages/upload/PayEquity.pdf and their well respected research report from 2007 http://www.aauw.org/research/behindPayGap.cfm. "Research released in April 2007 by AAUW shows that just one year out of college, women working full time already earn less than their male colleagues, even when they work in the same field. Ten years after graduation, the pay gap widens."

The National Committee on Pay Equity has more information: http://www.pay-equity.org/

Also, this week the Paycheck Fairness Act passed to improve pay equity - so it's an issue even Congress acknowledges http://blog-aauw.org/2008/08/01/legislation/

This is actually an argument that some conservatives use--the idea that the wage gap only exists because women take maternity leave and/or work part-time while the kids are growing up. It's actually completely false. There have been studies done in both the '90s and the 00's--I forget exactly which years...we talked about this in my Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies seminar last Fall--that focused solely on women and men working full-time, and they showed that on average women earned 75-78% of what men earned--lower for working-class people.

You got some great info above. If I were you this would put me at the END of my patience rope.

I'm not usually an advocate of going straight to the top, and I think it's more important to make sure the students in your class are aware that the info from your prof is NOT ACCURATE, I would go to someone in the department or a dean or something and see if they can make sure this guy does his job correctly. He can have whatever [incorrect] beliefs he wants in his personal life, but preaching incorrect information in a classroom where the students [and I am guessing the department] defer to his judgment under the assumption that he has experience in the subject area is totally out of line.

Maybe print up stat flyers with the correct pay gap numbers on them and put them on the classroom seats before lecture? ;)

I think you have every right to be outraged that your professor is providing inaccurate information to a group of students likely to walk away believing the information provided. According to Jessica Valenti, "The government stat reporting that women make only seventy-six cents to a man's dollar comes from data that looks at women and men who work FULL-Time." (Full Frontal Feminism).

The Guerrilla Girls have reported that the stats are even worse for female artists, making only 1/3 of what male artists make. (http://www.guerrillagirls.com/)

In addition, if the wage gap was non existent the Supreme Court would not have just heard Ledbetter v Goodyear Tire. Also, Congress would not be working on passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act (http://www.feministing.com/archives/010080.html).

I love the wage gap, not because it exists, but because it is such a great tool for talking about gender discrimination with people who don’t think it exists. So, my first piece of advice is to not get all mad at your professor, in fact, this might is actually a great opportunity to do some feministing.
Your professor seems to be mad about something, and in my opinion he is half justified. In order to talk about the wage gap you must first understand how it is calculated. It is the median women’s wage divided by the median men’s wage. This seems like a great idea for a statistic, but actually a really bad one, at least at first. Let me give you an example: this year farmers produced twice as much as they did last year and we say there was some great technological advance that made this happen. Sounds great, but in reality last year there was a drought and we forgot to account for this, but, that being said, was there a technological advance that helped too, and if so how big was it?
The 72 number is 100% accurate, and I bet your professor will agree. The 72% is also the number before accounting for other variables, like the drought in the case of the farmer. Another example. There are 5 women workers and 5 male workers, one from each sex enters the labor market every year and one leaves. Their salary starts as one dollar and goes up by one dollar every year and they will all work for 5 years. So male salaries: $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 Female Salaries: $1 $2 $3 $4 $5. Now, we apply the wage gap equation and get $3/$3=1 and therefore there is no wage gap. But, now, three more females decide to work this coming year and only one leaves, so there are now seven. Female Salaries: $1 $1 $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 Male Salaries: $1 $2 $3 $4 $5. So now if we apply the wage gap equation we get $2/$3=.66
This example shows that if the number of women participating in the work force increases, it will increase the wage gap. Now, no discrimination happened, but rather women on their first year were paid the first year salary and thus the median for women changed. So, in my opinion, in this example there is a wage gap, but that does not mean any discrimination is happening. Since the female participation rate in the labor force has been steadily increasing for a long time now, the wage gap is going to be larger, not because of discrimination, but because of more women earning starting salaries. It will also take five years (in my example) for the wage gap to go back to 1 assuming that three women enter every year form now on.
The above is an example of a correction that needs to be made to the 72% number, because the 72% is not corrected for the increasing participation rate of women. There are tons of other things that might need to be corrected for. Your job is to figure out what should be corrected for, what shouldn’t be and how much correction should be made.
For instance, take pregnancy. Let us assume that as of today there is absolutely no form of discrimination or inconvenience due to pregnancy. So, currently no discrimination exists. But, because women were discriminated against in the past, there will be a wage gap due to pregnancy discrimination until all the women discriminated against have left the work force. So, the question is, due you want the wage gap to reflect current discrimination or past discrimination. If you want it to be current discrimination, then you would have to account for the discrimination in the past and make a correction to the wage gap (ie make it smaller), if you want it to reflect past discrimination, you would make no correction. (you and your professor might differ here in terms of what you think is best, so he might get a smaller or larger wage gap then you. What is important is that you both understand the numbers you have created, and therefore the numbers don’t lie, they are both accurate because they do not represent the same thing).
Your professor is probably upset because people keep spitting out the uncorrected 72% number. Personally, I am upset by this too, it is misleading, especially when most people don’t even know how the statistic is created. I personally believe that after all corrections, the number should be in the low 90’s. (if you can find a breakdown of the wage gap by year and by age ie wage gap for 20-25 year olds in multiple years, it is very interesting).
If you want to talk with your professor, you need to do a couple of things, first, realize that 72%, while accurate is misleading (your professor knows this and is angry that a misleading statistic is thrown around so often) and figure out what corrections need to be made, and then when you talk to your professor, tell him that you understand that 72% is misleading and corrections need to be made, and then talk with him about what corrections need to be made, and how significant they are. What you will really be discussing is where you and he think that discrimination occurs and how bad that discrimination is as well as about how the discrimination has either increased or decreased.

Hope that helps,

David pretty much covered the statistical side of things. I also get upset whenever I see a number like that, because the number alone is completely useless; you need the details of how it was calculated to draw any conclusions from it. The fact that the person presenting the number didn't know that shows them to be incredibly ignorant of statistics, which in todays complex world* is an inexcusable deficiency for anyone with an opinion on any complex issue.

*Really, a nuanced understanding of statistics would help at any point of history in which data is available, but thinkers of the past can be excused for ignorance of something that hadn't been invented yet.

Yeah, if you compare the average salary of all women to the average salary of all men, you're going to get two numbers that vary by a given amount. And some of that amount is wage discrimination, and some is other types of discrimination (such as women being encouraged to stay home and look after the babies), and some is due to entirely non-discriminatory variances. And it's impossible to tell how much of the total difference is in each bucket.

What you need to do is find studies (several, large, rigorous) that compare otherwise-identical populations of men and women; people working in the same job with the same level of experience and education, and so forth. Obviously, putting together such a study is not easy, and the more you try to control for (and thus, the more meaningful the result is), the harder it is.

I've not looked at the AAUW studies linked to above, so I can't comment on their validity (they may well be iron-clad), but I'd recommend you bear these concerns in mind when you look at them.

With wage-gap deniers, the implication is always that "men work more," while women spend more time with their families. Note that women's time with her children is not considered work, but leisure. Hmph.

Hey,

Thanks everyone! the information really helped me, and my classmates out!!

David -- I always took "wage gap" to mean "for individuals with the same job and qualifications, including years of experience," which seems like it would avoid the problems you're talking about?

P.S. In my experience, pretty much anyone who quibbles with the math involved in these studies is ultimately arguing about HOW MUCH of a wage gap there is, whether 70-some-odd percent is correct or whether it's more like e.g. 88% these days. IMHO, your professor is still clearly providing misinformation if he's claiming that the wage gap is "nonexistent."

P.P.S. And then there's this point to remember: that women are not going to be able to GET to the same job title with the same experience and education as easily as men :/

idiolect;
My company has regional HR managers. Part of their evaluation is based on the number of women promoted into management positions in their region of responsibility. I’ve been a good company man, and I’ve traveled to other locations and met a lot of males and females up for promotion in the same position. My honest, no shit appraisal is that I’ve seen several second tier females promoted over first tier males; these are guys who have had several, different areas of responsibility and have traveled for the company; the ladies…. Not so much It’s difficult knowing that local promotions have to be sent up the chain to be vetted with a HR manager at the home office.

Also, within my company I’ve noticed a tendency of men being willing to appeal their evaluation. As a manager I am responsible for evaluation 20-40 people per annum. I’ve never encountered a woman who asked for more money. I read an article in my paper a while ago that discussed a university economics department where the female post grad students filed a complaint with the ombudswoman because several male post grads were teaching their own classes (getting paid and gaining experience) and the females were unpaid TA’s. The ombudswoman launched a investigation and the outcome was thus; all the men teaching classes had asked the econ dean if they could teach a class; no ladies had. Case dropped.