A black woman Rosie the Riveter during WW2
By Jos Truitt • @jostruitt • 8 years ago

It’s Equal Pay Day for cisgender white women

April 12 is officially Equal Pay Day, which we “celebrate” (all the scare quotes) women as a group finally catching up to what men as a group earned in the previous year (technically the precise date for 2016 is April 8). That’s right, it takes 15 months for women’s earnings to match what men make in 12. And it’s 2016.

But the numbers are even worse for many groups of women. It will take nearly 20 months for Black women to catch up to white men’s earnings, over 20 months for Native American women, and 22 months for Latina women. The numbers are terrible for transgender women as well, who face extreme employment discrimination and are about 4 times more likely than the general population to have a household income of under $10,000 a year. And of course, women living at the intersections of marginalized identities face some of the most extreme poverty and wage discrimination.

As we fight wage and employment discrimination, it’s important to remember that the wage gap doesn’t impact all women equally, and that many women are facing a much more extreme gap than is represented by marking unequal pay in April.

This is also a good time to mention that the Feministing crew, which is full of women from marginalized groups, are making sub-poverty level pay for our work here. Can you help us change that?

Header image: Library of Congress

 

Boston, MA

Jos Truitt is Executive Director of Development at Feministing. She joined the team in July 2009, became an Editor in August 2011, and Executive Director in September 2013. She writes about a range of topics including transgender issues, abortion access, and media representation. Jos first got involved with organizing when she led a walk out against the Iraq war at her high school, the Boston Arts Academy. She was introduced to the reproductive justice movement while at Hampshire College, where she organized the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program’s annual reproductive justice conference. She has worked on the National Abortion Federation’s hotline, was a Field Organizer at Choice USA, and has volunteered as a Pro-Choice Clinic Escort. Jos has written for publications including The Guardian, Bilerico, RH Reality Check, Metro Weekly, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos completed her MFA in Printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in Spring 2013. In her "spare time" she likes to bake and work on projects about mermaids.

Jos Truitt is an Executive Director of Feministing in charge of Development.

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