Every Stone

An unpleasant surprise awaited me on CNN.com today.

“at least 25 percent of doctors are women, up from only 8 percent in 1970. By 2010, women are expected to make-up one-third of the profession…What’s more, the pay gap between men and women is decreasing — women were earning 81 percent as much as their male counterparts in 2005 compared to when women earned about 63 percent as much as men did in 1979, according to a report conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the BLS.”

Later in the article:

Although the pay gap is getting smaller, it definitely still exists. There is also a strong pattern of men more frequently doing the jobs that are higher paid, and women doing jobs that are lower paid.

The pay gap still exists — and it’s still huge. There’s a tone of acceptance, or its cousin, complacency, that’s really just grating.

A few more substantive complaints. You’d think that that point about the types of jobs — that glancing reference to “lower paid” positions — would merit further exploration. It didn’t. There’s also no mention of the repercussions of the gap: disproportionate representation of female single-parent households below the poverty threshold.

This article also comes on the heels of recent studies that the number of women in elected office in the United States has leveled off — and at a level significantly lower than in Europe and Latin America — and along with reporting and polls indicating that several key state and federal female office-holders will be extremely vulnerable in the coming elections.

Celebrate the small victories, but don’t lose sight of the war.