Equal Pay Day aims to raise awareness
By Ashley Zuzek, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Wednesday, April 26, 2006
John Mattimore '09 purchases baked goods in support of Equal Pay Day.
A group of enthusiastic female students sold baked goods at prices determined by the purchaser's gender and race to raise awareness of Equal Pay Day on Tuesday afternoon outside Collis Common Ground.
Equal Pay Day, coordinated by the National Committee on Pay Equity, is held annually nationwide to raise awareness about unfair pay for women and minorities in America. The event takes place in April to indicate how far into the next year a woman must work in order to make the same profit as a man in the previous year.
At Dartmouth, the table for Equal Pay Day consisted primarily of a "Pay Gap Bake Sale." Baked goods were sold at prices that emulated real-life pay differences; for example, white males were asked to donate $1, while women of various races were asked to donate less according to their theoretical income.
While the event was approved by the College through the Center for Women and Gender, the initiative for the event was "very much a grassroots thing," Danielle Strollo '07, the main coordinator of the event, said.
All the proceeds from the bake sale, roughly $70, benefit the Upper Valley League of Women Voters. Strollo said that the league hopes to change the economic imbalance between men and women by granting women greater political power.
To complement the bake sale, Equal Pay Day encourages all women to wear red to symbolize how women and minorities are "in the red" regarding their pay. Students involved with the event also distributed literature on pay inequity to educate others.
Elizabeth Allen '06, who also helped organize the event, said that the problem of pay inequity is prevalent among Dartmouth's faculty.
"At Dartmouth, there is a significant difference between pay scale for female and male professors ÂÂ-- the largest in the Ivy League," Allen said.
This pay discrepancy was 22 percent in 2005, according to a study by the American Association of University Professors.
Statistics also show that this year's female Dartmouth graduates will earn roughly $1.2 million less than their male counterparts over the course of their careers.