1. Using data from the 2007 Census, the American Association of University Women calculates that nationally, the median annual income of college educated women 25 years old or older is only 71 percent of men’s earnings with the same level of education. Likewise, the NC wage gap for women with college-level education is 71 percent. When all workers 16 and older are considered, women’s median annual income increases to 79 percent of men’s. The current wage gap in NC is 33rd-worst in the nation. 

2. North Carolina is one of only 15 states that has refused to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment, which holds that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

3. Worldwide, men continue to earn much more than women who are doing equal work. In the U.S., the Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963, but the wage gap has been closing at an extremely slow rate, slightly fluctuating over the past few years. In 1963, women who worked year-round on a full-time basis made 59 cents on average for every dollar earned by men. In 2007, women earned 78 cents to the dollar and  That means that the wage gap has narrowed by a less than half a cent per year. Using the annual growth rate of women’s earnings over the last 10 years, it is projected that the U.S. will not achieve earnings equality until 2056.

4. Economist Evelyn Murphy, president of The Wage Project, estimates that over a lifetime (47 years of full-time work) this gap amounts to a loss in women’s wages of $700,000 for a high school graduate, $1.2 million for a college graduate, and $2 million for a professional school graduate.

5. Women are more likely to be poor than men. There are over 14 million adult women in the United States living under the federal poverty line, compared to 9.5 million adult men. Almost 6 million women live in extreme poverty, defined by having an income of less than half of the federal poverty level. Women are 40 percent more likely to be poor than men. One in eight women is poor, compared to about one in eleven men.

6. Occupational Segregation: In 2000, two-thirds of all US working women were still crowded into twenty-one of the 500 occupational categories. And, then women’s work is consistently paid less than men’s work. Are janitors really worth more than nurses’ aides, parking lot attendants more than child care workers, construction laborers more than bookkeepers and cashiers? According to American payrolls, they are. 

7. A nontraditional occupation for women is one in which women comprise 25 percent or less of total employment. Nontraditional occupations span all major occupational groups are attractive to women because they generally offer higher entry-level wages and a career ladder with pay between $20 and $30 per hour. Examples of nontraditional jobs for women include: architects, computer programmers, computer software and hardware engineers, detectives, chefs, barbers, clergy, engineers, computer and office machine repairers, construction and building inspectors, railroad conductors, machinists, truck drivers, fire fighters, aircraft pilots, and construction occupations. As more women enter jobs that were once dominated by men, many jobs that were nontraditional for women in the 1988 were no longer nontraditional for women in 2008 such as: purchasing managers; chemists; physicians; lawyers; athletes; postal service mail carriers; bailiffs, correctional officers, and jailers; and butchers and other meat, poultry, and fish processing workers. 

8. The world’s resources are very unevenly distributed, not only between countries, but also between men and women within countries. While it is estimated that women perform two-thirds of the world’s work, they only earn one-tenth of the income, and own less than one per cent of the world’s property.

9. In 1979, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which is commonly referred to as an international bill of rights for women. Consisting of a preamble and 30 articles, it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination. The Convention defines discrimination against women as “...any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.”

10. As of June 2009, 185 countries, representing over 90 percent of total U.N. membership, are party to the Convention. However, the U.S. has not ratified CEDAW, one of the few nations in the world not to do so. Nations such as Afghanistan, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa have all ratified the Convention.

11. By accepting the Convention, nations commit themselves to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all forms, including:
• To incorporate the principle of equality of men and women in their legal system, abolish all discriminatory laws and adopt appropriate ones prohibiting discrimination against women;
• To establish tribunals and other public institutions to ensure the effective protection of women against discrimination; and
• To ensure elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons, organizations or enterprises.

12. The Bible and Gender
The collection of 66 books written over a period of 1,000 years that we know as the Bible does not speak to the range of issues affecting women in a unified voice. Women are portrayed (primarily by male authors) in a variety of ways, some positively and some negatively. The contemporary task of interpreting these issues, including gender equality, through the lens of Scripture often proves daunting, and many churches remain silent or muted on these issues. Great discernment and wisdom must be exercised when interpreting challenging texts. However, for all of its complexity, the Bible remains consistent and clear on several key theological points. First, both women and men are created equally in God’s image. Second, God is neither male nor female; God is not gendered and must not be represented as male or female. When it comes to Christology, we cannot attribute male gender to Christ’s divine nature, but only to his human nature. Thus, gender itself is not determinative of a person’s ability or fitness to represent God.

SOURCES

1. American Association of University Women, “State by State Pay Gap between Women and Men Full-Time Workers,” http://www.aauw.org/research/statedata/index.cfm
2. Equal Rights Amendment, “Political Status,” www.equalrightsamendment.org.
3. National Committee on Pay Equity, “The Wage Gap Over Time: In Real Dollars, Women See a Continuing Gap,” www.pay-equity.org/info-time.html.
4. National Committee on Pay Equity, “The Wage Gap Over Time: In Real Dollars, Women See a Continuing Gap,” www.pay-equity.org/info-time.html.
5. Women Work, “Too Many Women Live Paycheck to Paycheck,”  http://www.womenwork.org/pdfresources/women_poverty.pdf
6. WAGE, “Why Is There a Wage Gap?” http://www.wageproject.org/content/gap/why.php
7. U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, “Nontraditional Occupations for Women in 2008,” http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/nontra2008.htm
8. UNICEF, “Gender Equality: The Big Picture,” www.unicef.org/gender/index_bigpicture.html
9. United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, “CEDAW,” www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Adapted from Rebecca Merrill Groothuis’ article, “The Bible and Gender Equality,” www.cbeinternational.org/new/pdf_files/free_articles/groothius_bible_genderequailty.pdf