Bake sale spotlights pay inequality

Group focuses on gender differences in national wages

By: Abby Harvey

Posted: 4/24/08

In 1920, women gained the right to vote. In 1922, Rebecca Felton became the first woman to hold a seat in Senate. In 1981, Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to serve as a Supreme Court justice. In 2006, according to the American Association of University Women, an average American woman earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by an American man.

Each April the AAUW celebrates Equal Pay Day. According to the AAUW Web site, this is the day when women's pay catches up to men's from the previous year.

The event is celebrated nation wide in several ways, including inequity bake sales such as one that the Eau Claire branch of the AAUW sponsors each year on Equal Pay Day, which took place Tuesday. All of the homemade baked goods cost 75 cents for women and $1 for men.

The 75 cent price for women is two cents less than the national average "but we didn't want to deal with pennies" Cleo Powers, Co-president of the Eau Claire branch of the AAUW said.

Mary Hayden, the public policy chair of the Eau Claire branch of the AAUW, said the first few years the event took place there were a few male objectors but they haven't had any problems in the recent years.

"Some people even give us money without taking the baked goods," Hayden said.

Although the national average wage gap is 77 cents to the dollar, according to a pamphlet supplied by the AAUW, it varies by state from 63 cents in Wyoming to 86 cents in Washington D.C. Wisconsin falls in the bottom third of the states at 69 cents to the dollar.

An equal balance of men and women bought items at this year's bake sale said Powers.

"Hunger does not discriminate," Kim Wellnitz, a member of the AAUW said of the turn out.

The inequity bake sale is only one of several events celebrating Equal Pay Day across the nation. According to the AAUW Web site activities included 23 percent discounts for women at events, the wearing of the color red to represent that the pay gap has put women in the red, and workshops and rallies at several college campuses.

The inequity bake sale is a fairly common activity said Hayden. The AAUW Web site offers some variations on the inequity bake sale including selling cookies with a bite out of them to represent the 23 percent wage gap.

The proceeds of the Equal Pay Day inequity bake sale will help fund student scholarships.