An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Pay discrimination. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data confirm that men make more than equally qualified and educated women for the same work in nearly every industry. Men are hired at higher salaries upon entry in jobs and the gap grows as they advance in the company. Companies that don’t publish their salary ranges, guide salary decisions with objective criteria, conduct regular pay audits, and evaluate their managers on pay equity practices are making a choice to devalue women’s work.
As part of my series about “the five things we need to do to close the gender wage gap” I had the pleasure of interviewing Noreen Farrel.
Noreen Farrell is the Executive Director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), a national non-profit advancing the rights of women and girls through policy reform, litigation, community education, and movement building. Noreen is a nationally recognized leader and innovator on a variety of gender justice issues. She co-founded and chairs the national Equal Pay Today Campaign, working with 30+ organizations in dozens of states and at the federal level to close the gender wage gap for women of color and low-paid workers. She has represented thousands of women and girls in groundbreaking impact litigation to end sex discrimination in school and the workplace, including before the U.S. Supreme Court. Noreen also leads ERA’s various Women’s Agenda Initiatives, including state and national policy reform campaigns to improve the lives of women and girls and their families. She is a graduate of Yale University and University of California Hastings College of the Law, where she was Editor-In-Chief of the Women’s Law Journal.
Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us the “backstory” that brought you to this career path?
Those who know me would say that I was destined to become a gender justice lawyer. You don’t survive a family of seven without the ability to debate and a strong desire to win! Both coupled with an acute awareness at an early age that my parents struggled more than they should. When my mother was widowed at a young age, she cleaned houses, cared for people in their homes, and worked in a nursing home for very little pay as she carried the weight of her entire family. My career has been inspired by her and working women like her across the country who deserve workplace dignity, equal pay, and a fair chance to succeed. Whether before a jury or Congress, I am humbled to be able to fight for them as part of the Equal Rights Advocates team.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this career?
Oscar’s Night, 2015. I could not believe my eyes when Patricia Arquette accepted her Academy Award for her role in Boyhood and said,” “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all.” From my living room, I stood up and cheered with the rest of America not knowing that she would call me a few days later to partner on her call to action. When you see “Patricia Arquette” on your phone screen, you pick up. She told me that others had told her that Equal Rights Advocates was the place to call if she wanted to put her words to action. Later that month, Patricia joined ERA and Senator Hannah Beth Jackson to introduce what was then the strongest state equal pay law in the country. Since passage of the California Fair Pay Act of 2015, 42 states have introduced similar or stronger legislation. 55 million people follow our Equal Pay Day campaigns on social media. Tech industry leaders like Salesforce have joined us. From our living rooms to Congress to workplaces across the country, we are building a movement to be excited about. Thanks, Oscars 2015!
Can you share a story about the funniest or most interesting mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
There are more than I can count, but one of the most embarrassing ones was the court brief I
filed that inadvertently included “pubic” instead of public. 16 times. Imagine reading pubic 16 times. Lessons learned? First, don’t trust spell check. Second, our work quality says something about ourselves to the world. Put the time in, own mistakes, ask for feedback, strive for excellence. The people we work on behalf of deserve our best efforts.
Ok let’s jump to the main focus of our interview. Even in 2020, women still earn about 81 cents for every dollar a man makes. Can you explain three of the main factors that are causing the wage gap?
An important point about average “pay gap” numbers is that they don’t tell the story of women workers of color averaging far less (like Black women at 63 cents and Latinas at just 57 cents). I also love to challenge the overuse of the term wage “gap” because it implies some inexplicable occurrence — like a gap in the sidewalk that just happens over time. But let’s be clear: the wage gap exists because of deliberate choices to devalue women’s work.
Three choices to devalue women’s work stand out:
First, pay discrimination. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data confirm that men make more than equally qualified and educated women for the same work in nearly every industry. Men are hired at higher salaries upon entry in jobs and the gap grows as they advance in the company. Companies that don’t publish their salary ranges, guide salary decisions with objective criteria, conduct regular pay audits, and evaluate their managers on pay equity practices are making a choice to devalue women’s work.
Second, gender bias fuels occupational segregation — trapping women in the lowest paid work and excluding them from the highest paid jobs. Women occupy two-thirds of the nation’s minimum wage jobs; they are also overrepresented in tipped industries paying a subminimum wage. Gender bias is the driver. No matter the industry, wages fall when the number of women rise; wages rise as male representation increases. If we are serious about closing the wage gap, we have to create pathways for women into higher wage jobs and shield them from sexual harassment once they get there. We also have to insist on one fair wage for women workers, by raising the minimum wage and abolishing the subminimum wage for tipped workers.
Third, the wage gap grows when women are forced from the workplace once they become pregnant or caregivers. As COVID-19 made clear, women are bearing the brunt of family care. Women leaving the workforce because of pregnancy/caregiver discrimination, lack of childcare or work flexibility, and/or because they are denied job protected and paid family leave or sick leave are taking a huge hit to their career earnings. Even if they return to the same job, they suffer a 7% reduction in pay for the same work. If we are to close the pay gap, we must provide all workers — men and women and people across genders — access to the support and policies they need to stay employed while caring for families.
Can you share with our readers what your work is doing to help close the gender wage gap?
Equal Rights Advocates co-created the Equal Pay Today campaign to ensure that women and men have the same opportunities and are paid fairly for their work. With our dedicated and diverse partners nationwide, we support working families by prioritizing the needs of Black, Latina, and Native women who have the most to gain from strong fair pay policies. We’ve been able to raise public awareness with our series of Equal Pay Days for Black, Latina, AANHPI, and Native women. With our media and events, we want to start a conversation in every workplace about equal pay. (Sorry, HR.)
Mark your calendars for March 15 for Women’s Equal Pay Day. We’re planning a March Madness-themed week of action to share information about pay gap myths. We’re thrilled to be featured on TBS during the entire month of March for their International Women’s Day campaign to talk about the pay gap.
We’ve also collaborated with organizations across the country to help pass strong equal pay laws like the laws we helped create in California. We’re supporting efforts in Mississippi right now to make sure the equal pay proposal in that state is a good one. We’re making sure the Biden Administration and Congress don’t forget about their promises to working women by fighting to close policy gaps in existing federal laws on equal pay and gender equality. Closer to home, we’re also pushing hard for wage transparency in California with a new bill we introduced last week. The Pay Transparency for Pay Equity Act will require employers to post salary ranges and promotional opportunities, and also publicly report pay data by sex, race, and ethnicy. We can’t fix what we can’t see, so greater transparency in pay data will make it easier for workers to see who has strong equal pay practices and who doesn’t. With this bill, we have a chance to address the fact that California women lost $46 billion in 2020 to this pay gap and people of color lost even more — a whopping $61 billion.
Equal pay makes good business sense by building a strong, stable and diverse workforce. It also makes good corporate responsibility sense. Consumers want their brands to do the right thing. Paying women, especially women of color, what they’ve earned is the right thing.
Can you recommend 5 things that need to be done on a broader societal level to close the gender wage gap. Please share a story or example for each.
On an individual level, the best thing to do is rip off the secrecy. Talk about pay. We worked with an amazing woman, Aileen Rizo, a math education professional, who discovered over lunch that her male colleague with less time on the job was being paid more than her. Because of her case, the Ninth Circuit has held that prior salary cannot be a justification for unequal pay.
As an employer, sunshine is the best policy when it comes to wage equality. Publicize your salary ranges, launch a pay audit so you can see if there are gaps and where they exist, don’t retaliate against workers who want to talk about their salaries. (They’re going to talk about it anyway and you really don’t want them to talk about it in an open letter on Medium.) And please get rid of the Mommy penalty. Working moms have it really tough right now because of the pandemic — don’t make it so hard for a working mom or any working parent to have a flexible schedule so they can respond to their family’s needs. It’s the 21st century — moms and dads need to work. Let’s have workplaces that work *with* them, not against.
On the policy front, let’s raise the minimum wage, abolish the subminimum wage for tipped workers, ensure paid leave and access to childcare for all, and fill gaps in existing fair pay laws. Let’s do it in the states and at the federal level, because our rights should not depend on our zip code!
Is that five things? I lost count.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Let’s join together to end pay disparities faced by women and others — and end poverty. Closing the gender wage gap would lower working women’s poverty rates, especially for single mothers, in every state and help women and families achieve greater economic security. Indeed, if working women received equal pay with comparable men — men who are of the same age, have the same level of education, work the same number of hours, and have the same urban/rural status — poverty for working women would be reduced by more than 40 percent! Equal pay for working women would increase our annual average earnings from $41,402 to $48,326, adding $541 billion in wage and salary income to the U.S. economy. To go further, we eliminate the subminimum wage (as low as $2.13 per hour) paid to tipped workers in many states. States that have eliminated the tipped minimum wage have less poverty among workers in key tipped industries.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I have two quotes by inspiring women of color that I live by: “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free” by civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” by poet activist June Jordan. We have to defy the myth of scarcity, that someone must lose in order for someone else to win. It is, in fact, the opposite. There is no gender justice without racial, LGBTQ+, immigrant justice. As much as forces try to pit communities against each other, we are not free until every person in this country has what they need to thrive and find joy. We need to embrace a sense of abundance, knowing that everyone wins when everyone wins. I love pairing it with June Jordan’s quote because reaching solutions to our country’s problems can feel daunting. But we make the most progress when we stop waiting for others and remember our own power — as workers, consumers, family breadwinners, and voters. Nothing can stop us if we own that.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
When I think about women who have owned their power, I am inspired by Melinda Gates and McKenzie Scott. Over some chocolate croissants, I would love to sit down with these visionary philanthropists and strategists for gender justice. Collectively, they have given billions of dollars to great causes. In so doing, they have fostered an abundance mindset allowing activists to think big to drive change. I always say, we have to lead with the vision of what we need and want and deserve, not what we “think we can get.” I would love to thank them for validating that with their investment in the movement.
This was really meaningful! Thank you so much for your time.
Noreen Farrell of Equal Rights Advocates: 5 Things We Need To Do To Close The Gender Wage Gap was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.