Although the Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal," our founding fathers forgot to mention the fact that women were too. Even in today's society, women live in a world where paychecks arrive with a substantial amount missing because fe- prefixes their gender. In fact, women average 74 cents for every dollar men make (National Committee on Pay Equity). Since wage discrimination laws in the United States are inadequately imposed and cases are exceedingly hard to show and win, the wage gap between genders will never be resolved unless political action such as the Fair Pay Act is taken to correct it.
Although our society has made many great advances in women's rights we are still living in the past on the issue of fair wages among genders. Before women's liberation occurred, women were denied access to many of the experiences men encountered after grade school. This included higher education, professions, and even the pulpit, as well as equal pay for equal work. If married, they had no property rights; even the wages they earned legally belonged to their husbands as they did. They could be hired for substantially lower wages and employed in great numbers for unskilled work in factories (Women in the Workforce). This type of discrimination was the beginning of the wage gap and what would become the struggle for women to receive the same amount of money for the same job a man does.
In general, pay equity is removing sex and racial discrimination from determining the salary of a particular job (NCPE). It also means that the ways standard employers use to establish wages must become unbiased. The wage gap that exists in today's society is due in part to the fact that many women are still segregated into a few low-paying occupations (NCPE). Almost all women workers hold jobs such as secretaries, service workers, nurses, and teachers. These jobs have traditionally been undervalued and continue to be underpaid to a large extent.