This year, Black Women’s Equal Pay day falls on Wednesday, September 21, and that means that Black women must work an extra 264 to earn what a white, non-Hispanic man had by December 2021. Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is not a celebration! No woman should be celebrating these pay inequities—but we should continue to sound the alarms until we achieve pay equity. Not just for Black women, but for any woman who is being undervalued. 

I am a Black woman, and as an entrepreneur and author, there are times that I still experience pay inequality if I don’t advocate for myself. Because we all have a voice, we just have to decide how we are going to use it. 

Recently, I was booked for a speaking engagement. The speech that I was supposed to give was originally in person, but it was shifted to a virtual event. When we agreed that I would come speak they had a budget to pay me $10,000 dollars. Once they made the decision to go online, they said their budget had significantly changed and they could now only pay me $2,000.  

Math has not always been my strong suit, but this math was not adding up! They were still asking me to perform the same job, regardless of the format of the event. I remembered that someone I knew casually (let’s call her Jenny) had recently spoken there and that she’d done her talk online. Something inside me pushed me to reach out to her and ask about her experience and fee. 

My curiosity about whether I was being compensated fairly was larger than my fear of the uncomfortable conversation. Because if I didn’t get more information, I would always be wondering if that organization tried to play me.  I mean, come on, my life’s work is to make the workplace better for all women of color, and that includes myself!

I took the leap and reached out to Jenny. I told her that I would be speaking at the same company and that I suspected they were paying me less than other speakers. I said to her, “I hate to put you in this position, but would you feel comfortable telling me what they offered you?” 

Jenny was very cool about it. She told me that they were paying her nearly my originally stated amount (of $10,000) and they were buying her book in bulk for the attendees. This new information left me disappointed in the organization, of course, but also happy that I’d done my research. I then had to decide if I was going to have another tough conversation—this time with the organizers of the event.  

After I gathered all the facts, I sat and thought about what I wanted to say to the organizers. I knew that I couldn’t out Jenny as my informant. She was beyond kind to be honest with me, and I didn’t want her decision to affect her relationship with the organization.

Here's how I handled the situation, which I hope can be a map for all women to have similar conversations. 

Phase I: Choose to Take a Conscious Approach 

In my case, before taking any action, I thought about three things: emotion, perception, and openness. These first three steps are essential because 80 percent of facing a tough situation is about readying yourself mentally and emotionally.  

1. Emotion. Yes, you do have to manage emotions from the start. This company was choosing to pay me, a Black woman, less than what they were offering to a white woman to do the same type of work. I had every right to be upset. At first, I wanted to say, forget it, I don’t want to do the speaking engagement at all. But if I handled this situation the wrong way and jumped to conclusions, news of my reaction might get out to future potential clients. And when you are considering having a tough conversation, you must consider all the possible outcomes. 

2. Perception. Next, I asked myself: How was I interpreting this situation? My initial perception was that they were trying to cheat me. But then I told myself to think about it some more. Could there be some other reason why they didn’t offer me what they offered Jenny? Maybe they were trying to cheat me, but maybe they weren’t. I can’t and won’t make excuses for them, but I had to allow myself to look at the various perspectives, not just my own.   

3. Openness. If I was going to confront this wage gap, then I had to be open to hearing what the organizers had to say. That’s part of the reason I needed to sit with my emotions: The only way to get to an open mindset is to first process my feelings.  I had to decide even before I initiated this conversation that I would be willing to be open and hear their full story. It would not serve me at all to just say what I had to say and then end the conversation. 

I won’t make up a fantasy that everyone will smile and listen, and no emotions will flare up, but, as people, we can be open to hearing from one another. 

Phase II: Take Action. 

I know you’re probably thinking, Come on, Minda, what ended up happening? I have to tell you, this was one of the hardest conversations I’ve had in a long time. 

We can’t always control what someone says or does when we ask for what we want, but the ask is part of the equation that we do control—and it’s necessary if we want to break this inequitable pay structure. 

Here are seven additional action steps that helped me navigate the actual conversation. The seven steps happen to spell out Beyoncé as an acronym, which is meaningful for more reasons than one. But amp-up playlist aside, following this framework is critical for combating pay discrimination in the most professional way.  

1. Bet on yourself. Having tough conversations with people from your parents to crushes to your first manager is never easy, and it might seem easier to just avoid these situations altogether. But it isn’t healthy to throw the covers over your head and pretend that issues will go away just because you choose not to confront them. In this case, I was nervous to reach back out to the organizers, but I knew I deserved to understand why I was being paid less than another woman. And I needed to bet on myself because self-advocacy is part of loving yourself. I made a choice and chose me. 

2. Encourage yourself. Even as the little voice inside my head was trying to persuade me to just leave it alone, I thought about my purpose and why I started my company, The Memo, LLC, in the first place. My goal was to help create more equality for women and girls that look like us. If I took this speaking opportunity for less than I was worth, I could be helping to widen the wage gap. Advocating for myself was advocating for all Black and brown women, who deserve to be paid fairly. I ended up playing my favorite Beyoncé song (“Freedom for Girls,” “Grown Woman,” and, of course, “Who Run the World?” are all great tracks for motivation) and forged ahead by reminding myself that I am worth it and so are you.

3. You have the information. This is one of the most important B.E.Y.O.N.C.E. steps. When you’re considering having a tough conversation, gather your receipts first. Don’t just start popping off about your point of view without having all of the details. In order to have a stronger case, I needed evidence that would support my stance; Jenny was able to help fill in those gaps with new information.

4. Onward. This is also important: If you feel strongly about having this conversation, don’t talk yourself out of it. I will be honest with you and say that at this stage, I definitely was thinking about just letting it go, but I decided to move forward due to my values, principles, and boundaries.

5. Navigate your emotions. I also knew that I needed to handle this situation professionally, because this organization was heavily connected to potential clients that might hire me in the future. If I chose to act accusatory or temperamental, then that wouldn’t help us get to a resolution. I wanted to remain professional at every step of the discussion.

6. Concrete facts. You already have the information, now you need to stick to those facts during the conversation. I had to remember when speaking with this company that I wanted to be able to come to a resolution, or at least an understanding. And that meant that I couldn’t make assumptions or point fingers. I needed to keep my conversation rooted in what I knew my truth to be. And that truth was that I could not, in good faith, talk about how to make the workplace better for women of color and not be compensated fairly. If they were able to offer a fair price, I would love to work together. I gave them my facts and then gave them the opportunity to present their truths and facts as well. 

7. End it. We can only control what is within our control. I was able to control whether or not I would have this conversation. And, after having it, I couldn’t go back and forth in my mind about the possible outcomes. I had to own it, end it, and hope for the best. Ending it means letting go once the conversation wraps up. Regardless of the outcome, you did it! In this case, I felt so much better after advocating for myself and the future women of color they hire.  

In this case, the outcome was positive. I told the organizers how I was feeling about the new fee they proposed. I said that I was concerned that they were asking me to do the same work that they originally offered me $10,000 for, but with a heavily decreased rate of $2000. I let them know that, after speaking with others who had worked with them (not mentioning Jenny by name!), I had learned that what they were offering me wasn’t aligned with their usual rates. I reminded them that I was a bestselling author, and that my book, The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table, addresses these exact issues. I told them that I would be very happy to speak to their organization, but that they would need to pay me the $10,000 fee we’d originally agreed to. 

And they said yes! 

Look at that! What if I never had that conversation? Yes, I agonized over it. It’s a struggle every time I have to have a tough conversation, and sometimes they don’t go my way. But advocating for myself worked out this time. My hope is that if we all continue to ask for what we want, we will chip away at that wage gap, one Black woman—and ally—at a time.

A Pew Research report recently made headlines with a little good news for women: Young women are finally starting to out-earn young men in several U.S. cities. But tucked in that announcement was the still-bleak news that those positive headwinds didn’t extend to one group of women: mothers. While our culture heralds moms as the backbones of our communities, it's empty talk if it still doesn’t translate into pay equity for doing the same work as men, or even as women who aren’t moms.

In fact, moms are told to go right back to work after having babies so they don’t fall behind men, but women who become parents see their pay drop by 30 percent (and no joke, men see a 20 percent bonus for becoming parents).

And the raw numbers speak for themselves: Full-time working moms are paid, on average, 75 cents for every dollar dad makes, according to the National Women’s Law Center. When you drill down by race and ethnicity, it only gets worse: Latina mothers are paid 46 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic fathers, while Black mothers are paid just 52 cents.

The old logic that women don’t need to be paid as much because men can be our breadwinners obviously doesn’t hold up, especially in light of the fact that women are more than four times as likely as men to be single parents supporting families. 

So, instead of paying lip service to mothers this year, let’s focus on helping them get what they deserve. If we really want change, here’s what it’s going to take from private businesses, states, and the federal government: 

Providing national paid family leave to all. 

The best way for women to be able to keep earning—while also managing disproportionate care responsibilities for babies, kids, partners, and elders—is through paid family leave. Studies show new mothers who are able to take paid leave are more likely to stay in the workforce and are 54 percent more likely to see wage increases, compared to women who take no leave. (It would also help if more fathers were offered equal paid family leave and actually took it.) 

Right now, the problem is access, because the people who would benefit the most (low-income women and women of color) are the least likely to have access to paid leave; less than 5 percent of America’s lowest-earning people can access such programs. And while women’s funds are pushing for changes at the state level, such as the Women’s Fund of Colorado’s advocacy that helped pass statewide 12-week paid family leave policy, we need a federal policy (come on, Build Back Better 2.0!) to ensure every woman can have a baby or take care of a sick relative without financial ruin, regardless of her zip code.

Allowing more flex/remote work.

The pandemic showed us just how grueling juggling work and home life can be. However, prior to the pandemic, moms often did that juggle with little or no acknowledgment of the added stress and strain. The pandemic finally made it impossible to ignore. One recent survey of more than 7,400 employees worldwide found that women with child care duties were 32 percent less likely to leave their job if they could work remotely. And this isn’t just about preference—it’s also about productivity. 

Flexible work models have been shown to boost productivity and instill better work-life balance by more than 50 percent. Bottom line: If we say we truly support mothers in the workforce, we have to be willing to think outside the antiquated 9-5 framework that doesn’t work well for most moms. If you’re a manager, offer flexible schedules to your team, or you can write to your HR department to inquire about it, showing your company that there’s building demand and momentum for such policies.

Making child care more accessible and affordable. 

The financial strain of child care on working families, moms in particular, is well documented. On average, families spend more than $8,000 per year per child for full-time childcare, and that number can rise sharply depending on where you live. This often creates a frustrating calculus, weighing if it’s financially reasonable to keep working or, instead, stay at home. What we need is federal funding to bridge the gap, but until that happens, some local efforts around the country are stepping up to provide solutions. Take, for example, the Iowa Women’s Foundation’s Building Community Child Care Solutions Fund, which funds local community, educational, and job training programs throughout the state to increase women’s economic security through access to quality, affordable child care. This way, women can pursue additional education and training without worrying how they’ll cover child care costs. It’s a trade-off no mom should have to make. 

So this year, don’t just say it with flowers—say it with phone calls to your Senators and your HR department. By showing that whether we have kids or not, we stand together for moms, we can make sure mothers around the country get the respect (and paycheck) they’ve more than earned.

Elizabeth Barajas-Román is the President & CEO of the Women's Funding Network, the world’s largest philanthropic alliance for gender equity.

Today marks Latina Equal Pay Day—the day that a Latina in the United States finally catches up to a white man’s earnings from the previous year. It’s the last Equal Pay Day of the year, meaning that Latinas must work the longest for our contributions to be valued the same as everyone else’s. On average, Latinas in the United States earn 57 cents for every dollar that a white, non-Hispanic man makes doing the same job. We quite literally have to work twice as hard in order to be seen, heard, and recognized equally.

I discovered this at an early age growing up in Virginia. I’ve been a waitress, a school administrative assistant, a gas station attendant, and a cybersecurity expert. I’ve worked minimum wage jobs with no health care, and I’ve spent countless late nights calculating all the ways I could make a dollar out of 15 cents. Over the years, I learned to advocate for myself to receive the recognition and pay I knew I deserved, but I also knew that institutional change would be needed to deliver the kind of equality I was fighting for.

My mother impressed upon me the importance of uplifting those around me. She always used to say, “If you’re looking down on someone, it should be because you’re helping them up.” So when the National Organization for Women (NOW) approached me in 2013 to become a member, I knew it was time to expand my political activism from knocking on doors to working hand in hand with women who faced the same economic challenges I did. After about a year, I started my county’s first NOW chapter and went on to serve as the state chapter’s vice president. Together, we organized our community to educate and advocate for women and girls. We brought issues like paid family leave, equal pay for equal work, and access to reproductive health care to the forefront of our Commonwealth’s conversations.

Our nation was well on its way to electing our first-ever woman president, who would bring her lived experiences to the table to fight for equality. But just three years later, everything changed. When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, I was mad as hell. I knew that a Trump administration would only further set women—especially Black and brown women—back. I refused to stand by and let that happen. After mobilizing Virginia women to join the Women’s March on Washington, I came home, grabbed my clipboard and sneakers, and filed to run for office for the very first time.

In 2017, I was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in a blue wave that brought a record number of women to the chamber. I was proud to make history as the first Afro-Latina to serve in Virginia’s General Assembly. When we all got to Richmond, we wasted no time. I helped lead the effort that made Virginia the critical 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in January 2020. Virginia’s ratification cleared a pathway for the ERA to be added to the Constitution after meeting the three-quarters threshold required by law.

Now, it’s time for our nation to put its money where its mouth is and enshrine equality into our Constitution. It’s as simple as stating, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” Ratifying the ERA would clear a pathway for equal pay legislation and guarantee legal protections for women in the workplace across the country. It would also ensure that no individual will ever have to work an extra day—or 294—to earn what their white, male colleagues have earned for the same task. And ultimately, it would signal to ourselves, and the rest of the world, that America truly values the contributions of women.

As Virginia and 37 other states have demonstrated, we have the tools to deliver on our nation’s promise to continue our fight for a more perfect union. It’s time for America to pay women what we’re worth and show every little girl that her work and her contributions are just as valuable as everyone else’s. Let’s make this Latina Equal Pay Day the last by passing the ERA now.

Equal Pay Day is the day in 2021 that represents how far into the year the “average woman” must work to earn as much as a white man made in 2020. It’s the day on which we traditionally bemoan the gender pay differential, celebrate women who have “made it,” share the research on the positive power of diversity, and give advice to those who aren’t quite there yet on “how to win at work.”

But can we please...not? Equal Pay Day misses the point. In fact, it misses a whole bunch of points. Let me count the ways: First, Equal Pay Day in 2020 was March 31. This year, it’s March 24. So that indicates that the gender pay gap improved during 2020.

No. Way.

In a year in which one in five women left the workforce—and in which those women who stayed in the workforce lost productivity, and in which men are being promoted at three times the rate of women—I don’t know if Equal Pay Day should really be in April, or June, or October. And even if the date did slide up a week, the pay gap sure didn’t get better, and it most certainly didn’t shrink for Black women, whose unemployment rate is running at 8.4 percent and whose equal pay day is deemed to be sometime in August. Or for Latinx women, whose equal pay day is set in October, while the unemployment rate among Latinx women is more than 9 percent.

Equal Pay Day has historically been a day in which we shower women with advice on how to get ahead—to work harder, to be more ambitious, to be less ambitious, to know their worth, to lean in, to ask for the raise like this, to “you go girl” like that, and to close their confidence gap. So much ink has been spilled on this, and yet we don't seem to be getting anywhere.

That’s because if changing women were the answer, this battle would be over. We’ve spent our entire adult lives conforming to society’s expectations of us. So, if it were *just* an issue of changing the way we work, then there would be no gender money gaps. Instead, women keep trying to walk the tightrope of working harder only to be rewarded less than their male counterparts... while shouldering a disproportionate amount of unpaid labor at home, not to mention, a ragged social safety net.

To add insult to injury, when children or parents get sick and women are forced to step out of the workforce or reduce their hours to care for them, our society tends to frame this action as her “choice.” But is it a choice to stay at home if her company doesn’t provide adequate (or any) parental leave? Or if the parental leave they provide is just for her, but not for her partner (thereby putting her on the so-called “mommy track” while her spouse is at work and viewed as more present—and committed—to his career)?

So, all of that.

But my biggest beef with Equal Pay Day is that it’s focused on the wrong gender money gap.

What's the Gender Wealth Gap?

Please allow me to redirect your attention from the pay gap to the gender wealth gap. Let’s not solely focus on what women earn in comparison to men (which matters), but instead on what women have and keep in comparison to men (which matters even more). You may have heard the sayings “wealth begets wealth” and “inequality begets inequality.” Those forces are at work here, and they’re causing women to lose ground when it comes to growing their overall net worth.

While the gender pay gap has been measured at 82 cents to a white man’s dollar—and was moving, pre-pandemic, in the right direction—the gender wealth gap is 32 cents to a white man’s dollar. That means women’s assets are just 32 percent of what white males have. Black and brown women have just one penny to the dollar of white men. Even before the pandemic, this stat was moving in the wrong direction; it was getting worse.

There are a lot of reasons why the gender wealth gap is so much wider than the gender pay gap. To start, women spend less time in the workforce (because women take more career breaks, which again, isn’t always a true “choice”); women spend more money on their children than men do; and, of course, women pay the pink tax. But that’s not all.

There's an Investing Gap, Too

Women keep the majority of their money in the bank, while men invest the majority of theirs. That means those men have benefited from the stock market’s historical 9.8 percent average annual return, while women have earned close to nothing on the money they have in the bank (and less than nothing after inflation). This might not make much difference over the course of one year, or two years. But year after year after year, as stock market returns compound on themselves, it can cost women a literal fortune. For some women, we could be talking hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars over their lifetimes.

And a Debt Gap.

There’s also the “gender debt gap.” Women have more debt outstanding than men do—more credit card debt and more student loan debt—and they pay more for it. Women also pay higher rates on small business and personal loans than men. So women have not only missed out on the positive compounding of investments; they’ve also been walloped by the negative compounding effect of interest rates on debt. They’ve been losing ground in building their nest egg, coming and going.

Now, before we frame this as yet another “choice” made by women in managing their money, remember that the investing industry is male-dominated: 86 percent of all financial advisors are men and 98 percent of mutual fund dollars are managed by men. You don’t have to look far—in fact, no further than the GameStop trading frenzy, or even the massive, snorting, angry bull statue near the New York Stock Exchange—to get the hint that the industry is a touch…masculine. No wonder women have stayed away in droves. (This is why I founded Ellevest, the first investing and financial company built by women, for women.)

That’s … a Lot. What Can We do?

The best we each can by controlling what we can control. Keep asking for that raise or promotion; keep taking that business risk. But if your company’s C-suite doesn’t include many people who look like you? Well, you may want to stack the deck a bit more in your favor the next time you change jobs, if you can. Check to see if the company you’re interviewing with has reported out their gender and racial pay gaps, and then worked to close them. Do they have paid family leave for primary and non-primary caregivers? Do they require forced arbitration agreements for sexual harassment (or, worse, are they still operating as if #MeToo never happened)?

You can also control what you do with the money you do earn—use it strategically, as much as possible, to leverage your greater pay into greater wealth. Pay down your debt in the order that saves the most money (high interest rates first), build yourself an emergency fund, contribute to your 401(k) or IRA, and invest to build wealth. None of that’s as fun to talk about as the time you got your crusty old boss to finally give you a raise. But taking financial steps like that is the number one driver of women’s confidence in their ability to achieve their financial goals.

Getting ourselves into better financial shape doesn’t mean we can’t give other women a boost: Let’s spend and invest our money more intentionally by buying from or investing in women-led businesses. (Ellevest even has a debit card cash back program that identifies women-run businesses and provides cash back rewards for shopping at them.)

So on this Equal Pay Day—in the midst of a She-cession and as money remains women’s number one source of stress—let’s remember that yes, pay matters; but building a nest egg matters even more. And that we can’t change things if we work alone.

Sallie Krawcheck is the CEO and cofounder of Ellevest, a financial company built by women, for women. She is the former CFO of Citi, and the former CEO of Merrill Lynch and of Smith Barney.

Today, August 13, marks Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, the date in 2020 that a Black woman had to work until to make the same amount of money that her white, male counterpart did in the year 2019 alone. That means Black women, on average, have to work an extra seven-and-a-half months to earn the same amount of money, for the same job. Let that sink in. Equal Pay Day for women, generally, was on March 21, illustrating yet another wage gap: the one between white women and women of color.

The pay gap in the U.S. workforce is staggering, with women of color impacted by this most of all: Women make, on average, 82 cents on the dollar, compared to men, but according to recent research from the National Partnership for Women and families, Latinas are typically paid just 54 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, and Black women just 62 cents. (That means that over a 40-year career, Black women earn almost a million dollars less—$946,000 less to be exact—than their white male counterparts, per the National Women's Law Center.) These massive disparities make it impossible to have an equitable workplace.

But the word "equitable" doesn't only apply to salary. To build a truly equitable workplace, a company also needs to offer fair and impartial benefits, growth opportunities, and workloads to all employees, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or other identifying factor. A new study released today by LeanIn.Org titled “The State of Black Women in Corporate America” exposes the inequitable reality that Black women face at the office. The research, supported by various findings, concluded that Black women face more barriers at work than any other population. Some key findings:

• For every 100 men who are promoted to be a manager, only 58 Black women are promoted (despite asking for promotions at equal rates).
  
• Black women receive less support from managers and get less access to senior leaders. In fact, 59 percent of Black women have never had an informal interaction with a senior leadership, making it difficult to establish a rapport.
• Black women are 3x more likely than white men and 2.5x more likely than white women to hear a coworker express surprise about their language skills or other abilities (a common microaggression).

“It’s so acutely obvious that the only way to make workplaces equal for women is to center on the women who are most marginalized," says Rachel Thomas, co-founder and CEO of LeanIn.org, the organization (co-founded by Sheryl Sandberg) behind the research. "If employers want to do better by women, they have to do better by Black women."

The report lays out practical ways that employers can start to create sustained, long-term change in their companies, including, Thomas notes, putting the responsibility on leaders to specifically prioritize supporting Black women and—to add a layer of accountability—say publicly how they are going to do so. Secondly, they should take an intersectional approach to all diversity and inclusion efforts.

"Too often, women of color end up getting overlooked because organizations are thinking in terms of gender or race and ethnicity," she adds. "Women of color are at the intersection of both of those identities and that does lead to a distinct and often worse experience."

Thomas points out another important finding of the research: Despite all of the barriers they face, despite the wage gaps and discrimination, the report found that Black women are deeply ambitious, more so than white women. They want to be a positive influence on company culture, be role models, and are interested in becoming top executives in their fields.

Companies must create an environment that let's Black women thrive. They must create cultures that value the work that Black women do. And they must create true equity that specifically focuses on ending workplace injustices—pay-related and otherwise. As Thomas says, "if we only get to equality to white women, we will have failed."

On November 1, 2018 my Instagram feed was flooded with women talking about the Latina pay gap and Latina Equal Pay Day. Having started my career in Latin media I was surprised to see everyone wearing these Phenomenally Latina shirts and not know what it was. It was maybe a little FOMO, but mostly I wanted to know more about the gap, which I learned meant that for every dollar a white man made, Latinas only made 54 cents. I also wanted to know how I could get involved. I did some research and learned that Eva Longoria, America Ferrera, Gina Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, and many other well-known Latinas had teamed up with the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign to support spreading awareness about the gap through their Phenomenally Latina collection.

Latina Equal Pay Day takes place on November 20 this year—the date marks how many extra weeks and months a Latina would have to work to make the same amount of money a white male made in 2018. Let that sink in. We almost made it to 2020, which is heinous.

The day was founded in 2018 by Mónica Ramírez, President of Justice for Migrant Women. "Latinas and our work are grossly undervalued," Ramírez told MarieClaire.com today over email. "Across every education level, industry and sector, Latinas are not being paid the full value for our work. There is a direct correlation with how Latinas are treated in society, as well as at work, and the way that we are portrayed by the media and entertainment. If messaging is constantly geared toward the masses that we are underprepared, uneducated and unskilled, then that is the messaging that employers are also receiving about us, which, in part, results in discrimination against us."

This year, the Phenomenally x Latina Power campaign has teamed up with Jen Zeano Designs. JZD's Founder + CEO, Jen Serrano, is a Mexico-born immigrant who currently runs JZD, alongside her wife, out of Brownsville, Texas. Brownsville has a 93 percent Latinx community consistently named one of the poorest in America and Jen is on a mission to honor her parents' sacrifices and struggles in coming to the U.S. Through her designs she hopes to empower Latinxs and promote equality for all, and trust me, her clothes are so dope you'll want them all!

So what does 54 cents to every dollar actually mean for Latinas? It's almost half of what a white man makes. For. The. SAME. WORK! This unfortunately isn't just a problem for Latinas, it's a problem for all people that identify as female. For comparison, according to the American Association of University Women or AAUW, an Asian woman makes 90 cents to a white man's dollar, a white woman 79 cents, Black women 62 cents, 61 cents for Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islander women, and 57 cents for Native American Indian women. Obviously as a human and a woman these numbers upset me, but as a Latina they are devastating. It's not as if we need a reminder of how hard Latinxs in general work in this country, what concerns me is the amount of progress the community will never see as a result of the gender pay gap.

According to a 2015 report by the Center for American Progress 42 percent of mothers were the main breadwinners for their family, bringing in more than half of their home income. This is the highest percentage of female-breadwinners to date. Of that 42 percent, 15.8 percent of them were Latina. Imagine being the main breadwinner for your family and working hard every day and you're making almost half of what you should be making just because of your gender identity? Now add in all the single mothers, 53 percent of Latinas who gave birth in 2013 were unmarried, and the women who help take care of an elderly parent or parents. If they can't even pay their bills because of this disadvantage, how could they ever help their children progress? How the hell are we supposed to keep moving pa'lante if we're constantly struggling to survive? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I know we need to ask them, even if the rest of the world only pays attention on #LatinaEqualPayDay.

And then I thought about what needs to change. I reflected on my own career and the pay I've made. It is important to have Latinxs in positions of power and manager roles. Keep the conversation going, share your wage, support causes like #PhenomenallyLatina, and know that we see you working hard. I see you. Latinxs are a powerful, resourceful community and as we know, si se puede, but it's time we fight for those roles we deserve, it's time we speak up about how unfair wages are, and it's time we earn the same our white male counterparts do. Punto.

Share your support for #LatinaEqualPayDay on November 20, 2019 and get your own Phenomenal gear below.

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Taylor Swift accepted the Teen Choice Awards' first ever Icon Award Sunday night, in the form of a surfboard emblazoned with photos of her beloved cats (Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson, and Benjamin Button) as USA Today reports. She seized the opportunity to call for equal pay for the U.S. women's soccer team, announce a new single, and potentially refer to the Kim Kardashian incident of 2016—all in one acceptance speech. That's efficiency, friends!

USWNT co-captain Alex Morgan presented Taylor with the Icon Award, commending her for inspiring "others through her actions." In return, Taylor lent her voice to the soccer team's struggle for equal pay, saying, "Please, please, please support (Morgan) and her teammates, because this isn't over yet."

"It's not resolved. Get online, talk about it, let people know how you feel about it, because what happened to them is unfair, it's happening everywhere, and they are heroes and icons for standing up," Taylor said.

She went on to tell her fans not to fear messing up, saying, "I think one thing I wish I would've known as a teen is that mistakes are inevitable." Taylor continued, "Sometimes you think if you try hard enough to make every decision perfectly, you think you can possibly, like, ace life, and never make any mistakes."

"But it's normal to make mistakes, and I just want you to know that if you're out there, and you're being really hard on yourself right now for something that's happened, or messing up, or feeling embarrassed, it's normal. That's what's going to happen to you in life," she said. "No one gets through unscathed. We're all gonna have a few scratches on us. We're living in an insane time, please be kind to yourselves and stand up for yourself, please."

While Taylor was offering general life advice to her young fans, it's possible to hear in her speech echoes of her recent interview with Vogue, in which she spoke about being "canceled" by the internet after Kim K's Snapchats appeared to show her condoning Kanye West's "Famous" lyrics. (Taylor maintained she specifically objected to the line, "I made that bitch famous.")

She told the magazine, "A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote canceled, is a very isolating experience," adding, "When you’re going through loss or embarrassment or shame, it’s a grieving process with so many micro emotions in a day."

Oh, and about that new single: "Lover" will be released this Friday, August 16, a week before the album of the same name drops. Clear your schedules, Swifties!

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Happy Hump Day to all, but mostly to the winners of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, the U.S. Women's National Team! (Yes, I'm biased; I'm a former soccer player with a now defunct dream of playing in the World Cup.)

It's been three short days since the women's team took the grand prize after an electrifying final game against the Netherlands, but it feels like just yesterday that we watched midfielder (and first time World Cup athlete!) Rose Lavelle score the winning goal and help her team clinch their fourth World Cup win. Since their big victory, the gang has yet to stop celebrating—just this morning, the USWNT rolled through New York City's Canyon of Heroes for a ticker-tape parade, flanked on every side by adoring fans.

Soccer icon and overall badass Megan Rapinoe gave a rousing speech at the ceremony, thanking her teammates for their resilience and hard work. She then called for Americans, like the USWNT, to come together. "This is my charge to everyone, we have to be better," the team caption expressed passionately. "We have to love more, hate less." The call-to-action is characteristic of Rapinoe, who is known for being as passionate about activism and social justice as she is about the game of soccer itself.

During the parade, the members of the USWNT could be seen dancing and singing and waving to the sea of supporters who had braved the crowds to see the champions in person.

And according to goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris's Instagram stories, the turn up behind the scenes was super real. The USWNT traded their water bottles for bottles of Ace of Spades (only the good stuff for the world champions!) and got to celebrating.

Despite the copious amounts of champagne consumed during the parade, the team was not too turnt to address their ongoing lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), the governing body of the sport in this country. The USWNT is suing the league for equal pay, fighting the wide wage gap between themselves and the men's national team. For context, the USWNT makes approximately $5,000 per game in comparison to the $13,000 that USMNT makes, even though the women's team has won more games and brings in more revenue.

The lawsuit was filed in March, and though much of the team's efforts since went towards training for the month-long World Cup and then actually competing in the games, it's now full steam ahead on the fight for equal pay.

Midfielder Allie Long made a bold statement about the wage disparity at the parade this morning, balling up a page from the lawsuit and literally stuffing it in her mouth.

Talk about keeping that same energy. Get your money, ladies—congratulations again!

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For the fourth time in history, the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team won a World Cup title—a victory that solidified their standing as one of the country’s, or even the world's, most consistently successful teams. Upon their defeat of the Netherlands in the final on Sunday, the audience of France’s Stade de Lyon stood and chanted, “Equal pay! Equal pay!”

To call it a powerful moment would be an understatement. It was—hopefully—an inflection point. Tens of thousands of people shouting, demanding that these players, the best at their job in the world, be remunerated appropriately for their efforts and talents. Liberté, égalité, sororité.

It was the manifestation of years of outspoken advocacy by the team. In March, the 28 members of the 2015 championship team filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) alleging gender discrimination. Though the men’s national team is objectively less successful than the women’s (this is the women’s second World Cup championship in a row, while the men’s team didn’t even qualify for 2018's tournament), the women earn less than half of what the men do (approximately $5,000 per game versus $13,000, per the lawsuit). The big defense against this egregious discrepancy? More people (supposedly) care about men’s soccer than women’s.

But, as the Wall Street Journal points out, that’s not even true: Citing audited financial records from USSF, women’s games generated about $50.8 million in revenue from 2016 to 2018, while the men’s team earned $49.9 million. They also bring in more viewers: Ratings in the U.S. for yesterday's women's final were higher than last year’s men’s final between France and Croatia and “one of the highest-rated soccer telecasts in the history of the sport,” according to Nielsen ratings reported by CNN. Soccer's international governing body, FIFA, at least, recognizes there's a problem: On Friday, FIFA President Gianni Infantino outlined a proposal to double the women’s prize money from $30 million to $60 million—though that’s still a bit short of the $440 million awarded to the World Cup–winning men’s team.

What else does the women’s team have to do to prove they’re worth at least as much as the men?

Well, that’s the thing: Most women living in America can look at those figures, understand the hypocrisy, and still know that a change in policy would signal a miracle. It’s not impossible of course—the USSF is under increasing pressure from the players and the fans who adore them. But it’s highly unlikely, because for those who perpetuate a gender wage gap, it’s not really about the money. It’s about how they feel about women’s power, and the answer is: Pretty negatively.

We should be embarrassed by this, as a nation. Women are embarrassed already: It’s humiliating and dehumanizing to know that the job you work hard to be good at, that you show up to every day, would be worth more to a company if it were performed by a man—and for reasons that have little to do with experience, skill, or future potential. In 2019, by uncontrolled wage gap measurements, a woman will still make 79 cents to every dollar a man makes.

The fact that we now have a group of outspoken, highly charismatic, repeated champions pointing this out should make us uncomfortable. In fact, where logical and lived experience fail to present a compelling enough argument for doing the right thing, the public humiliation of executives and leaders may be our best hope for change. When Infantino was booed after Sunday’s final, Rapinoe later commented that she was “down with the boo’s.” “I think everyone is ready for this conversation to move to the next step,” she explained.

And then she helpfully outlined what those next steps would look like:

(Per Metro UK.)

We should feel embarrassed that our national team has to endure this kind of inequity, because embarrassment is the point. And there’s really never been a better time to make it: The fight for equal pay raged long before Trump came to power, but this administration is so openly hostile to women—and especially members of the LGBTQ community—that it’s doubly powerful when LGBTQ players like Rapinoe, Ali Krieger, and Ashlyn Harris are the ones pushing for visibility and equality.

Ironically, the administration’s attitude toward these issues has perhaps even created more space to talk about things like gender wage disparity, treatment of members of the LGBTQ community, and the value of women’s work, all in an unprecedentedly open way. By lifting up primarily the values and interests of straight, white men, everyone who doesn’t fall under that category has an even greater obligation to speak up, and to amplify one another’s voices in turn.

The members of Women’s U.S. Soccer are forcing those who perpetuate inequality to stare it in the face and then try to justify their actions. So yes, all Americans (but especially USSF) should feel embarrassed, and really embrace that humiliation. And then do something about it.

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It's not long into brunch at a low-key restaurant on L.A.’s Eastside that Tessa Thompson starts showing me her tattoos. “I’m slightly addicted,” she confesses. “I scar so easily. I was like, I might as well just scar myself.”

She pulls up one pant leg to reveal a trio of dots on her ankle, put there by Taika Waititi, who directed her in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok (three for the third film in the franchise). Thompson thinks of the tattoo as “an ellipsis or”—she laughs—“like the bane of my existence: those dots on my iPhone when someone I’m texting is writing.” She looks at me with narrowed eyes: “You’re married, so you don’t know about that anymore.”

Thompson’s love life is the subject of much intrigue, but our tattoo tour is far from over. There’s a 5 on the actress’s rib cage beneath her shirt, and a chai—the Jewish symbol for life—on her inner wrist shares real estate with a cursive yes that was inspired by an early Yoko Ono installation. “Do you know this story?” she asks. Ono installed a ladder in the middle of the gallery; if you climbed it, you could use a magnifying glass to find a tiny yes on the ceiling. John Lennon came through and inquired after the artist, and the rest is history. “It’s cheesy,” Thompson says sheepishly. “But it’s really cute.”

On her other arm she’s inked the word no. “I think of it as the yes is for people,” she explains, “and this no is for me.” It’s a good reminder: Thompson, 35, has been a screen actor for 15-odd years, but in the last five her career has gone into overdrive—enough that she’d better get good at turning people down. This week has been particularly nuts. A day ago, she wrapped Sylvie, a forthcoming love story set in midcentury Harlem, and got home just in time to see the sun come up. Soon she’ll start shooting season three of HBO’s Westworld, in which she plays villainous corporate exec Charlotte Hale, but in the meantime she’s voicing Lady in November’s live-action adaptation of Lady and the Tramp and tying up loose ends on Men in Black: International, out now, in which she stars as Agent M opposite Chris Hemsworth. (It's not their first rodeo: She's Valkyrie to his Thor in the Marvel universe, making them a little “like Hepburn and Tracy. We’re trying to do that old-Hollywood thing: ‘It’s us again! Still like us?’”) “I’m really lucky to be inside of projects that I’m obligated to,” she acknowledges, “but it means that I’m increasingly aware of the finite time that I have to make the things I just want to do. I’ve slotted them into any little window, which means”—longish pause—“I just don’t have any windows right now.”

Thompson arrived at our interview a little late and slightly rattled. “I drove here,” she tells me, “which is big for me.” Years ago, she got into a bad car accident and for a while “was just too scattered” to get behind the wheel—a major liability in L.A., where she largely grew up. Her parents separated when she was three; her dad, a musician, moved to New York and had two more kids, and her mom, a college administrative assistant and artist, raised her two daughters—Thompson’s older sister is now a nurse—in “teeny little apartments” in central Hollywood and Santa Monica.

It’s a warm, sunny day, but Thompson, her hair slicked back, is wearing a vintage Jil Sander pinstriped pantsuit. It cuts against the grain of her general vibe: thoughtful, humble, feminine, mellow enough to make her C-suite getup feel almost casual. (She compares it to sweats: “so comfortable!”) For a trip to Paris last winter for Fashion Week, as an experiment, she packed only suits. “I was like, This is such a good way to travel. It’s so easy.” It’s also on theme with MIB, in which she and Hemsworth wear Paul Smith–tailored versions of the suits Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith made famous in 1997.

The best joke in the trailer is suit related, a flirty rat-a-tat between Thompson and Emma Thompson, who plays the MIB London headquarters chief, Agent O. By phone, the English actress gushes about her co-star, calling her “immensely impressive,” with the “discipline of Genghis Kahn. She’s made of steel but at the same time incredibly calm.” Tessa is equally effusive about Emma, launching into a story about their first day shooting together: Nervous to make a good impression, she fell into a deep sleep on the way to set, then, discombobulated, opened her car door directly onto the veteran actress. “I’m horrified, right? She gave me a hug and was like, ‘God, you’re exhausted.’” Tessa deepens her voice and affects Emma’s plummy accent. “She kept saying to me, ‘You must take care of yourself.’ I really needed to hear that.” Emma eventually convinced Tessa to join her at her favorite spa in the British countryside, which the younger actress describes as “like the after life: just a bunch of English people in bathrobes walking around getting treatments. I was like, What is my life? I’m walking the grounds with Emma Thompson!”

Here’s the thing: She never set out for action stardom or casual spa days with Britain’s finest thespians or anything else really. Her path was haphazard. In the early aughts, she was studying cultural anthropology at Santa Monica College and preparing to transfer to the University of California, Berkeley, when she encountered an all-female Shakespeare ensemble whose rigorous, linguistic approach to the Bard’s plays opened a door in her young brain. Thompson dropped out of college. Soon she was starring in a Pasadena theater production of Romeo and Juliet when her photo landed on the cover of the Los Angeles Times arts section, and Hollywood came calling.

She identifies a few breakthrough moments in her early career, including a role as a striving student torn between family and future in Tina Mabry’s moving 2009 drama, Mississippi Damned. Thompson is white and Mexican on her mom’s side and Afro-Panamanian and black on her dad’s. Many of her directors have been black: Mabry; Ryan Coogler, who cast her as Michael B. Jordan’s hearing-impaired girlfriend in Creed; Steven Caple Jr., who directed her in Creed 2; Boots Riley, who tapped her as his leading lady in last year’s Sorry to Bother You; Justin Simien for Dear White People; Ava DuVernay for Selma; Nia DaCosta for the recent indie Little Woods; F. Gary Gray for MIB; Tyler Perry for 2010’s For Colored Girls. “It remains the only way,” she declares. “I look at actresses who are not of color and at the opportunities that they’re presented in terms of directors wanting to make work for them. When I look at my contemporaries of color, it’s only other artists of color who are doing that in a real, robust way.”

With the aforementioned films, Marvel, Westworld, plus a side hustle producing her own projects—Little Woods, Sylvie, and more in the works—Thompson’s certainly not wanting for opportunity, but MIB has the potential to unlock a different level of industry clout. It’s not lost on her that the 1997 original helped cement Will Smith as a box-office juggernaut, particularly internationally, where conventional wisdom has long held that black actors don’t perform as well as white ones—a racist and self-fulfilling narrative that she can’t believe we still subscribe to. Thompson notes wearily the way the press regarded the success of Jordan Peele’s Us “as if it’s so surprising.” Ditto Black Panther: “The idea that it was shocking is just tired.”

An active, enthusiastic member of Time’s Up—she is one of the most vocal proponents of the 4% Challenge, urging members of the film community to commit to working with female directors—Thompson is candid about the specific struggle actresses of color face. “When we talk about issues of pay equity, that means something different to Natalie Portman than it does to me. Women who are not of color are talking about pay equity with men. [We] are so far away from that.” I ask about her contract negotiations for MIB, which she toplines alongside Hemsworth, one of the most bankable white actors of the moment. The dialogue sparked by Time’s Up “allowed me to say things I’m not sure I would have said a year ago,” she attests. “The truth is, the system where you assess international value is inherently sexist and racist because we haven’t had those opportunities. The only way to disrupt that is to create new models. When we were having the conversation around how we structure our deals, I said, ‘I understand who Chris Hemsworth is and who I am not relative to him, globally and otherwise. But in the success of the film, that changes. In success, I want equity. Because then you can’t make the same argument.’” Did she get what she wanted? “Let’s just say we’re all happy.”

We’re well into our meal by the time I ask about her collaboration with Janelle Monáe on last year’s “emotion picture” Dirty Computer, a series of linked music videos in which she and the singer play star-crossed lovers in some dystopic future. The project blew up the Internet. In the most famous of the videos—for the song “Pynk”—Monáe dances around in a pair of outrageously vaginal pants, with Thompson’s head popping out between her legs, precisely where the clitoris might go.

That, plus a few affectionate red-carpet and Instagram appearances, led to feverish speculation about whether the two, each of whom has spoken in interviews about her fluid sexuality, might have been romantically involved. Thompson, who first met Monáe when they were auditioning for the same part in a David O. Russell movie, isn’t going there. (She does confirm she’s currently single.) “I didn’t like that,” she says about the media scrutiny, an unpleasant occupational hazard. “We live inside such a clickbait space, where you say one thing about your experience and then it gets categorized by somebody else, and you get further and further away from the truth.” She mentions one writer who misrepresented her feelings about cats (let the record show: Thompson doesn’t hate them; she’s just allergic) and another interview in which comments she made about her sexuality—direct quote: “I’m attracted to men and also to women”—got spun by Internet gossip mongers as some sort of major coming-out moment.

The point is, people tend to run with their take on things. Like “Pynk”: I frame it as a sort of feminist manifesto, but Thompson gently deflects. “I think I’m too close to it probably to see it the way you see it. Like, things got written about my head popping out of those pants. It wasn’t that high-concept. We were just messing around. We had no conversations about me playing a clitoris. We knew it would look funny. You’re making things with friends. Your friends start laughing.”

When I ask around among my own L.A. friends, everyone has a Thompson story. My musician ex played a few shows with her when she used to sing with the band Caught a Ghost. A pal recently took a yoga class where Thompson was savasana-ing a few mats over. Another friend, the proprietor of a stylish Silver Lake cafe, says the actress comes in all the time and really knows her food and wine (thanks to her dad and stepmom, who now run a Bolinas, California, restaurant where Thompson has been known to bartend and DJ and make the occasional salad). When I relay these connections, she seems genuinely pleased to be woven into the fabric of regular-person L.A. “I have a weird relationship to the idea of fame,” she says. “I really, really dislike the word celebrity. Famous? I don’t really like that word either.” At the same time, “a huge part of my relationship to myself is tethered to my work. I admire the people that are like, ‘This is my job. I can make a lot of money doing this thing. It doesn’t threaten my self-image or my sense of worth.’ I am not that way. It really, really bums me out, the idea of making things that are bad.”

After we part ways, Thompson’s headed off to look at a near-by house she might move into, though she feels destined one day to live in New York, where she spent a lot of time as a kid with her dad, bumming around downtown institutions like Kim’s Video and Max Fish back when “the Lower East Side was still the Lower East Side.” In New York, she loves “how you’re all at once plugged in and connected and totally invisible.” Recently she had a couple of days off, so she flew to the city. She saw some theater, played ping-pong, ate pierogies, browsed at the Strand bookstore. And then she spent hours people-watching in Washington Square Park. A few fans took her picture; a kid asked her to sign his Converse; she had a nice conversation with a woman named Betty who was in town visiting her daughter and had no idea who Thompson was. The thing that scares her about fame, Thompson says, is imagining a future in which she can’t sit around Washington Square Park chatting up a stranger.

It brings to mind something Boots Riley told me. “She loves people,” he said. “It goes into how she makes the character, but you also see it in the rest of her life.” Once, at her birthday party, when everyone was a little drunk, he asked Thompson why someone like her wanted to be an actor. “I just want to be everyone,” she replied. “I want to play everyone.’”

When I repeat this to Thompson, she nods. “I really do like people very much. If you’re an actor, you’re in the business of empathy. It’s a weird skill.” She once had a job fund-raising on the street for an NGO. “I would ask someone for money, they would give it to me, and then they would go, ‘What is it for again?’ It was clear they hadn’t heard a word I said; they had just seen me, and they knew how I felt about what I was asking for. I remember being like, That’s wild! That’s crazy that you can do that.”

She’d make a great con artist, I suggest. Thompson chuckles, smiling her 1,000-watt smile, the kind that makes it easy to understand why strangers might open their wallets. “It’s a good thing I’m empathetic,” she says, her voice high and sweet. “Otherwise, I might be a sociopath.”

Shop Tessa's Beauty Look

This article originally appears in the July 2019 issue of Marie Claire, on newsstands June 25.

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Photography: Thomas Whiteside 

Styling: J. Errico 

Hair: Lacy Redway at the wall group for Nexxus 

Makeup: Alex Babsky for Chanel Beauty at The Visionaries 

Manicure: Stephanie Stone at Forward Artists for Essie 

Production: Liz Komroy for 3 Star Productions

A little over a year ago, as revelations of misbehavior by powerful men sparked a global reckoning, a group of women in entertainment came together to talk about what they could do to prevent abuse and ensure equity for working women.

The result was Time’s Up, an organization committed to building a world that insists on safe, fair, and dignified work for women of all kinds. What started in Hollywood has grown to a coalition of women spanning industries and geographies, with more women meeting and organizing every day.

Time’s Up Entertainment is now just one of the many affiliates working to solve industry-specific challenges, and the women involved are united in their unwavering commitment to keep fighting until their female peers have the opportunity to reach their full potential at work.

Here, some of the organization’s most engaged women share what inspired their participation, what keeps them motivated in their activism, and how they plan to create lasting change. Please read these stories, and join us on this journey at TimesUpNow.com.

—Nithya Raman, Executive Director of Time’s Up Entertainment

On set for the fifth season of her ABC sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat, Constance Wu is pondering Shakespeare. She’s trying to decide if she should do a play on her hiatus, and “Shakespeare in the Park has been my dream since I was, like, 16.”

The 37-year-old actress started in theater, building her career on stage in New York. “I never did comedies. It’s funny, people only know you by the first project that made you big, like Fresh Off the Boat or Crazy Rich Asians.” Wu calls the latter hit romantic comedy a huge highlight of her life, in no small part because it silenced generations of naysayers who’d insisted a film starring an Asian cast couldn’t succeed at that scale.

“Diversity isn’t just ‘Let’s have people of color supporting this white person’s story,’” Wu says, adding it’s a distinction she finds herself explaining repeatedly in Hollywood. During a meeting with a prominent studio executive a few years ago, “this guy started to school me, like, ‘I think it’s great that you’re speaking up about diversity, but it’s just the reality of the numbers, what movies people go see, blah, blah, blah.’ And I just looked at him and said, ‘I think you’re dumb.’”

Wu laughs loudly, conceding it may not have been “the best career move, but it was the best personal-values move.” As someone who’s tweeted about Hollywood’s white-savior complex, she couldn’t let it stand. “What he was saying was such bullshit. If you want to talk about whether or not an Asian person, or a person of color, or a trans person can open a studio movie, you can’t argue, ‘That’s not going to sell!’ because you’ve never done it before!” She takes a breath, then continues. “I think he thought because I’m a female actor and he’s super high-powered that I would try to make nice. But I don’t give a fuck.”

In fact, the older she gets, the fewer fucks Wu says she has left. She’s been advocating for representation as long as she has been in the business, selecting projects based on who is making them, her passion and insistence growing apace with her rising platform.

“People say women are inherently bitchy and competitive. But anybody will be competitive if there’s only one seat at the table,” she says, noting, “Most jobs I’ve taken since Fresh Off the Boat have all been directed by either women or directors of color. People who’ve had cultural bias prevent them from having opportunities. I hate this term ‘merit-based.’ We should all examine who decides what merit looks like and the racism and sexism built into that evaluation.”

That entrenched social conditioning is something Wu and her circle dissect in depth. One friend recently shared a story about how, when she was young, her father would assign her the role of secretary and her brother the role of president when they played make-believe. “Any time she opened her mouth, her dad would say, ‘Oh, the secretary is whining.’ And this is when she’s a kid.”

Wu knows the father didn’t mean any harm, but those roles and expectations get internalized. And before we know it, we’re telling ourselves “to shut our mouths and let the man do the talking. We move through the world that way.”

She reflects on her younger self, when she felt more vulnerable, less able to foment change. “I used to do this thing [for auditions] where I would research the director, watch the movies he or she had done, and meld my performance to what I perceived to be that director’s preference.”

It’s a strategy she now views as “shitty” but illustrative. Wu knows no one benefits when you contort yourself into something you aren’t. “I’ve also learned that I’m really sensitive. People make assumptions that I’m not because I’m outspoken. But I’m outspoken because I’m sensitive.”

She falls quiet when asked if she sees signs that things are changing for the better. “Did you see this Gillette ad?” she finally says flatly, referencing the backlash to a razor campaign that called out toxic masculinity and had the audacity to suggest men be kinder. “All these defensive people arguing there is an assault on men in our culture—versus the amount who are supportive of us—is a real indicator of what our culture is passionate about.” Wu exhales and clarifies her position. She believes people can change, that listening matters more than arguing, that the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements are vital and enriching, that progress is inching along. But her frustration lingers: “The only way things get better is to demand that instead of us changing for the sake of how the culture has always been, let’s change the culture.” Her voice lifts, filling with fresh conviction. “And the fact that I have this tremendous luck and privilege? I intend to make good use of it.”

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay prefers to keep her fingers in many pots. She makes big-screen fantasy epics (A Wrinkle in Time); smart, soapy television (Queen Sugar); Academy Award–nominated social-justice documentaries (13th); and profound civil-rights features (Selma), in addition to museum installations, music videos, animation, and shorts.

“It all works for me. I try to remain a generalist so that I can make a little bit of everything,” DuVernay, 46, explains. “You can’t really hit a moving target, so that’s my goal.”

She chuckles as she says the last bit, a throwback to a not-so-distant past when a then-32-year-old DuVernay was running her own PR firm and independently making films with no expectation that her art would garner any more attention than the gifted black women filmmakers who had come before her and been largely ignored.

“I didn’t have any dreams or designs that a studio would want to make my work, that any awards body or critical community would embrace my work.” DuVernay chose to use this bias as an asset: “In many ways, that lack of attention put me in a really good place. No one’s going to watch it anyway, so I may as well make what I want.”

DuVernay’s unfettered vision has since made history. She’s the highest-grossing female black director in domestic-box-office history and the first black woman to direct a film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar; she also has been nominated for a Golden Globe and Best Documentary Feature Oscar and signed a $100 million deal (with Warner Bros. Television). She’s currently editing a limited series for Netflix she wrote and directed based on the Central Park Five jogger case (premiering in May), in addition to starting preproduction on a Prince documentary, as well as “a bunch of other projects that haven’t yet been announced.” Like she did in the beginning of her career, DuVernay makes her creative choices based on what she believes is worth her time, not what others expect.

“I don’t feel bound to the budgets, to the awards, to the critics. If I’m happy with it, then what happens around it is really not up to me. The more you try to control, the more you get turned around. You have to know where you stand and be your own compass.”

As for our current cultural compass, DuVernay, who was recently named cochair of Prada’s Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council, takes the long view. “Whenever we get depressed or down,” she says, “we need to look to history and realize that while it feels very alarming and uncharted, the kind of straight-up racism that we hear now is not new.”

She brings up Julie Dash, who directed 1991’s seminal, breathtaking Daughters of the Dust, the first feature directed by an African American woman to get a general theatrical release, but whose career stagnated nonetheless. (DuVernay has since corrected this injustice by bringing Dash, 66, to several Hollywood events, landing her back in the mix for director gigs, and even hiring her to helm episodes of Queen Sugar.) DuVernay, like Dash, like so many women who’ve been relegated to back corners and hushed tones, refuses to be erased.

“It’s happened before, and we’re here, standing and continuing forward. We continue to find beauty, we continue to triumph, we continue to live and love and do all kinds of things that the people who are against us would rather we not do.” DuVernay evokes her grandmother’s oppressive daily reality. “The fact that I can go into a restaurant and be served—this is something that wasn’t a reality two generations ago. Sometimes I want to say to folks, ‘Get a grip. Buck up and really look at where we’ve been, look at where others are, and keep stepping forward.’”

For her that means, among other things, “consistently working as a black woman filmmaker in a space that is not very welcoming to black women filmmakers.” She offers an example from her life, when she felt pressured to forgo her writing credit on Selma. “It was my biggest career mistake so far. I allowed someone to put their name on my work. I hate it every day, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let it go, but it definitely taught me some lessons that I intend to benefit from.”

She admits, somewhat sheepishly, that despite the battles lost and left to fight, she is entering a period of contentment. “I believe our life is in seasons. Right now, I feel good, I feel on solid ground, I know where I’m going, I know what I want to do, and I know how to do it.” That is, telling her stories as truthfully and muscularly and in as many forms as she can. After which she will “sit in the satisfaction of that, and whatever else comes is what comes.”

“We’re going on a journey, you and I,” Jessica Chastain says excitedly over the phone as she pulls her car door shut. “I’m taking you on a bunch of errands with me. Grocery shopping, picking up mail, hardware store. Let’s do it!”

Infectious enthusiasm for quotidian domestic chores is not exactly what one would expect from Academy Award–nominated actress, producer, and activist Chastain, who has made a career playing knotty, complicated women—“To me, there’s no such thing as the angel or the good wife or the perfect mother”—a vein she will again mine when she joins the casts of X-Men in Dark Phoenix (out in June) and It: Chapter Two (September) and when she stars as Tammy Wynette in the upcoming biopic George and Tammy.

On the drive to the hardware store, Chastain, 42, reflects on the highs of her past year, listing Time’s Up and the record number of women being elected into office as buoying her optimism, noting, “The public has answered back in a resounding, hopeful way that change is possible and we’re not going to be dictated to by bullies.”

Though heartened that women are refusing to accept “an old-fashioned model of power,” Chastain remains pragmatic, pointing out that no social movement survives without concrete shifts in economic equality (“If you’re not paid the same, you have to work all the time”) and the promotion of women into seats of actual authority. For her part, she’s making sure her projects don’t just reflect different demographics but also deal a fair hand to all parties.

Her all-woman production company, Freckle Films, focuses on untold stories and women-led casts, as well as a commitment to equal pay, most recently with the spy thriller 355 (which starts filming this summer), where she sidestepped the studio system, independently raising more than $80 million, and insisted all five lead actresses—Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penélope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, and Bing-bing Fan—earn the same fee and hold equity in the film. (Last year, she helped Octavia Spencer quintuple her salary on a comedy they sold by tying Spencer’s deal to hers.)

“I’ve had people tell me, ‘You need to be a little more quiet with all this woman talk,’” Chastain admits, laughing, adding she has no interest in perpetuating damaging sexist tropes about what women should be and do, on- or off-screen. Her dedication to leveling the field extends to crew and head-of-department hires, adjustments that have real-world implications and puncture the oft-repeated lie that filling those jobs with women is “too hard.”

“I agree there are not as many women as men that have the same experience, but that’s because, in the past, women have been actively discriminated against. Male directors who had their first film in Sundance, their next offer is a huge action movie. Women haven’t been given those opportunities, and we need to ask why.”

She goes on to talk about her most recent empowerment epiphany, as she was surrounded by the 355 cast at Cannes last May. “I remember us all holding hands, walking through this crowd of people, this incredible moment of solidarity, and one of the girls whispered, ‘The power of women,’ and I was like, Ohhhh. I realized, wait a minute, we’re the ones who are actually in charge here.”

Along with her political evolution has come a personal one. Chastain quit being a pleaser, realizing her time and energy are currency she should spend more wisely. “I used to be so obsessed with wanting to accommodate others. Like, in the beginning of my career, when I had ideas about my character or a scene, I felt like I had to go through the male actors. I’d go to them and say, ‘Ooooh, what are we going to do?’ And they’d say, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.’ They would go to the director and the director would take them seriously.”

Chastain sighs. “I wish I could’ve just bypassed all of that.”

She bypasses it now, working only with people who understand she has no intention of couching her voice or opinions. Still, she wonders what would have happened had she begun advocating for herself sooner.

“When I look back, there are moments when I’m like, ugh,” she says, launching into a story about a male producer who grew hostile and aggressive when she didn’t return his flirtations. “For months, I tried to make it light, laugh it off. Now I wish I had just told him to fuck off.”

When asked how she freed herself from the approval matrix, Chastain pauses a beat.

“That’s a hard question because I don’t know that it was even something that I was aware of until I stopped doing it. All of a sudden, I realized, I feel really happy. Why is that? And it was because I was caring less about what others think of me.”

Now she’s concentrating on what she can control, generating work that lifts others and finding creative fuel in everything from long, solitary walks in the countryside to brainstorming inventions for Shark Tank.

“I learned it’s impossible to make everybody happy. At the end of the day, just do stuff that you’re proud of and don’t be an asshole.”

It’s a journey she’s happy to take.

Introducing Marie Claire's full roster of 2019 Change Makers:

This article originally appears in the April 2019 issue of Marie Claire.

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Earlier this week, Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood confirmed that she would earn the same as her male costars, Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris, for season three of the HBO hit.

Now, the show's other female star, Thandie Newton, who delivers one of the show's most impressive performances as Maeve, has confirmed that she will receive the same raise for the third season.

"They’re all happening right now, and yeah, we’re all equal across the board," Newton told Vanity Fair. "It’s really exciting. It’s unprecedented. It’s — goodness; it shatters so much calcified pain, resentment, frustration. It just shatters it."

Newton says she's actually so impressed with HBO's commitment to equal pay that she won't accept roles in the future that don't pay women the same as equally-billed men.

"I wouldn’t do anything if it didn’t. Definitely not,” she said. “F*ck that. It literally sets a precedent, and [HBO is] leading the way, which is amazing."

The news comes after Wood described HBO's decision to offer the female stars of the show the same pay as their male counterparts.

"I was just told that, you know, 'Hey, you’re getting equal pay.' And I almost got emotional. I was like, 'I have never been paid the same as my male counterparts … never, never,'" she explained during a recent interview with the Wrap. "I’m always fighting for that. Westworld, it’s like, I get it a little more. It’s like, 'Well, you’re Anthony Hopkins or Ed Harris.' But I think now we’re all doing equal amounts of work and really hard work."

Wood said she was impressed by HBO's move to put its money where its mouth was (literally) when it came to closing the pay gap on its series.

"There is a lot of trying to make things equal and trying to make things fair," she explained. "This is the first time that somebody made a point of being like, ‘Hey you’re getting this. And you deserve it.’ And that was nice."

If you were wondering how to use your privilege in the Hollywood industry, this is it. Speaking at a Sundance Film Festival panel on Wednesday, Octavia Spencer (best known for her roles in The Help and Hidden Figures) shared the badass story of how actress Jessica Chastain helped her negotiate for equal pay on the upcoming comedy they're working on together.

At Sundance Film Festival's “Women Breaking Barriers” panel, Spencer explained the emotional story:

“About 15 months ago, Jessica Chastain contacted me and said, ‘I want us to do a comedy. I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ She called me six months later, which would have been last March, and we were talking about pay equity with men and women. She was like, ‘It’s time that women get paid as much as men.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah Jessica, it’s time!’ We were dropping f-bombs and getting it all out there.”

The actress continued:

"And then I said, ‘But here’s the thing, women of color on that spectrum, we make far less than white women. So, if we’re gonna have that conversation about pay equity, we gotta bring the women of color to the table.’ And I told her my story, and we talked numbers, and she was quiet, and she said she had no idea that that’s what it was like for women of color.”

“I love that woman, because she’s walking the walk and she’s actually talking the talk. She said, ‘Octavia, we’re gonna get you paid on this film. You and I are gonna be tied together. We’re gonna be favored nations, and we’re gonna make the same thing.’ Fast forward to last week, we’re making five times what we asked for.”

Jada Pinkett Smith shared the same story at another Sundance Film festival panel, saying: "It's nice to go out and march, we can do that. It's nice to wear black at the Golden Globes. But what are we doing behind closed doors? And I got to give our sister Jessica Chastain her props."

Not to get all white-savior-complex on you, but it's awesome to hear that Chastain used her relative privilege as a white woman to advocate for a woman of color. More of that, please.

You can watch the full inspiring panel for yourself below.

Do I want to do a Q&A with Emma Stone for Marie Claire? Fuck yeah, I do. I have enjoyed the Emma Stone of it all for a while now. Since Superbad, maybe? But she really grabbed me when she did a bit at the 2012 Academy Awards. After that, I was totally smitten. She was in a red dress with a big bow, presenting an award for visual effects, and her comedy skills were tight. Ben Stiller and Jonah Hill were perfect straight men—parts usually reserved for women while the male comic sparkles. With no crazy costume or visual joke, and far beyond the comic skill set of the average actor, she killed it.

The writing was adorable, but the performance was everything. [The bit had Stone milk her first appearance as a presenter.] As a comedy snob, I was officially wowed. That's when the name "Emma Stone" was forever embedded in my bean. Then, last spring, I got to work with her on this here movie, Battle of the Sexes. All of my scenes were with Emma, and I found out more good news: This lil' mama is not just übertalented, she is the loveliest, most thoughtful, real-deal person on either side of the Mississipi.

The crew felt like a traveling carnival in only the best ways. From the hair-and-makeup department to the director of photography—all had come to this movie from La La Land. They seemed to be a family, traveling with Emma from movie set to movie set. It wasn't like a clique; it really was like a family. One that says, "Hey, come join us! We are a band of misfits, and you belong!" And that vibe and warmth starts with a wacky, red-haired, giant-eyed source of pure love and art named Emily Jean Stone. For her middle name alone, she was destined to play one of America's greatest sports heroes and icons of the equal-rights movement.

I've heard the story of how a 14-year-old Emma did a PowerPoint presentation for her parents to explain why they should all move from Arizona to Los Angeles in 2004 so she could be an actress. It makes perfect sense. They did the right thing. If you know Emma at all (and, truthfully, that's exactly how much I know Emma), you know that there is no other place she should be.

She loves movies—watching them and making them and just wholly every part of it. Look, acting is fun, but it's a lot of sitting around, and this woman seems to devour the entire process with wild stimulation and immense gratitude. Quite frankly, that was inspiring to be adjacent to. I will describe Emma the way my mom used to describe Johnny Carson: She's interesting because she's interested. This is Emma. I once heard my sister tell her daughters, when they complained that they were bored, "Only boring people get bored." Emma Stone, my friends, never gets bored.

Here, a few highlights from our September cover interview, on newsstands August 15:

On what portraying Billie Jean King taught her: "I would say playing Billie Jean was a bit of a game changer. I am very nervous to communicate my opinions a lot of the time, especially publicly…She [Billie] is so direct and confident in the way that she communicates what she believes is right. To be able to step into that was a pretty powerful experience. It's something that I still don't feel entirely comfortable with, but it was also one of the great parts about playing her."

On what was different about her role in Battle of the Sexes: "I have never really considered the physicality of a person or of a character. Maybe because I hadn't played a real person–there wasn't someone who looked a specific way or whose hands moved in a certain way. So that was what I focused on more than anything: building from the outside in."

On speaking out for equality: "There is so much power to our voices, and we need to speak out. That's something that I struggled with in the past, but it's very hard not to feel galvanized right now, politically or consciously."

On what gives her hope during these uncertain political times: "Nobody is going down without a fight–for love and humanity and equality and coming together. It's so inspiring to see marches and beautiful writing and creative work. There's so much power and a grace coming out of so many people who have so much to lose, and the human spirit is incredible. That's worth a fight every day. And I want to learn how to fight better."

Read the full interview and see more photographs in the September issue of Marie Claire, on newsstands August 15.

Featured Music: JNTHN STEIN feat. BXRBR -"Master Control" [etcetc music]

April 4 is Equal Pay Day, the day that marks how long women, on average, have to work into 2017 to match what men earned in 2016. The reality is even worse for black women, who have to work until July 31, and Hispanic women, who have to work until November 2 (yes, really), to match what men earned in 2016. Now, Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In is teaming with companies across the country to speak out about the need for equal pay in the U.S.

Hundreds of local businesses across the country are offering 20 percent discounts on Equal Pay Day to highlight what it's like to get paid 20 percent less, USA Today reports. The discounts will apply to both men and women. The idea is to link the concept of the pay gap, which can seem murky, to real, everyday purchases, at least just for one day. It originally was started by Lean In's Washington chapter, and it's the first year the effort has gone national.

Nationwide, you can get 20 percent off Luna bars, and the company is matching that discount with a charity donation. If you take a Lyft on April 4, they'll donate 20 percent of your ride fee to charities that support women and families. And Proctor & Gamble is offering a 20 percent rebate on their products, which include basically everything at the drugstore. You can check out the list of participating companies on leanin.org.

Lean In also partnered with Funny or Die and Hulu to show what it looks like when women get 20 percent less of everything, from haircuts to battery power. Every woman can relate to getting the "can't you be happy with what you have?" question.

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A GOP chair in Utah has resigned amid criticism for a letter he wrote, claiming that women's demands for equal pay are unfair to men. James C Green, the Vice Chair of the Wasatch County Republican Party, feels that men deserve to make more because "they are considered the primary breadwinners for families", in a letter published February 16 in local newspaper The Wasatch Wave.

"If businesses are forced to pay women the same as male earnings, that means they will have to reduce the pay for the men they employ...simple economics," Green wrote. "If that happens, then men will have an even more difficult time earning enough to support their families, which will mean more Mothers will be forced to leave the home (where they may prefer to be) to join the workforce to make up the difference." Forcing more women into the workforce creates more competition for men, he concluded, which is bad and unfair to those poor men who are used to being prioritized in every walk of life.

The letter, unsurprisingly, sparked such huge controversy that Green was forced to apologize—albeit in one of those "I'm sorry if you were offended" statements that doesn't really suggest he's sorry for the right reasons. The day after the letter was published, Green resigned, complaining that he had been subjected to "hateful, vile comments, and messages."

"I didn't want to hurt the party any further," he said. "They didn't force me to do it. There was no coercion. I chose to step down...I will pray for America."

Between this nonsense and the Oklahoma lawmaker who referred to pregnant women as "hosts," this month has really been a learning curve in terms of the mental acrobatics men will do to justify their own misogyny.

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Audi's Super Bowl ad, called "Daughter," ditches the flashy standards of most car commercials and instead sends a big message about gender equality and equal pay. As a little girl competes in a downhill cart race, her father narrates the ad and tells a powerful story about gender inequality in America:

The ad ends with the slogan, "Progress is for everyone." In addition to the ad, Audi has promised to support women's pay equality in the workplace, funded a scholarship for a female film director, and has started a graduate internship program which must be 50 percent women.

Though the ad is designed to be inspirational and send a strong message about equality, it has not been received well at all. On YouTube, the spot had ten times as many "thumbs-down" reactions as "thumbs-up" ones. And just a quick scan of YouTube comments show people reacting to it as "feminist propaganda" and urging others to boycott the brand. "Tell your daughter to find a real man to marry, and to avoid the mistake that her mother made," one commenter wrote. "Tell her to buy a Dodge."

The Wall Street Journal reports that social-media data show that about 25 percent of the comments were negative and 13 percent have been positive. People who liked it found it positive and uplifting, but people who didn't like the ad indeed thought it was too political, plus they found it "disingenuous coming from a brand that has never taken a stance on the topic in the past," the firm Networked Insights said.

According to Business Insider, some people called out Audi for not exactly practicing what it preaches. Its executive team has 12 men and only two women, and there are zero women on its management team. But the company said it was pledging to hire more women at all levels.

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Venus Williams is a powerhouse—and we don't just mean on the court. She manages her own interior design business, has her own clothing line, and fights for female athletes (in 2007, she was the leading charge to have Wimbledon pay the same amount of winnings to all athletes, regardless of gender), all while playing the sport that she and her sister revolutionized for an entire generation—and playing it well. Currently ranked sixth in the world, with five Olympic medals under her belt, and heading to the U.S. Open on August 29 (her 18th!), we caught up with Williams to get the scoop on her new partnership with Amex, that BBC interview gaffe, and sexism in sports.

Marie Claire: You're back from Rio after winning silver in mixed doubles—your fifth Olympic medal, along with 4 golds—what was that energy like?

Venus Williams: Every Olympics is something special. If you're fortunate enough to play for your country—there's just so much energy. It's truly amazing. And this was no different. You go in with that kind of expectation—that you're there to represent and do the best. Hopefully, that comes through and you do.

MC: Any plans for Tokyo in 2020? Though perhaps it's a bit too early to know...

VW: Yeah, [laughs] everyone has been asking me that! I don't know yet. I'm definitely not against it.

MC: You're partnering with Amex to show fans what it means to "Open like a Pro." How do you get ready for a match?

VW: The thing that's most important in getting you in the best mindest is just being prepared—having a great practice, and knowing that no matter what knowing you're going to go in with confidence. You need to have that confidence to power through.

MC: In one of the videos, you're seen showing off some dance moves—what are your favorite songs to work out to?

VW: Oh man, this is tough. I play the most random things, definitely not the most popular songs. There's this song called Golden...Eye? Golden Girls? that I listen to [laughs] but yeah no set list.

MC: Obviously to do the work that you do, you have to train and workout. What would you say to those who are struggling to hit the gym (AKA me)?

VW: Hah! I would say that working out is work. The most fun part about working out is being done—getting through the workout, let's be honest. But that feeling afterward? Yeah, that's worth it.

MC: There were recent headlines about a BBC host who asked Andy Murray how it felt to be the first to win two golds in tennis. Murray corrected him, mentioning you and your sister. What was your reaction?

VW: I definitely heard about that, but I haven't seen the actual clip yet, so I'm hesitant to say it was on purpose. I imagine that the reporter made an honest mistake while he was interviewing someone quickly, so I'm not upset about it. But in terms of women's sports and value—we definitely have more growing to do. Honestly, you can only go up when it comes to that perception and I think we're growing exponentially when it comes to respect and awareness.

MC: Now there are other sports teams fighting—recently, for instance, the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team—for fair pay. You lead the charge at Wimbledon nine years ago—what do you think is the biggest or most effective way to affect that change?

VW: The National U.S. Women's Soccer Team—I was overjoyed to hear about that. But yes, there is a lot more work to do and clearly we know this. The thing with Wimbledon—you know, there were women's teams since the 1800s, so getting equal pay? That was a long time coming. So in that respect, we had a head start. I don't know *that* much about other sports' backgrounds but a lot of the women's teams are relatively new, compared to the men's teams. But obviously there should be equal pay. We just have to work together to get there.

As far as getting there? Being organized, having a game plan. That's important. It's about making sure everyone is fairly treated, that everyone is seen as talent.

MC: What are you doing to prepare for the Open?

VW: Really, you just try your best and work on everything you can—you target the areas that you need to and you go in feeling confident. I truly believe that whoever feels the most confident is usually the one to win.

MC: What's the next goal; something you haven't done yet that you want to?

VW: I feel like I'm living my dream—and off the court with my clothing line EleVen and interior design firm V Starr, so really, I'm happy just living my life right now!

MC: Do you have a mantra?

VW: I would say eat well, but not all the time—90/10 . Workout. Lead a balanced life and try to have fun. It's what you make it.

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Back in 2000, when Hope Solo joined the U.S. women's national soccer team as a goalie, what she'd be paid to play a sport she'd loved since she was 5 years old wasn't on her mind. "I was just trying to make the roster," she says. It wasn't until she'd been playing for about five years that she started asking questions about the team's compensation. "I've been fighting this fight for about a decade," Solo, now 34, says. "I was constantly trying to stir the pot and ask questions people weren't asking. It didn't always go over well, but I always had a bigger sense of what women should fight for."

Now, Solo is no longer alone. In March, she and four teammates filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging gender discrimination because, as part of the top-ranked women's team in the world—with three World Cup wins and four Olympic gold medals—they are tired of being paid less than the players on the men's national team, which has never won a World Cup tournament. The complaint is an attempt to force the U.S. Soccer Federation to compensate them equally, but if they have to, they say, the entire team is willing to boycott next month's Olympic Games in Brazil. (But that may not be possible: On June 3, a U.S. district court judge ruled that the team was bound to an implied no-strike clause.)

"This is not something I take lightly—I want to play in the Olympics—but I stand with my team, and what my team decides to do is what I'll decide," says forward Alex Morgan, 27, one of the complainants. "What we're fighting for is bigger than us and women's sports; it's about women receiving dollar for dollar, not 79 cents to the dollar."

Compensation is a sticky issue in women's sports. Female athletes have been pushing for equal pay since 1973, when Billie Jean King formed the Women's Tennis Association and won the fight for equal purses at the U.S. Open. (Venus Williams followed up on that victory, helping to win equal pay at Wimbledon in 2007.) But outside of tennis, victories have been few. On the whole, women's sports bring in less revenue, fewer endorsement deals, lower ticket sales, and lower ratings, resulting in lower pay. In the WNBA, for example, only half the teams are profitable, and its highest-paid players make $109,500. Meanwhile, the NBA reportedly brought in north of $5 billion last year, and its lowest-paid player made $525,000.

The U.S. women's national soccer team argues that its situation is different: It pulled in significantly more revenue than the men's team in 2015 and is projected to bring in another $5 million in profit this year, while the men's team has a projected loss of $1 million. In the complaint, the five players—Solo, Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Carli Lloyd—claim that the highest-paid players on the women's team are limited to $99,000 each, but players on the men's team average $263,000 each. They also claim that the women earn less than half of the $68,000 each male player is paid when he makes the World Cup roster, and that they are paid less for appearances and per diems. (U.S. Soccer has vowed to rectify the per diem issue.) "If the men's team started winning, this would be a whole different conversation," says Abby Wambach, the world's all-time leading goal scorer, who retired from the U.S. team in December. "But they haven't, so how can they be paid exponentially more dollars than the women?"

U.S. Soccer, however, contends that the women are presenting misleading figures. "Looking at a single year of revenue generation does not provide the entire picture," says spokesperson Neil Buethe. "If you look at four or eight years cumulatively, the men's revenues are almost twice that of the women's." According to U.S. Soccer, the women's team has always been paid a greater percentage of its revenue than the men's team, and the players are also paid a regular salary, while the men are not.

The wage issue at home isn't the only unequal treatment the women face. When the U.S. women won the World Cup last year, FIFA paid the team $2 million. In 2014, when the men's team lost to Belgium in the round of 16, it made $9 million. And last year, Wambach and other top players from around the world filed a lawsuit against FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association after they discovered the Women's World Cup would be played on turf instead of grass, which they say is more dangerous and requires a different style of play. "We can't keep going down this road," Wambach says. "Gone are the days when women are going to say, 'We're just grateful to be here.'"

The women didn't pursue that lawsuit—they realized there'd be no decision before the World Cup and withdrew it—and it's possible that, in this case, the EEOC investigation could determine that unequal pay does not amount to gender discrimination. (The EEOC hasn't said when it will hand down a decision.) But either way, the women say, it's worth the fight. "When we look back 100 years from now, this is going to seem absurd," Solo says. "And we can stand here and say, 'I was on the right side of history.'" 

This article appears in the July issue of Marie Claire, on newsstands June 21.

House of Cards is one of the rare shows out there that feature a husband and wife who are true equals. That makes the power struggles between the two of them especially juicy on screen. And it turns out that the struggle for equality even made it behind the scenes on the Netflix show.

The Huffington Post reports that Robin Wright, who plays Claire Underwood, spoke out about her struggle for equal pay during an event at the Rockefeller Foundation, when she was asked about her barriers as a woman in Hollywood. "I was like, 'I want to be paid the same as Kevin [Spacey],'" who plays Frank Underwood, she told the crowd. "It was the perfect paradigm. There are very few films or TV shows where the male, the patriarch, and the matriarch are equal. And they are in House of Cards." 

So she decided to channel Claire and go all in at the negotiating table. "I was looking at the statistics and Claire Underwood's character was more popular than [Frank's] for a period of time. So I capitalized on it," she said. "I was like, 'You better pay me or I'm going to go public.' And they did." 

It's unclear how much Spacey and Wright make on House of Cards, but various reports put the number as high as $5.5 million a season. And the pay disparity was confirmed last November by Wright's daughter, Dylan Penn. In an interview with MarieClaire.com, she weighed in on how her mom wasn't getting her fair share. "Even my mom's show, House of Cards, it's so crazy that she's not getting paid as much as Kevin Spacey and they are both frontrunners," she said. "They both equally grab the attention of the audience." Luckily, that's been resolved now, so there will be no need for creepy, Claire-like scheming. 

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If you have studied American history and/or seen Iron-Jawed Angels, the suffragette movie in which Hilary Swank and Patrick Dempsey squash any rom-com sentiments you may have had, you will know who Alice Paul was. Short answer: a badass who now has her own national monument.

The Obama administration will designate the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum in Washington, D.C. as the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument (sucks for Sewall) today, AKA Equal Pay Day. From 1929 to 1997, the historic location served as the headquarters for the National Woman's Party, after which it became a museum.

There are a lot of Debbie Downers being like "THIS IS NOT ENOUGH" (which is fair), but just listen to what Paige Harrington, the house's executive director, had to say in an interview with National Geographic: "There are women today that are in their 60s and 70s who come to this house and they say, 'When I was a coed, and I was in D.C...I walked up those stairs, rang that bell, and Alice Paul answered the door.' And to them, it is a pivotal moment in their lives."

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Today, April 12, is Equal Pay Day in the U.S. It's a day we set aside to acknowledge that pay inequality persists, here and everywhere, and it matters. Women in the U.S. earn, on average, 79 cents for every dollar earned by men; women of color earn even less, about 60 cents, on average to a man's dollar.

What's worse: The pay gap hits those who earn the least the hardest.

Take golf caddies, for example, who are mostly men. They earn an average $17 an hour. Compare that to caregivers, a job mostly done by women, who earn an average of $9 an hour. The discrepancy illustrates both a central problem with the way that we value labor and a damaging blindness to the value of the care economy.

The reality of the "male breadwinner" is long gone, but it has not been replaced by a viable alternative. Contemporary economies need both men and women to work, but employment is often designed as if there were no responsibilities at home. With women now heading more than 15.2 million households in the U.S., the pay gap puts them in a bind. Because they're paid less, they must work longer hours to net the same income, but demands at home often mean they must work fewer hours than their male counterparts.

For women who can afford it, the solution is to hire someone (often a woman) to help with childcare and running the household. But who cares for the carers?

In the U.S., women hold two-thirds of the jobs in the lowest paying professions. They're domestic workers, cleaners, and caregivers (both for children and the elderly)—jobs that are critical to the functioning of our economy, but are unrecognized as such and hugely undervalued. Undervaluing these women's contributions to society reinforces the gender pay gap by entrenching them in low paid work and limiting their opportunities advancement.  

Last month UN Women issued a "Call to Action" on closing the gender pay gap, working with key stakeholders to develop an international coalition that will bring urgent progress on equal pay. In addition, addressing the care economy and reducing gender pay gaps are two of six target issues for the newly formed UN Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Women's Economic Empowerment. This panel includes thought leaders from a spectrum of influence, from the IMF and World Bank to trade unions and civil society, who are confronting the largest obstacles to economic empowerment facing low-income, disadvantaged, and marginalized women. These are very real barriers, and for us to make progress on some of the most intractable issues facing women's empowerment, they have to go.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is the UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women.

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Celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Charlize Theron, and Kathy Griffin have all gone public with their struggle to get paid as much as men in the entertainment industry. But there's a teensy glimmer of hope for equal pay in Hollywood, and it wears a super suit.

Variety reports that Scarlett Johansson, who plays Black Widow in the Marvel movie universe, is making just as much money as Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Chris Evans (Captain America). Though she's sadly not starring in her own Black Widow series, when it comes to the blockbuster Avengers movies, she's on equal terms with her two superhero costars. (Reports initially said she made more than them, but the Variety report says it was roughly equal.) Disney, which owns Marvel, is actively trying to boost women both in front of and behind the camera, and they have even hired Geena Davis as a gender equality consultant for their theme parks. 

Though this is great news, she's not making nearly as much as her costar Robert Downey Jr. Forbes has ranked the Iron Man star as the highest paid actor in the world for three years in a row, and he pulled in a whopping $80 million this year alone. Johansson isn't exactly in the poorhouse, though; she was ranked second on Forbes' actresses list, making $35.5 million in the past year. 

So sure, this is a battle between millionaires. But like Lawrence wrote in her viral Lenny essay, women everywhere have to deal with issues like this. "I don't think I've ever worked for a man in charge who spent time contemplating what angle he should use to have his voice heard," she wrote. And that goes for movie stars as well as the rest of us normal people.

Follow Marie Claire on Instagram for the latest celeb news, pretty pics, funny stuff, and an insider POV.

In the wake of Carly Fiorina's strong debate performance on Wednesday, journalists and pundits alike are speculating that the former HP CEO could finally help the Republican Party, which hasn't captured a majority of the female electorate since 1988, win over women. "She took a big stride toward filling a role her party badly needs: a credible antidote to the gender gap and the Democrats' claims of a Republican 'war on women,'" the New York Times asserted Thursday of the GOP's only female contender in a field of 16 presidential candidates. 

But there's a problem. These claims fail to recognize the fact that yes, Fiorina may have been wearing a skirt on the debate stage—but otherwise, she's not any different from the dudes wearing pants.

Her policy positions on issues of importance to women are the same as her rivals': She supports the current Republican effort in Congress to ban most abortions after 20 weeks, and Fiorina has said she "absolutely would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade if the opportunity presented itself." She has vowed to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood if elected, which would deny vital health care to millions of women. (She also made a false allegation against Planned Parenthood during the debate.) Her fiercely pro-life stance won't help the GOP make inroads with female voters—according to Gallup, a majority of American women now define themselves as "pro-choice."

Fiorina also opposes many policies designed to improve the lives of working women. She is against raising the minimum wage, even though nearly two-thirds of minimum wage earners are women and 80 percent of women support raising the minimum wage. She dismissed the Paycheck Fairness Act as something that "wouldn't help women advance"—a puzzling claim, since the law, if passed, could dramatically narrow the gender pay gap by making it easier for women to discover and challenge pay discrepancies. She has also said the U.S. should remain the only developed country without mandatory paid maternity leave.

Further, Fiorina thinks feminism is a "left-leaning political ideology" that positions "women against men." And in last Wednesday's debate, she said booting Alexander Hamilton off the $10 bill in favor of a woman was nothing more than a "gesture." In doing so, she failed to recognize that many women are excited about the prospect of putting a woman on paper money—rather than relegating trailblazers like Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony to barely-used dollar coins—because doing so would be a visible acknowledgment by the government of women's history and contributions to the nation.

It's insulting to suggest that women will be *so* bowled over by the fact that Fiorina has a vagina that they'll be more likely to vote for her than male Republicans with the same exact platform. It's also worth noting that she won only 39 percent of women voters in her 2010 California Senate race. 

And as for the proposal that if Fiorina doesn't win her party's nomination, the GOP can woo women voters by putting her in the vice-presidential slot? Just ask Senator John McCain how that worked out in 2008.

Follow Marie Claire on Instagram for the latest celeb news, pretty pics, funny stuff, and an insider POV.

Even in a high-paying field like medicine, the gender pay gap still depressingly persists. A study published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine found that women doctors get paid less for the same work—but the reason why is pretty surprising.

The study focused on doctors who worked in hospitals, not in private practices. Hospital medicine is considered a relatively new field; most workers are under 41 and women make up one third of the workforce. Women make, on average, $14,581 less than their male peers in this field, and that's controlled for factors like age, specialty, and geography.

To figure out why, researchers used data from a survey of 776 hospital physicians, both male and female. The respondents answered questions about their income, characteristics of their jobs, and what makes them satisfied at work. On average, female doctors tended to be younger, worked fewer hours and more nights, were more likely to be pediatricians, and were less likely to be leaders at work. They also tended to report fewer "billable encounters" per shift, meaning they brought in less money, but may have focused their time on things like teaching instead.

But researchers say the biggest factor when it came to the pay gap was priorities on the job. Though both men and women said work-life balance was their top priority in terms of job satisfaction, men listed high pay as their second priority, while women ranked it fourth. The researchers say this might be because women are more likely to be in two-income households, or because they might negotiate less because they're more likely to be viewed negatively for asking for more money.

Even though women might not put money at the top of their list, it doesn't excuse the fact that they're getting paid less for equal work. "Women's tendency to prioritize substantial pay less than men may account for some of the gender pay inequities that exist in our society," lead author Dr. A. Charlotta Weaver said in a statement. "However, substantial pay is different from equal pay. I bet most women still want fair pay."

The movement for equal pay just got a powerful new ally: the Pope. During his general audience at the Vatican Wednesday morning, Pope Francis spoke out in support for equal pay for equal work.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, the pontiff talked about the concept of "radical equality" between a husband and wife that Christianity mandates, and argued that extends to gender equality altogether. Christians must be "more demanding" for equal treatment, he said. "For example: supporting with conviction the right of equal compensation for equal work. Why is it expected that women must earn less than men? No! They have the same rights. The disparity is a pure scandal."

The Pope also emphasized the importance of marriage and family, especially at a time where fewer people are marrying, Vatican Radio reports. And he made it clear that dads are just as important as moms. "At the same time," he said, "we must recognize the maternity of women and the paternity of men as a perennially valid treasure, for the benefit of children."

Francis' remarks are definitely a positive sign for the Catholic Church, and the world. But seeing that women can't be Catholic priests and the church is vehemently anti-abortion, it's still got a long way to go before getting feminist brownie points.

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On Equal Pay Day last year, Obama signed an executive order to prevent discrimination in the workplace and help empower workers to feel comfortable discussing their compensation. The order came on the heels of the president's victory in raising the minimum wage for federal contracts to $10.10, a huge feat. Both pieces of legislation in greater part help women, considering women are more likely to work in lower-wage jobs and are often unaware of—and therefore ill-equipped to take action against—their lower salary in comparison to their male counterparts.

Equal Pay Day 2014 was truly one of celebration, but as we come full-circle a year later the euphoria is stamped out. Recent data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American Association of University Women, and Expert Market once again confirm that not only do women still make considerably less than men, but that the gender gap exists in every single state.

According to Think Expert's chart, men earn more than women across the board, with Louisiana leading the gap with a whopping $16,000 pay discrepancy, followed by Wyoming and Utah.

The analysis goes deep into the rabbit hole of the gender pay gap, revealing that out of all 50 states, only nine can call their richest person a woman. Further, the combined wealth of all the richest women in EVERY state is still $160 billion less than just 41 of the richest men in the country.

Are you saying "wow" yet?

While many attempt to diminish these statistics, arguing that differences in life choices is more important in the discussion of the wage gap than gender discrimination, this is simply not true. The AAUW study found that after holding college major, occupation, economic sector, hours worked and nine other variables constant there was still a 7 percent difference in earnings between men and women one year after graduation. Ten years after graduation, that difference increases to 12 percent.

While men can expect to get paid more over time, women can expect their financial burden to increase.

Here's a breakdown of the median annual earnings per field according to the BLS:

* Management and related professions: Men= $69,992 | Women= $51,012

* Service: Men = $30,316 | Women = $23,972

* Sales and Office: Men = $39,832 | Women = $32,240

* Natural resources, construction, and maintenance: Men = $39,728 | Women = $26,468

Though the gap has narrowed since 1970, at the current rate it will take 75 years for women to actually have equal pay. In the wake of these numbers, you can be sure we will take a note from Sarah Silverman and ask for more.

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April 14 is National Equal Pay Day (but you already know that and have planned a party and stuff, right?) and Sarah Silverman has made an awesome new video to support Levo's Ask4More campaign.

"He got sixty dollars, and I got ten dollars...we did the exact same time back-to-back at the same show," she said of learning that a male colleague was making more for the same work. "It's pretty shitty."

"I think the best person for the job should get jobs," she continued. "I'm all for women having to work harder to prove themselves at this juncture, if that's the way it is in the world. But if you work a job, and a man is working the same job, you should be getting paid the same."

SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT TO US. Watch the video below:

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During her acceptance speech at Sunday night's Oscars, Patricia Arquette spoke out against the wage gap in America—and we may already be seeing some positive change.

The world of professional wrestling is undoubtedly male dominated, so when a female World Wrestling Entertainment exec cheered Arquette, one of her employees called her out. Pro wrestler AJ Lee, a three-time Divas Champion and mega-popular wrestler both in and out of the ring, made the gutsy move to stand up for herself and her colleagues. 

She retweeted WWE exec Stephanie McMahon, who had praised Arquette for fighting for women's rights. But then, Lee used that praise against her, pointing out the WWE's hypocrisy for paying women less than men and giving them less screen time.

The comments came after the hashtag #GiveDivasaChance started to trend during Monday night's Raw broadcast. In the three-hour show, women only got 30 seconds of actual wrestling time, BuzzFeed notes. And though the "Divas," the name for female wrestlers, have their own reality show, it's focused on personal drama and not athletic ability.

McMahon and her father, WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon, both acknowledged Lee's comments and thanked her for speaking out. Though it doesn't seem monumental, it's a big step for an industry that has been accused of marginalizing women for years.

You should also check out:

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According to Senate Majority Leader (D) Harry Reid, Republicans think the pay disparity between men and women is totally okay. As a matter of fact, today on the senate floor, before a vote on whether or not the Paycheck Fairness Act will advance, Reid commented that conservatives don't want to see the gap close. "A woman who does the same work as a man ought to be paid the same," he said. "Senate Republicans cannot accept that simple notion. They think it's fair that men get paid more than women." And Reid's got plenty of evidence to support this claim: A few months ago, Republicans in the Senate halted the progress of the Paycheck Fairness Act. Reid added that if Republicans won't acknowledge the necessity of a bill that mandates equal pay between the sexes, then Democrats will. To sum it up, he said: "American women deserve better." Agreed, Senator Reid, agreed.

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Why You Should Care About Equal Pay

Photo via Getty Images

The Mad Men offices are known for many things, but gender equality isn't one of them. Innuendo that would be labeled sexual harassment today runs rampant, and beyond the secretaries, the agency's employee demographics are almost entirely male (with a few exceptions: Thank you, Peggy Olsen).

Christina Hendricks, the bombshell actress who plays powerhouse office manager and partner Joan Harris (nee Halloway), took her 1960s era office behavior to the modern world in a new mock-PSA from Funny or Die. After confusing her co-workers with her lack of knowledge about cell phones, inability to work a computer, mid-morning martinis, and unappetizing lunch choices (it wiggles), she explains that in the US, women still make less than men for doing the same job, and 70 percent of part-time workers are female, while just 15 percent of Fortune 500 CEO's are male.

We're not about to give up our modern technology, but Hendricks makes a good point—our employment numbers need to catch up to our fast-developing technology, quick.

Modern Office with Christina Hendricks from Funny Or Die 

Image via Getty Images

Related:

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Want to Find Out What Your Co-Worker's Make?

This year's Equal Pay Day was April 7, symbolizing how far into 2013 women had to work to earn what men earned the previous year. But that's not quite the same for African American women, who face wage gaps that are substantially wider than for women overall. Their Equal Pay Day is today.

Women working full time, year round typically make only 77 cents to each dollar their male counterparts make — for African-American women compared to white men, this figure is 64 cents. 9to5 — one of the largest national organizations in its 40th year of working women in the U.S. — is joining partner organizations to recognize African American Women's Equal Pay Day. The National Executive Director, Linda Meric, wrote a Huffington Post blog post calling attention to the large pay discrepency at hand.

She called out ways that our country can better recognize and value the work of African American women. We can raise the minimum wage. Congress can pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. We can build support for the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY), which would allow working people to take paid time off to care for a new child, sick family member, or their own illness. Meric also said that we need to pass the Healthy Families Act, which would require more jobs to offer earned sick days. "Working moms carry the brunt of financial distress when they need time to take care of a sick child, and are often at risk of losing employment when caring for an ill family member," Meric wrote.

It's also important to note that the point of equal pay for Hispanic women won't be met until November. Hispanic women only make 54 cents to every dollar white man make — they have to work nearly a whole additional year (full time) to equal what white men made the previous year. Hopefully Meric and 9to5's points are taken seriously, because we really need to start changing this.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

It may be a comfort—or an outrage—for American women to know that they aren't the only country with an equal pay problem. Oxfam Australia recently published a report, The G20 and Gender Equality, that detailed all the juicy bits about the nation down under's gender gap today, and how long it will take the country to fix it: 75 years to be exact. So women in Australia will be equally paid by 2089.

The long delay for equal pay isn't the only disappointing information the report reveals. In Australia, and other G20 countries including Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Argentina, women make up the bulk of part-time workers—from a third to a half of all employed women. And that doesn't just affect women's quality of life, but later on, as well: the report states that the average men and women's retirement savings are vastly unequal.

And, Australian women's work doesn't end when they leave the workplace: they do an average of two to five more hours of unpaid work per day than men do.

It's bad enough that in this day and age, women are still earning 77 cents to every man's dollar (in the United States, at least). Now you're telling us that equal pay won't be a reality for another 75 years? That kind of delay we can't stand for. Let's just hope the United States doesn't take as long as Australia thinks it will in confiming equal pay.

The U.S. may still be paying women77 cents to every man's dollar, but in our neighboring country, things are looking up for equal pay. At McGill University in Quebec, Canada, a revolutionary equal pay program mandated by Quebec law has been launched to secure wage equality, the Wall Street Journal reported. The university is taking on this lofy task by ensuring that one gender dominating a certain profession doesn't mean that they're making less (or more) than others in positions of a similar caliber. In simpler terms, if the program says that administrative assistants, a job typically dominated by females, deserved equal compensation to a male dominated job, such as landscaping, then the two should be paid equally, regardless of gender.

McGill's program wasn't a quick fix to the big problem that is the gender pay gap: it took 13 years and over 19 million U.S. dollars to develop. But its benefits were seen this past February when the university sent out checks covering back pay and raises for full-time university employees that were deemed "underpaid" by the program's standards. The university determined who deserved an income adjustment by grouping roles in "job classifications" that would help to determine an equal and adequate salary.

However, the unveiling of this program is only the beginning. The university has yet to look at male-dominated jobs and see if their salaries measure up, too. What they're hoping now is that making big adjustments in the present will lessen the need for similar sized modifications in the future.

From ancient rulers and authors to pop stars and the teenagers of today, we've narrowed down a list of some of the greatest women in history.

The ancient Egyptian queen and the nation's final pharaoh, Cleopatra, was one of the first female state leaders in history. She defended Egypt against the Roman Empire and spoke nine languages.

Great Britain has seen their fair share of female monarchs: Queen Victoria, and the current queen, Elizabeth II, but the first was the "virgin queen" Elizabeth I. She ruled at a pivotal time in English history when she led England to victory against the Spanish Armada. She never married, which in her day and age, was pretty badass.

Mary Wollstonecraft was an early supporter of women's rights with her work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She argued that women only appeared intellectually inferior to men at the time because they lacked access to education (duh). Don't confuse her with daughter Mary Shelley; whose is famous for an entirely different written work (ahem, Frankenstein).

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was instrumental in getting some serious momentum going for the women's rights movement back in 1848, as a planner of the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Her work, the Declaration of Sentiments, was an "updated" version of the Declaration of Independence that demanded equal treatment for women.

One of the most influential figures in the women's rights movement in the United States was Susan B. Anthony. A founder of the National Women's Suffrage Association, she published a weekly journal, The Revolution, that advocated for equal rights for both women and African Americans. Her work didn't stop at the written word: She toured around the nation promoting equal rights.

In the late 1800's, professions for women rarely existed outside of a domestic sphere. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor, was one of the first to challenge this norm.

English suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst had some intense tactics to insure that the vote for women was granted, including hunger strikes, chaining herself to rails and even violence. While her methods were controversial, no one can argue that she had a tremendous impact on the women's suffrage movement. Sadly, she died just three weeks before the vote was given to British women over the age of 21.

Before Florence Nightingale, things were a lot different for nurses. Thanks to her work in the Crimean War, not only were conditions vastly improved for wounded soldiers, but also nurses gained more respect as medical professionals.

Prior to Coco Chanel's foray into fashion, women's clothes were much more restrictive and uncomfortable. Chanel's simple and casual designs changed that. Beyond transforming the culture of clothing for women forever, she was a savvy business woman who established a fashion house that still dominates the world of couture today.

French writer, philosopher and activist Simone de Beauvoir penned one of the most influential books on feminism of the 20th century, The Second Sex. In The Second Sex, she argues about the social construct of feminism.

A disgruntled and unhappy housewife, Betty Friedan took to writing to express her displeasure about the status of women at the time, and thus, The Feminist Mystique was born. Her work to improve the lives of women didn't stop there. Friedan was the first President of NOW, the National Organization for Women, and went on to publish six more books. She was also an avid supporter of the failed Equal Rights Amendment.

When you hear the word feminist, you think Gloria Steinem. The writer and activist dedicated her adult life towards advocating for women's rights. She also founded Ms. Magazine, a publication dedicated to feminism.

The 39-time Grand Slam title champion Billie Jean King is one of the greatest female tennis players to have ever lived. But she didn't just work hard on the court—King was also an avid supporter of equal pay for women.

Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher once said, "I don't think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime." Little did she know then that she would become the first female prime minister of Great Britain. Huzzah!

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to be elected to such a position in a Muslim country. Her impact while in office was huge: She changed the country's political landscape from dictatorship to democracy, as well as tirelessly advocating for social change.

Hillary Clinton's political career may have started off as First Lady to her husband, President Clinton, but that was just beginning. Since he left office, she's served as a New York Senator, Secretary of State, as well as gotten the closest a woman ever has to securing a presidential nomination. And we're crossing our fingers for 2016...

Kenyan runner Tegla Laroupe has many claims to fame: She was the first African American woman to win the New York Marathon, she previously held the marathon record time for a woman (under three hours), as well as several world championships. She's used her fame for good by promoting peace and women's rights through the Tegla Laroupe Peace Foundation.

Pop music icon Madonna is the world's best selling female artist—ever, and has a career that produced chart-topping hits for decades. She isn't afraid to tackle the tough topics in her music, and has proved that a woman's career in the music industry doesn't end when she turns 40.

Is there anything Oprah can't do? Talk show host, magazine editor, leader of the world's largest book club, network TV owner—not to mention her tendency to give away tokens of appreciation like (free!) cars. Without a doubt, she's one of the world's most influential figures, male or female.

She may be young, but Malala Yousafzai has already become a household name. The Pakistani teen stood up to the Taliban by writing a blog for the BBC (starting when she was just 11-years-old!) about conditions under their rule. The Taliban retaliated with an ambush shooting. Thankfully, Yousafzai survived and continues to fight for education for girls.

Over the last decade, three states have enacted paid family and medical leave laws, but other states have yet to follow suit. To discuss these issues and encourage more states to take similar steps, the White House hosted a summit on working families on Monday to discuss child care, paid family leave, and equal pay.

President Obama pointed to California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island as three states leading the move towards better family leave policies (or any at all) in the United States. The president also announced a proposal offering $5 million to support state-level initiatives offering workers leave to care for new babies or ailing relatives. Obama remarked that family leave and child care "are basic needs," not merely "bonuses." In a blog, The Washington Post wrote, "Allies of Hillary Rodham Clinton told The Post that the issue would be a key part of a potential 2016 presidential bid."

California was the first state to pass a paid leave law back in 2002, offering six weeks of paid leave at about 55 percent of a worker's weekly pay, capped at $1,075. Since the benefits took effect two years later, The Washington Post reports that "about 1.7 million claims have been filed, with 1.5 million of them from parents seeking to take time to care for new children."

New Jersey enacted benefits in 2009, allowing workers to take six weeks of leave to bond with new children or care for a seriously ill family member while receiving two-thirds of wages, maxing out at $595 per week. The most recent state to take action is Rhode Island, where workers became eligible this year to receive up to four weeks of paid leave, based on earnings but limited to $752 per week.

All three states fund the initiatives through an employee-paid tax. Though the benefit is available to both public and private sector workers, many may not be using it because they don't know about it. The Post's blog points to a 2013 study of the New Jersey law in which more than half of survey respondents didn't know much about the program.

According to Monday's summit, Obama hopes to raise awareness of these initiatives so more workers can take advantage of them and other states enact them.

Related:

Level the Paying Field

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Kirsten Gillibrand

Perhaps no name is more synonymous with women's rights in politics today than that of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Her influence is vast in the women's issues sphere, including working to keep a woman's right to choose alive and bringing attention to issues such as sexual assault in the military. But one of her biggest moves comes in the form of Off the Sidelines, a political action committee, aimed at getting more women involved in politics. Through Off the Sidelines, she's raised over a million dollars for female candidates.

Harry Reid

It's not just female politicians working to improve things for women—men are playing a part too! Republicans have continued to block the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, much to the dismay of the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. Before another unsuccessful vote to pass the bill this past month, Reid spoke out about his confusion over why the passage of this bill was anything but a no-brainer: "Are they so repulsed by equal pay for hardworking women that they'll obstruct equal pay for equal work?"

Wendy Davis

Texas State Senator Wendy Davis may not hold a national role in politics, but her for women's reproductive rights in her home state, she gained national attention last year when she filibustered for a mind-boggling 13 hours. While the bill still passed in Texas, Davis's efforts to stop it have made her a household name in the fight for reproductive freedoms for women. Now, Davis is setting her sights on the top position in the state of Texas to do so: Governor.

Kevin De Leon

This state senator from California spearheaded (along with senator Hannah-Beth Jackson) a recently passed bill that requires colleges and universities to step up their treatment of sexual violence on campus, including increased programming addressing prevention of sexual assault and rape and confidentiality for victims and complainants.

Elizabeth Warren

The Massachusetts Senator is a long-time ardent supporter of women, and brings that mentality to her political office. She's a staunch supporter of rights for women's health and equal pay, and has spoken out against politicians who lag behind in the arena of those rights, saying that she's "sick of debating these social issues like it's 1913, not 201[4]." Us too, Senator Warren!

Barack Obama

Regardless of your opinion of the nation's 44th president, there is no debate that Barack Obama has made big strides for women. During his time in office, we've seen Plan B become available without a prescription, birth control costs reduced to nothing for those with insurance, and a campaign launched to help end sexual assault on college campuses.

Hillary Clinton

She may have started out her career in public life as First Lady to husband Bill, but Hillary Clinton has more than proved herself as a strong leader in her own right, becoming one of the biggest female names in American politics today. She's served as a New York Senator, Secretary of State, and was a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for President back in 2008. The real question is: will 2016 be her year?

Carolyn Maloney

This New York City congresswoman has sponsored and co-sponsored a long list of bills that aim to make things better for women, such as the Access to Birth Control Act, Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services, and the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act. She goes beyond just trying to help women today, but attempting to memorialize the women of yesterday, with sponsoring the Commission to Study the Potential Creation of a National Women's History Museum Act, which was received in the Senate this past May.

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Eleanor Norton

Along with former Senator Tom Harkin, this Washington, D.C. congresswoman introduced the Fair Pay Act, which works to end wage discrepancies based on stereotypes in various professions, in 2013. While the act has yet to be passed, Norton's presentation of this bill to the House of Representatives once again brought the issue of equal pay to the forefront of congressional debate. This wasn't the first time Norton worked to better things for women in the workforce: she previously served as the first female chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity  Commission.

Jerry Brown

In the midst of more and more states limiting access to abortions, with tricky loopholes making them unavailable in over 90 percent of counties in states such as Texas and North Dakota, California is moving in a more forward thinking direction, with lots of thanks to the state's governor, Jerry Brown. In 2013, he signed a bill that allowed skilled professionals other than physicians (such as nurse practitioners) to perform abortions.

Related:

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

The wage gap tends to narrow at the top levels of some corporations — which is great. The problem, though, is that many women are not reaching that high on the corporate ladder. An article from The New York Times recently pointed out that women CEOs are more likely to make as much as their male colleagues, but they don't usually get that position.

This isn't an entirely new discovery. We're well aware of the lack of female chief executive officers — in the list of the world's top paid CEOs worldwide, there's not even one woman in the top 15. The Equilar Top 200 Highest Paid CEO Rankings, conducted for The New York Times, also reflected the disparity between men and women in corporate America. Job choice remains another reason for the wage gap — even within the same industry, women are still coming up behind men. In medicine, for example, women are more often working as nurses and less often as surgeons, making for a big difference in pay.

One key factor in this could be that women in the United States don't have paid maternity leave. Employers are only required to give women 12 weeks (unpaid) off after having a baby — in fact, half of all first time mothers receive no paid leave.

The tech industry is noted for changing the game, however, embracing flexibility regarding how employees work, rather than when they work. Since the industry is fast-paced and constantly changing, it's easier to bypass the traditional prejudices in place in other industries. Yahoo, for example, hired Marissa Mayer as chief executive when she was seven months pregnant. When Sukhinder Singh Cassidy was president of Asia Pacific and Latin America operations at Google and pregnant, her bosses agreed to pay for her baby and nanny to travel the world with her.

Of course, even women at the top executive level still face challenges. Just last month, Jill Abramson's firing from The New York Times raised concerns over whether or not equal pay played a factor in her dismissal.

One study found found that discrimination does affect pay-for-performance compensation, which is meant to tie a chief's pay to the success of the company itself. Women reap less of the benefit for a positive performance, while men are more often to receive a bonus for getting lucky — meaning the company performs well based on factors that had nothing to do with their own skills.

The more women on top, the better: Women who work for a company where a woman is the chief executive or heads the board are likely to make more than in a similar company led by men. Companies led by women have also shown to have more women in senior positions, which can be a helpful force in changing this imbalance.

Related:

Mind the Gap On Your Way Up the Corporate Ladder

Why Young Women Should Care About Equal Pay Day

Image Credit: Getty Images

If you're a working woman, chances are you are well aware of the pay gap that exists between men and women in the United States, where we continue to make 77 cents to every man's dollar. But the explanation for this discrepancy doesn't come down to just discrimination. Rather, there's a multitude of reasons why the pay gap exists. According to a study done by Stanford University, 60 percent of the causes of the pay gap has a defined explanation including reasons such as the specific industry and occupation, experience in the labor force, education, among others. That means that 40 percent of the explanation is unknown—and could be attributed to sexism, whether it's intentional or not. For the factors we do know, we're breaking it down for you, piece by piece.

Job Choice

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics, collectively known as STEM, are some of the best paying fields for workers today—women who work in these fields make 33 percent more than their female counterparts in other industries. Women make up just 24 percent of workers in STEM jobs, according to the White House. The number of women in many high-paying jobs beyond STEM fields, such as finance, falls short. Even in the same industry, such as medicine, women are found more often as nurses and less often as surgeons, leading to a big difference in pay. On the opposite end of the spectrum, women dominate the lower-paying sector of the workforce, making up two-thirds of minimum-wage workers.

Hours On The Clock

As with many things in life, the time you put into work is a huge influence on what you get out of it. Typically, men work longer hours—an average of six more per week, according to Business Insider. On top of that, they're more likely to work weekends, too. These statistics aren't too surprising when taking into account that women are twice as likely to work part time, according to the United States Department of Labor. However, don't think that the difference in number of hours worked is all by choice—1 out of every 5 part time working women is doing so because she can't find full time work.

Education

Women now make up for the majority of college graduates—for the class of 2012, 56.9 percent of undergraduate degrees, and 59.6 percent of master's degrees, and 51.1 of all doctoral degrees, according to the Department of Education. Unlike many of the other factors listed, the overall growing education level for women has shrunk the pay gap by nearly seven percent.

Mommy Tracking

The long-standing expectation of women as the primary caretaker when it comes to children also plays a role in the pay gap. According to the National Women's Law Center, the average mother spends one hour and 43 minutes for every hour a father spends with his or her child. But amount of time spent in the office due to parenting isn't the only way that working mothers are disadvantaged. Working mothers were recommended less for hire, and when they were, for lower starting salaries than childless women, while employers perceived fathers more positively than their childless counterparts, according to a study by sociologists Shelley Correll, Stephan Benard, and In Paik.

Working Conditions

Being a bit of a daredevil can have its payoffs: Men are more likely than women to work a job that may be dangerous or undesirable—think fields like construction, iron and steel work, truck driving, industrial machine repair—all listed in the top ten most dangerous jobs by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and jobs typically dominated by males. In addition, men are more likely to work in "undesirable locations", such as places that are underpopulated, or even just uncomfortable (working in a loud construction site on a 90 degree day). Doing the job that's viewed as unwanted by many can help boost a paycheck. However, it's not all because of lack of desire to work in these conditions: women can also experience difficulty in breaking into industries these labor-intensive, historically male-dominated industries. And for the few women who do work in fields like construction, the pay gap tends to be relatively small.

Negotiation

When you want something, you need to ask for it. Unfortunately, when it comes to salary, this isn't the rule of thumb for many women. Women are much less likely than men to negotiate their salaries—eight times less likely, to be exact. And women ask for promotions or raises 85 percent less than men do. Even when they do negotiate for themselves, women on average asked for $7,000 less than men, according to a study by the University of Texas. Especially when it's not clear if negotiation is expected or permitted by the employer, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Gather the courage to negotiate your salary, you'll see the payoff—literally.

Ladies, listen up. You know that nationwide, women make just 77 cents to every man's dollar. But that average doesn't apply to everyone. In some professions, women are coming close—or even outearning their male colleagues. Below are a few of the industries that are doing things right.

Government

The two places in the United States where the pay gap is the smallest? Washington, D.C. and Maryland. A big explanation for why these two are doing so well in equal pay is due to the large amount of people working in the public sector, or for the government. Over the past 20 years, the pay gap has shrunk specifically in these two sectors by over 15 percent—with women making 87 cents for every man's dollar today, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

Construction

This one may shock you—but the nearly all-male industry of construction has one of the smallest pay gaps, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2012, the women that do work in the construction industry made 97.6 cents to their male colleagues' dollar. However, according to the American Association of University Women (AAUW), this makes sense: women are typically paid better in "traditionally masculine" jobs than they are in those that have been long associated with females.

Business

Investment banking has notoriously been associated as a man's game. In comparing men and women with MBA's, however, women make 102 percent of what a man makes, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Banking isn't the only industry with a reverse pay gap for MBA graduates exists—non-profits and human resources also favor females, with women making 102 and 107 percent of a man's salary, respectively. The numbers aren't as high, however, for women without MBA's—in this field, more education seems to have a tangible payoff.

Part-Time Workers

One of the biggest complaints critics have about the gender pay gap is that it doesn't take into account the number of hours worked by men in comparison to women. In the world of part-time work, women are doing well, says the New York Times. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, part-time working women make $10 more than their male counterparts in weekly median salaries—$236 per week compared to $226.

Health Care

Health care will always be a bustling industry—you can count on people to keep getting sick. And as such, the salaries for pharmacists and registered nurses are fairly even between men and women. The average female pharmacist makes 100% of what males make, and nurses make 91% of a man's earnings.

Teachers

Teaching has long been a profession dominated by women. And unlike other jobs that are historically led by women, the earnings ratio for teachers is one of the best for ladies, according to AAUW. Secondary school teachers make 93 percent of what males in their industry do. While there's definitely still room for improvement, teachers are far ahead of many other professions.

In the race to close the nation's ever present gender pay gap, these states are outshining the rest.

Minnesota

This month, Minnesota passed the Women's Economic Security Act, a multi-faceted law that ensures fairness for women in the workplace. The law's nine parts include wage disclosure protection, better protections and accommodations for pregnant women and new mothers, among other amendments.

Massachusetts

Last year, Boston's mayor, Thomas Menino, stated his goal to make the city the first in the U.S. to eliminate the pay gap, making it the "premier city for working women." A big goal to be sure, but they're working to make it happen. The city is asking companies to sign the 100% Talent: The Boston Women's Compact to join in their efforts to understand the wage gap, close it, and gage how well they've done in doing so. The women of Massachusetts also has a big player on their side: Senator Elizabeth Warren, a strong supporter of equal pay.

Michigan

Women may only make up less than 10 percent of Fortune 500 CEO's, but in Michigan, General Motors named its first female CEO, Mary Barra, this past January. Did we mention that she's the first woman to hold the top job at a major car company—ever?

Washington, D.C.

Let's hope that our capital city is setting the tone for the pay gap throughout the nation. Washington, D.C. In the race to close the wage gap, the city is the winner by quite a bit. D.C. women make 90 percent of what a man makes—5 percent more than any other state, according to the American Association of Unviersity Women. In second place is Maryland, and it can only be assumed that a significant number of workers living in Maryland work in D.C. as well. But that's not all of the District's accolades. According to a study done by WalletHub, they also rank first in professional opportunities for women.

Alabama

This one may surprise you—WalletHub also says that Alabama—who ranks fifth from last in the measure of pay gap by state—ranks first for the highest female-to-male executive ratio (74.48 percent), meaning that they have the greatest gender balance in the boardroom of any state. Who came in second, however, will surprise no one—Washington, D.C.

Oregon

On a larger scale, the wage gap isn't just about equal pay, but fair and equal treatment as well. And when talking about fair treatment of women in the workforce, the subject of rights for working moms is bound to come up. In that realm, it is the state of Oregon that takes top honors, according to WalletHub.

Connecticut

Making laws isn't the only way to make a difference in ending the pay gap. At the end of last year, the office of the Governor of the state of Connecticut, Dannel P. Malloy, published a report on pay equity designed to encourage companies and employers to shrink the gap between men and women's pay.

Vermont

Also last year, Vermont passed a new package, An Act Relating to Equal Pay, that demands state contractors to determine pay using job-related reasons only. The act also assures that workers are able to request a more flexible schedule—a provision that will without a doubt benefit the state's working mothers.

California

California is home to the nation's best paid female executive, Safra Ada Catz, the CFO and President of tech giant Oracle, who brought home a cool $44.3 million in 2013, according to FindTheBest Companies.

Related:

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New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson was abruptly fired on Wednesday and the question of why, exactly, she was replaced remains somewhat unclear. Since the announcement, multiple reports have surfaced claiming that the first female executive editor of the Times was in constant conflict with publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and CEO Mark Thompson, and that her management style was widely considered problematic.

But the most intense claim regarding Abramson's departure came from The New Yorker's Ken Auletta, who profiled the editor just after she took over the top newsroom spot in September 2011. Auletta reported on Wednesday that the editor had just recently complained after she found out that she made less money than her male predecessor. Auletta wrote:

"Several weeks ago, I'm told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. "'She confronted the top brass,' one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management's narrative that she was 'pushy,' a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect."

Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy pushed back against the report in a statement to Politico: "Jill's total compensation as executive editor was not less than Bill Keller's, so that is just incorrect. Her pension benefit, like all Times employees, is based on her years of service and compensation. The pension benefit was frozen in 2009."

Sulzberger told staffers that the decision to replace Abramson was due to "an issue with management in the newsroom." And while that might be the case, Auletta's report that Abramson had her lawyer making what she thought were polite inquiries into her salary just before she was unceremoniously let go paints a more complicated picture.

Abramson's quick tenure as executive editor (she was in the role for less than 3 of the potential 8 years she could have served) was met with harsh scrutiny at times—complaints that many considered sexist by nature. After an extensive Politico report last year that quoted anonymous staffers who said Abramson's "stubborn and condescending" management style was the cause of growing dissatisfaction in newsroom, many questioned whether a man in her role would ever be the subject of such a story. No one could argue with Abramson's stellar journalism chops or talent as an editor, making the focus on her personality and management style that much more discomforting.

Abramson had devoted much of her career to the Times, ascending through the ranks to become Washington editor in 1999, followed by bureau chief in 2000, then managing editor, and eventually executive editor. In an OUT magazine story last month, Abramson admitted to having the Times "T" tattooed on her back. She garnered attention for championing female journalists within the newsroom, appointing many to leadership positions during her time.

According to the Times own story on Abramson's firing, the editor "had recently engaged a consultant to help her with her management style. Mr. Sulzberger nevertheless made the decision earlier this month to dismiss her."

The clashes with Sulzberger and Thompson, who had only been CEO of the New York Times Co. since August 2012, were reportedly severe. NPR's David Folkenflik maintained, in an extremely thorough series of tweets, that the conflicts were a key part of Abramson's removal.

Abramson has not yet commented on her dismissal or on Auletta's report regarding her pay.

UPDATE -- 1:45 p.m.

Sulzberger sent out an internal memo to Times staffers on Thursday dismissing reports that Abramson was paid less than her male predecessor. He wrote:

"It is simply not true that Jill's compensation was significantly less than her predecessors. Her pay is comparable to that of earlier executive editors. In fact, in 2013, her last full year in the role, her total compensation package was more than 10% higher than that of her predecessor, Bill Keller, in his last full year as Executive Editor, which was 2010. It was also higher than his total compensation in any previous year."

Click over to Capital New York to read the letter in its entirety.

At this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner, comedian Joel McHale joked that no job is exempt from pay disparity, observing that "as our first female president, we could pay [Hillary Clinton] 30 percent less." The gender wage gap—a term broadly used to describe the fact that American women to continue to make only 77 cents to every dollar earned by American men—has captured the nation's attention.

While some lawmakers have tried to blame these shocking figures on the fact that men simply work harder than women (see recent comments by New Hampshire state Rep. Will Infantine), working women around the country who are being paid less know that this simply isn't the case. Last year, on the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, Equal Rights Advocates and other leading women's rights organizations launched the Equal Pay Today! Campaign to tackle this persistent gap that plagues nearly every industry in the country. Through this campaign, and in fielding calls to our Advice and Counseling Hotline, we''e heard from women across the country who suspect they are being paid less, but wonder, "How do I know for sure?"

In her powerful dissent to the Supreme Court's misguided Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasized that pay discrimination is very often "hidden from sight." She wrote that because salary information about fellow workers is typically confidential and unavailable for comparison, pay disparities can be hard to discover. Indeed, a 2011 study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research found that over 61 percent of private-sector workers say that discussing their salary is either prohibited or discouraged. Pay secrecy policies are often accompanied by an understanding—explicit or unspoken—that discussing or inquiring about pay could lead to negative job consequences. Ultimately, a lack of information about what their male coworkers are paid, and a fear being punished for asking about it, prevent women from ever even finding out that they're victims of pay discrimination. This culture of silence and fear is even more harmful in low-wage sectors, where workers can't afford to risk their jobs by asking about pay.

Equal Rights Advocates client Lucy Marsh learned after 40 years as a celebrated law professor at University of Denver Sturm College of the Law that she and other female professors earned less than male professors with similar qualifications. Pay rate information would have alerted Professor Marsh to this inequity years and possibly decades ago, preventing significant financial losses over the course of her career. Recent studies suggest that the lifetime wage gap for a woman with at least a bachelor's degree is $723,000, while professional school graduates lose $2 million in wages over a lifetime.

We know that pay secrecy directly undermines efforts to reduce the gender wage gap. And we know that we can do something about it. In fact, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which Senate Republicans blocked just last month, would prohibit retaliation against employees who share their salary information with each other, eliminating the culture of silence that keeps women like Professor Marsh from ever finding out they're being paid unfairly.

In addition to federal law protection of all employees, we need workplaces that encourage transparency and support openness about pay. How that might look depends on the nature of the employer—for example, in a large company, employers could easily provide anonymized salary information with job titles and gender breakdown to let employees know where they stand.

What's certain is that successfully ending the gender wage gap will take a combination of legal protections and action by employers dedicated to solving this problem. Don't you think we should be allowed to talk pay?

Joelle Emerson is a Skadden Fellow at Equal Rights Advocates.

Follow Joelle on Twitter.

For Francine Katz, reaching the executive suite within America's premiere brewing company was the pinnacle of a 14-year tenure. She started as a corporate lawyer in the legal department and eventually became Anheuser-Busch's top female executive as vice president of corporate communications. Now, she's suing her former employer for what she describes as exclusion and salary discrimination due to her gender.

In a trial that kicked off last week, Katz's lawyers argued that the former executive was paid less than half the base salary of her male predecessor and was repeatedly turned away when she complained about the wage gap. She also claims she was excluded from corporate guys' trips including golf outings and hunting sessions.

Katz eventually resigned from the company in 2008, and sued the following year. The case went through a series of appeals, with Anheuser-Busch going all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case.

Anheuser-Busch's lawyer said that Katz was paid based on her job, not her gender. The company added that Katz's predecessor had a role that included more responsibilities, such as serving as August Busch III's close adviser. The former CEO testified last week at the trial, which contains a jury of seven women and five men, and stressed the difference between the roles Katz and her predecessor played.

"I like Francine Katz a lot and she knows it, but she wasn't my adviser," he said. "John Jacob was my senior adviser," he said, referring to her predecessor.

According to the lawsuit obtained by the Associated Press, Katz's salary was increased from $275,000 to $300,000 plus a $200,000 performance-based bonus and 75,000 stock options after taking over Jacobs's role in 2002. In his last year of employment, her predecessor had a base salary of $605,000, a performance-based bonus of $645,000, along with 270,900 stock options.

"The lawsuit is a reminder that pay discrimination is alive and well at all levels of the workforce, and there aren't the right incentives in the law for employers to self-correct and voluntarily pay their employees fairly," Fatima Gross Graves of the National Women's Law Center told MarieClaire.com. Currently, the Equal Pay Act and Title VII ban pay discrimination. "The challenge is that those laws have loopholes that make them harder to enforce, less effective—the issue surrounding it being that it's difficult to learn about pay disparities in the first place," Graves continues.

Katz's lawyer is seeking lost compensation plus damages to the tune of at least $9.4 million. The trial comes on the heels of Senate Republicans blocking the Paycheck Fairness Act, a piece of legislation that would close major loopholes in the Equal Pay Act that was passed more than 50 years ago. While Democrats argue that more legislation is required to protect women from gender-based pay discrimination, Republicans maintain that sufficient laws are in place and only need to be properly enforced. The GOP also accused Democrats of using the Paycheck Fairness Act as a "political ploy" to court female voters ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.

As Katz's trial continues to unfold, the lawsuit may illustrate the necessity of additional legislation that protects equal pay as it strikes at the core of the Paycheck Fairness Act: the need for transparency. The former executive reportedly learned about the pay discrepancy because she had access to company tax filings during Anheuser-Busch's sale to InBev in the mid-2000s. It was only after she had that information that she could raise complaints about the discrepancy and eventually sue her former employer. Katz claims that she was called "ungrateful" when she raised complaints about the wage gap.

Last month, The Nation's Michelle Chen questioned whether bosses want their employees' salaries to be secret. She cited a 2011 survey that estimated that 50 percent of workers are restricted in some way to openly discussing their pay with colleagues. "The struggle for fair pay isn't captured in wage statistics; it's part of a struggle against the asymmetry of knowledge that divides management and labor—and fundamentally, a struggle for a democratic workplace," she wrote.

The reason Katz is able to take her fight for equal pay to court is because she was able to learn about her colleague's compensation package. Most employees, male and female, are rarely privileged to such information.

Let's all take a moment right now to appreciate why legislation like the Paycheck Fairness Act is needed for women and men to gain salary parity in the workplace.

During an appearance Wednesday on HuffPost Live, California state Senate candidate Sandra Fluke (D) argued that there seemed to be a "misunderstanding" surrounding what's at stake with the Paycheck Fairness Act, a piece of legislation that would close major loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and help to protect women facing gender-based salary discrimination in the workplace.

Related: Go Girl—Sandra Fluke Enters Politics

"Some folks don't understand why additional legislation is needed," Fluke said. "It's needed because we don't have good enforcement yet, and we want to give women the ability to actually know what someone else in the workplace is making and be able to bring suit to fix that problem."

Related: Why Women Should Care About Equal Pay Day

Such information would be game changing. Currently, roughly 50 percent of private companies will fire employees for disclosing salary details to colleagues. The Paycheck Fairness Act allows employees to share salary details and ask openly about pay policies, creating far more transparent work environments.

As we've written before, caring about equal pay is crucial for women at all levels in the workforce. Though the gender pay gap is smaller right out of college than later in life, the disparity persists, and will result in longterm losses over the course of a lifetime.

Related: This One Sentence Boils Down How You Feel About Equal Pay

"I honestly can't believe that we're still arguing over equal pay in 2014."

That's how on the importance of fighting for equal pay, just weeks after Senate Republicans once again killed the Paycheck Fairness Act. With that one sentence, Warren hit the core frustration felt among women everywhere: "Seriously? It's 2014 and we still haven't gotten this worked out?"

You've heard the banner-line statistic multiple times before: women today earn only 77 cents to every dollar earned by a man, a gap that has closed dramatically but remains open. Earlier this month, Congress failed to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill that would close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act, a piece of legislation that's more than 50 years old. Senate Republicans argued that there are already sufficient laws in place that protect women against gender-based pay discrimination.

"If a woman believes she has been discriminated against in the workplace – which is both unjust and repulsive – she has every legal recourse in place to remain protected," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R) wrote in an op-ed on the subject.

Warren argued that the bill is a "common-sense proposal," one that protects women from "discrimination [and] retaliation when they ask how much the guys are getting paid." She added, "Basic protection, basic information – that's essentially all this bill does." Many companies prohibit employees from asking colleagues questions about their salaries.

It's unsurprising, then, that the pay gap persists. According to Pew, 72 percent of women and 61 percent of men think that the "country needs to continue to make changes to give men and women equality in the workplace." But, the pay gap among young women is narrowing. "Today's young women are starting their working lives at nearly equal pay with men, but there's no guarantee that they will stay this close in the years to come," a recent Pew study found.

One way to keep the gap as close as possible over the years? Get comfortable petitioning for raises. NPR crowd sourced reader responses after asking for tactical advice on getting a raise, wondering about "the in-the-trenches daily experiences of women asking for higher salaries." The results, mostly from women in their 20s and 30s, hit a few thematic notes but one piece of advice seemed to trump all the rest: "Just ask."

If you're in your first job, or about to graduate and jump into the workforce, today is a vitally important holiday…it's Equal Pay Day!

Founded in 1996 to raise awareness about the lack of pay parity between men and women, Equal Pay Day is important to all of us, of course: women are still making 77 cents to a man's dollar. (Every year, Equal Pay Day is on a different day — it's the day a man would have to start working in order to make a woman's annual salary.)

But equal pay awareness is especially important for those of us who are just starting out. Why? Because what you make at the beginning of your career — and whether you fight for a higher salary from the outset — will determine how much you make for the rest of your life, setting you up financially for the next, oh, 45 years.

Get this: right out of college, women earn $35,296 to a man's $42, 918. That means that over your lifetime, you'll lose $434,000 to $2 million because of the wage gap.

So it's up to you to take charge as soon as you can — right at the start of your career. Start negotiating your salary right away; don't assume that just because it's your first job, or an entry-level position, that you're "lucky" to have it, and that asking for a salary commensurate to the position will knock you out of the running. Check out our salary negotation guide and bargaining-table tips from high-level businesswomen like Serena Williams and Katie Couric to learn more.

And help pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, an update to the Equal Pay Act from 1963, by contacting your Congresspeople, listed here.

This Equal Pay Day, though, there is good news—today, President Obama signed two executive orders: one that prohibits federal contractors from retaliating against employees who share salaries, and one that mandates that federal contractors publish wage data.
"Restoring opportunity for all has to be our priority, making sure the economy rewards hard work for every single American. Because when women succeed, America succeeds," President Obama said. It's a good start (although we need the same rules for all employers, not just federal contractors). Let's make sure we keep fighting until we're completely, finally, equal.

1. There's an anonymous letter alleging sexual assault and the university's inaction rocking Harvard's campus right now. An anonymous Harvard student wrote a heart-wrenching op-ed for the school's paper alleging that the prestigious university did very little after she was sexually assaulted on campus last year. Read more about the letter here.

2. Cara Delevingne sounds off on the paps. Likening paparazzi to "assassins," the bushy-browed model and actress took to Twitter after photos surfaced of her with Michelle Rodriquez on vacation together in Mexico. The women were photographed splashing around in the water and kissing. Delevingne is just the latest celebrity to speak out on her disdain for paparazzi.

3. The Senate will revisit why you are paid less than your male counterparts today. No time like the present—it's not like it's 2014 or anything. In a hearing scheduled for this afternoon, the Senate will revisit the Paycheck Fairness Act, a long overdue bill that would strengthen the Equal Pay Act (that was passed more than 50 years ago) and finally help to close the gender pay gap (currently, women make on average only 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man). In honor of the hearing, we urge you take 30 minutes out of your day today to advocate for yourself—whether that's asking for a raise, scheduling a meeting with your boss, or researching competitive salaries to learn your market value.

4. It just became a lot tougher to get an abortion in Louisiana. The Louisiana House of Representatives on Monday adopted a bill that will impose new restrictions on abortion clinics, including requiring physicians to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. Similar laws have been enacted in Texas and North Dakota, and such restrictions have led to the closure of multiple facilities. Abortion rights groups argue that such provisions are designed to close clinics in rural areas.

5. It's officially rom com season. And we're thrilled. Are you thrilled? We hope so. Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel will make you laugh and cringe as they star in (a) Sex Tape, and Keira Knightly and Mark Ruffalo will pull at your heartstrings in Begin Again.

Courtesy of Getty

Who run the world? Girls. Not quite yet, but almost, according to Beyoncé's open essay for the Shriver Report. In her essay titled Gender Equality is a Myth!, Beyoncé responded to the Shriver Report finding that "42 million women in the USA are either living in poverty or are on the brink of living in poverty."

Beyoncé wrote that women need to speak up for higher pay (a topic near and dear to Marie Claire's heart). While addressing statistics such as "women [comprising] half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes," Beyoncé stressed that not just women, but also men, need to demand higher wages for females. She added, "Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal?"

Discuss.

Read the essay here.

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