Statement
MomsRising Member Statement on Wage Discrimination
January 29, 2014
Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996
Democratic Steering and Policy Committee Briefing, Cannon House Office Building, January 29, 2014
Hello, my name is Laura Mui and I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in Oakland, CA. My partner and husband, my four-year-old son and I live in San Ramon, CA. I am here today to speak about my own personal experience with wage discrimination. I would like to thank Representative Pelosi and MomsRising for inviting me here to share my story.
I always knew about the wage gap, the unjust and sad reality that men often earn significantly more than women for performing the same job. However, I thought that this shocking disparity would never happen to me personally, for two reasons: 1) because I was born and raised to believe that all Americans are created equal, and 2) I worked really hard, often 2-3 jobs at a time, to be able to go to prestigious universities so that I could compete in a male dominated world. I obtained my BA from UC Berkeley and my masters in counseling psychology from Columbia University. I thought my degrees would help “level out the playing field.”
Additionally, as a psychotherapist, I thought that this would be the one profession that would not and COULD not allow this kind of injustice. In mental health we understand just how psychologically, socially, and emotionally debilitating it is to be discriminated against. Every day we see and combat these overlapping layers of discrimination: racism, classism, heterosexism, sexism, ageism, ableism, and non-acceptance of different religions/spirituality. So, when the discrimination happened to me personally, within the very field that supposedly prides itself on having workplace equality, I was, to say the least, disenchanted.
While wage discrimination based on gender is often difficult to prove, I was in a unique position to find out. The person who was earning more than me for doing the same job was my partner and now husband! We met nine years ago as graduate students at Columbia. We graduated together with the EXACT same degree. Two years later when we became employed by the same agency for the EXACT same position as a school-based clinician, just at different school sites, yet we were dumbfounded by our salary offers.
As his first job within the field he was offered $41,000 a year while I was offered only $35,700 a year, a whopping 13 percent less! We both naturally believed that I would actually earn more than him for several reasons: Prior to graduate school, I worked in the field for five years, had outstanding references and held a California Pupil Personnel Services Credential, all of which substantially "beefed" up my resume in comparison to my husband's. And yet, my salary offer was more than $5,000 less. The only reasons we could possibly think of were two other "straightforward" differences: I am female and Chinese American. My husband? White and male.
Every day at work, as I provided therapeutic services to underserved youth and their families, this knowledge burned my very being. I felt demeaned, disrespected, belittled, DEVALUED and LESS THAN A MAN, and by extension, LESS THAN HUMAN, at this disparity. At times, it was difficult to be around my husband knowing that I worked every bit as hard as him, and brought a unique experience and perspective to my job, yet was still paid less. Often my husband asked ME for help, yet I was the one earning less money. In short, I was less than.
We attempted to fix, or at least mediate our situation with the employment agency, by asking them why there was such a remarkable difference in our pay scale. However, we were given the runaround. Emails, phone calls and letters were left unanswered. We could not afford a lawyer, and had to accept the situation. In the two years I was there I made more than $10,000 less than my husband. That equates to approximately $400 a month, which could have helped us with rent, access to healthy food, childcare and many other needs. The wage disparity also impacted my future earnings and social security benefits as well.
My story is sadly very real and likely very common. Millions of women across the country are getting paid less than their male co-workers but have no idea because of the secrecy surrounding employee salaries in most workplaces. My husband and I were in the unique position to compare our salaries for the same position and see the disparity first hand. We are committed to using this knowledge to help raise awareness about wage discrimination and change this injustice for everyone!
Thank you again for the opportunity to share my story.