I remember the lawyer, half a generation older than I, describing how, as a recent law school graduate she struggled even to get an interview for a job as a lawyer. When an offer came, she eagerly accepted, even though the firm’s senior partner told her that, “of course” she would be paid less than the male associates, because she was married and they “had families to support.”
The Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. §206(d), was enacted in 1963 “[t]o prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages.”1 But half a century later statistical disparities still exist between men and women’s pay, although the reasons and size of the gap are often debated.2
