Editor:

Jasyn Jones’ April 14 column, “Admit It: The Wage Gap Is Gone” showed Jones does not understand the nature of the wage gap dilemma.

While some studies indicate that women working in the same fields, with the same skills, doing the same jobs do earn close to the same as their male counterparts, the fact remains that women, overall, earn less than men. A great cause of this disparity is the gender discrimination between occupations. What is generally considered to be “women’s work” continually garners a fraction of the earnings “men’s work” does. For example, in New York State, school nurses in the West Islip school district start at $27,000, while grounds keepers start at $29,000. Is anyone going to argue that raking leaves is more valuable than caring for sick children?

For Jones to enthusiastically declare that paying men and women different amounts for the same job has been illegal since 1963, implying that it is not done, is naive. Smoking pot is also banned, but what did you do last weekend? In addition, June O’Neill, a researcher whom Jones referred to, points out equal pay legislation is “inadequate or even irrelevant because women tend to work in different occupations than men.”

According to O’Neill’s and her collaborator Jane Waldfogel’s study, the wage gap is 98 percent only for women in their early 20s. Women earn 80 percent at 25 to 34 years and 63 percent at 45 years and older. And Jones wants us to dance in the streets?

I invite Jones to take a class or read a book. I invite him to support his rants with legitimate arguments. Feminists have little time to consistently justify their demand for equality to individuals who refuse to educate themselves.

Megan Starks

Senior, Sociology