Feminists are Calling for Passage of the Dangerous Paycheck Fairness Act

By Diana Furchtgott-Roth

To see why some women make less than some men, look no further than the Geller Law Group, described in a front page New York Times Sunday Business section article by reporter Noam Scheiber.

The women-owned Geller Law Group, based in Fairfax, Virginia, is a small family-friendly law firm that allows women time to be with their children. The firm’s credo: women should not be judged by “face time” in the office.

Partners Maria Simon and Rebecca Geller “have a near-evangelical determination to show that parents can nurture their professional ambitions while being fully present in their children’s lives,” writes Scheiber. The article is accompanied by photos of Ms. Simon dropping off her four-year old son at school, and Ms. Geller helping her four-year old with a toy swimming pool while sending emails to clients.

Simon and Geller are fortunate to have flexible jobs as law partners where they can give parenting the time they believe it deserves. Partners bill themselves out at $280 an hour, less than at leading law firms, and allow time for kids’ activities. Ms. Simon stated that her pay is about half the $250,000 to $300,000 she would have earned at major law firm, but “the freedom she purchased has come at a relative bargain.” 

Feminists complain that women are victims of discrimination who earn 78 cents on a man’s dollar. This misleading figure compares earnings of full-time working women to those of men, irrespective of type of job or time in the workforce. But the story of the Geller Law Group shows that women’s choices can result in lower pay. Ms. Simon states that she is glad to be earning 50 cents on a man’s dollar, because this enables her to spend more time with her family.

The same choices can be observed every day in women’s search for flexible jobs. Yale Law School Women just released their 2015 list of the Top Ten Family Friendly Firms. These firms, including Arnold & Porter, Hunton & Williams, and Kirkland & Ellis, are judged on the basis of their willingness to offer part-time and flex-time working hours; family leave; gender equity; and parental leave. Some of the smartest young women in the country are looking for family friendly jobs before they even have children, and these family-friendly jobs tend to pay less.

Becoming a partner in a major law firm takes hours of work, not all of it family-friendly. Yale Law School Women found improvements in parental accommodation, but concluded that usage of these benefits has not increased. The percentage of female partners is 19 percent, the same as in 2008. 

The causes of the average wage gap are not hard to find. When in college, women tend to major in the humanities rather than in math, engineering and science. Once they graduate, more women than men work for non-profits, which pay less. Twenty-four percent of women work part-time, and full-time women work on average fewer hours than do full-time men.

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