“Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” -Alice Paul, 1921 Equal Rights Amendment

Over 75 years ago, feminists first tried to legislate equal rights for all women. In every single year since 1921, the amendment has been proposed. Every single year, it has failed.

So flash forward to 1998, where equal rights in the workforce are still not guaranteed for women.

Linda Channon, the 47-year-old Des Moines woman who sued UPS for sexual harassment, is just one example of a nationwide, decades-old epidemic.

Channon worked at UPS for 23 years. In that time, she went from lifting and sorting boxes on the light-night shift to being a top-level manager.

Also in that time, she was paid up to $4,000 less than men performing the same jobs.

Channon got fed up, and spurred on by an alleged incident in which a male co-worker touched her breast, she sued the company and was awarded $80,747,872 in damages.

However, the vast majority of women in these situations never sue, never speak out against their employers. They may think their companies have the right to set unfair salaries, or maybe they think their situations are isolated incidents.

But the truth is, women simply do not make as much money as men do, only because they are women.

In 1995, white men in America, on average, made $32,172. White women, on the other hand, earned $22,911, according to the Census Bureau.

White women made only 71.2 percent as much money as white men.

Black women made $20,665 a year, 64.2 percent of the white male average and 84.6 percent of the black male average.

Some of these discrepancies are due to different types of jobs for different genders. It is true that women tend to hold lower-paying occupations such as sales and service jobs, in which equality is more difficult to measure and enforce. But a large percentage of unequal pay occurrences happen to women like Channon, where the company simply values women workers less than men.

Because of wage discrimination, women are forced to lower standard of living than men. A study cited by the National Committee on Pay Equity said that “nearly 40 percent of working poor women could leave welfare programs if they were to receive pay equity wage increase.” Not only is equal pay a good thing for working women, it’s a good thing for everyone wanting to fix the problems with welfare.

Channon’s case is interesting, because the jury felt compelled to award her almost $80,000,000 more than the legal limit of $300,000 in punitive damages for equal pay cases. One of the jury members said, “The only way to get a big company is to hit them with money.”

But will companies really take the hint and treat employees fairly, regardless of sex? Is the threat of an $80 million lawsuit, which the company could not legally be made to pay, enough to change attitudes?

Probably not, since these companies already ignore government mandates to treat workers fairly.

Two laws, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, already protect employees from wage discrimination. However, these laws are “poorly enforced” and violations are “difficult to prove and win,” according to the National Committee on Pay Equity.

And, although the National Organization of Women has proposed yet another equal rights amendment that would protect employees, the amendment is unlikely to pass because of the inclusion of abortion rights issues, so women will still not be assured of equal pay for equal work.

So in order to ensure that employers cannot treat workers differently because of their sex, a tough, easy to enforce Fair Pay Act is necessary.

This issue should be important to you, especially on a campus such as Iowa State. Graduates, both women and men, will be working hard in a wide variety of occupations, especially ones associated with a large company or firm.

You’ll be paid for what you do.

Or will you?

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Sara Ziegler is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Sioux Falls, S.D. She is the opinion editor of the Daily.