Yes, you read that correctly.

A couple of weeks before my bar mitzvah, my parents and I went to our rabbi’s home to discuss the big day. One of the honors for the bar mitzvah boy is that members of his family can get called up to read certain prayers during the service, so we gave him our list of names. When the rabbi saw our list, he informed us that we had a problem: We had more women readers than our conservative temple would allow.

As a result, right in front of me, my mom and the rabbi got into an argument. She wanted him to accept our family list without changes, he wanted her to respect our temple’s traditions, and no one was budging. After a few minutes of this back-and-forth, my mom looked him square in the eye and said the following: “You will never understand, as a man, what it feels like to be told you can’t do something just because you’re a woman.”

Quite literally, those words changed my life. The more I thought about it, the more I looked around, the more I realized that women get the short end of the stick all too often. Perhaps the starkest example of this ongoing reality is the gender pay gap: For every dollar the average man earns, the average woman takes home only 77 cents. For women of color, African American women and Latinas, the gap is even wider. That’s obviously a problem for women. What’s not often talked about, however, is that this is also a problem for families and for men. Also, did you know that men of color experience a pay gap, too, compared to white men?

As detailed by The Shriver Report — A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything, women now comprise 50 percent of the paid workforce for the first time in history, and two-thirds of mothers are either the primary or co-breadwinners for their families. In other words, the wages women earn have never been more important to individual families or the overall American economy than they are today.

The wage gap may hit women directly, but the men are hardly immune from its consequences. Over the course of a year, the gender pay gap results in the average woman earning $10,622 less than she should be taking home. President Obama is banking on rising women’s wages as a driving force of economic recovery; how different would the economy look if women were pocketing that money every year? How important is that money to the husband who was laid off and is still depending on his wife to get the family through his period of unemployment? How significant is an extra ten grand to the son who starts college in the fall and is counting on his mother to help him shoulder the enormous cost of tuition?

AAUW has more than 100,000 members and donors; only a couple hundred of them are men. Nevertheless, every man has a stake in AAUW’s efforts to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and our other efforts to finally eliminate the gender pay gap once and for all. So if you ask me, I’d say an AAUW membership is the perfect Father’s Day gift for Dad. After all, it literally pays dividends.

You know, my mom is right; men will never understand precisely how it feels for a woman to be told she can’t do something just because of her gender. However, it is certainly within our power to do something about it. As a 13-year-old boy hearing her words, I vowed to live up to that challenge. As a 28-year-old man today, I’m hoping other men hear the call to get involved.

And if you need any further inspiration, as soon as my mother said those words, the rabbi let us keep the list as it was. A blow was struck for women, and the men benefitted just as much. Think about it.

If you’re looking for someone to provide proper perspective on and due justice to the life of Dorothy Height, who died this morning at age 98, please accept my apology in advance. What can a 28-year-old, white, middle-class male from New York possibly have to say about the woman President Barack Obama called the “godmother of the civil rights movement”? This strikes me as one of those times when a person’s legacy speaks far greater volumes than any words the rest of us might come up with.

What do you say about a woman who graduated as valedictorian of her high school class and won a college scholarship to Barnard College, only to be denied admission because the school had already fulfilled its quota of two black students?

What do you say about a woman — the only woman — who stood on the platform of the Lincoln Memorial as Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech in August 1963?

What do you say about the woman King personally selected to go to Birmingham, Alabama, to comfort the families of four young black girls who were killed in an infamously vicious church bombing and provide some semblance of healing to a city torn asunder in its aftermath?

What do you say about a woman who advocated for school desegregation for children, equal pay for women, and civil rights for all — from Presidents Eisenhower to Obama?

What do you say about a woman who for 40 years headed the National Council of Negro Women and helped millions of Americans receive an education, register to vote, raise families, and achieve successful careers?

What do you say about a woman who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and 36 honorary doctorates from college and universities — including, not for nothing, Barnard College?

What do you say about a woman who — despite seeing and living through some of the most violent and traumatic periods of racial turmoil in American history — always fought fairly, spoke respectfully, listened considerately, and rose above the fray each and every time?

What can you, I, or anyone possibly say to do it all justice?

Two words, and only two: thank you.

Cross-posted with permission from AAUW Dialog

This Sunday beginning at 10 p.m., you can ask Lisa questions about the wage gap. She’ll join the Fem2.0 Twittercast on pay equity, along with experts from the National Women’s Law Center. The Sunday night chat will be hosted by Liza Sabater, a.k.a. blogdiva of Culture Kitchen, and Jill Miller Zimon of Writes Like She Talks. 

To join in on the conversation, go to tweetchat.com, log in, and enter the fem2 room.

This chat is a good way to get ready for Equal Pay Day, Tuesday, April 28, the symbolic date at which a woman’s salary finally catches up to her male counterpart from the previous year. Many AAUW members and supporters will wear red on Equal Pay Day to show how pay inequity keeps women in the red. They will also ask their senators to support the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would help create a climate in which wage discrimination is not tolerated. What will you do?

Now—even in this tough economy—is the time to fight for pay equity. In fact, the issue is more critical at this time because so many families across the nation are depending on a woman’s salary as their primary source of income. Bottom line: Wage discrimination doesn’t just hurt women; their families suffer as well.

To learn more, visit http://www.aauw.org/advocacy/issue_advocacy/EqualPayDay.cfm.

Recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows the gender pay gap has narrowed a mere one cent. Women now earn only 78 cents compared to the one dollar their male counterparts make. In response, AAUW launched a new grassroots campaign with a clear message: “Keep the Change until Women Have Real Change.”

While the wage gap is currently the narrowest it’s ever been, the change has been too small. One cent is chump change. While women have been hard at work to earn their extra penny, Congress has been slow to pass legislation that would give women effective equal pay protections. Although, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed into law by President Obama on January 29, it only reverses a U.S. Supreme Court’s problematic decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., restoring the long-standing interpretation of civil rights laws and EEOC policies that allowed employees to challenge any discriminatory paycheck they received. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is simply a down payment on much need wage equality legislation. The Paycheck Fairness Act (H.12/S.182) would provide additional tools to deter wage discrimination by closing loopholes in the 1963 Equal Pay Act, as well as prohibiting retaliation against workers who disclose their wages or ask about an employer’s wage practices. In the midst of these actions, AAUW and our friends are telling Congress: “Keep the Change until Women Have Real Change.” 

Please help AAUW promote this campaign by placing a “Keep the Change” web sticker on your website. You can find four different web stickers to choose from on the AAUW website with code to copy and paste next to each. Just click here to select a web sticker to use.

Also, if you choose to place a web sticker on your website, please send me an e-mail to let AAUW know we have your support.  We value your efforts in helping AAUW spread this important message.

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