New York State finally had its mind on the money when it was ranked as the No. 1 state with the smallest gender pay gap on Friday by the American Association of University Women.

The data found that New York women earn 89 percent of what their counterparts who are men do — a far cry from Louisiana’s 70-percent discrepancy. While progress is worth celebrating, it’s important to remember these figures fail to address an even more potent pay difference: those between minority women and their white co-workers who are men.

National Women’s Law Center reports from 2015 show that black women still earn 66 percent, Latinas 55.5 percent, Asians 82.3 percent and Native American women 59.3 percent of what their counterparts who are men make. These problems result from not only the inherent sexism and misogyny that’s still a part of our culture, but also from the deep-rooted racism and bigotry that has resulted in women of color working just as hard for only about half as much.

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There will always be angry man babies and Tomi Lahrens trying to label the wage gap as a “feminist fantasy.” But that shouldn’t stop state and federal governments from recognizing reality and taking a stronger stance to enact further change.

A study conducted by The New York Women’s Foundation in January 2017 found that at the rate it’s going, the wage gap for all New York women, regardless of race and ethnicity, won’t fully close until 2049. Running on New York time means we shouldn’t have the patience to wait that long.

Luckily, New York policymakers aren’t just sitting around. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has issued executive orders preventing state companies from accessing women’s previous salary histories for discrimination, to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s call for a federal minimum wage hike to combat pay inequities, New York state is putting its money — quite literally — where its mouth is.

The spirit of women in this country has always been one marked by resilience. From when we earned the right to vote in 1920 — 1964 for black women after the removal of poll taxes — to the promise of equal pay by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, we have bided our time.

When women succeed, we succeed as a country, too. So lace up your boot straps, ladies, because our time has come.

Kelsey Thompson is a junior magazine journalism major. Her column appears biweekly. She can be reached at katho101@syr.edu.

Published on September 19, 2017 at 10:42 pm