Every day women are forced to live in the crooked room wherein they are performing the same amount and level of work as men, yet they are compensated at much lower rates. I am one of those women.

Now you may have heard statements like " Well, women don't choose careers in STEM which tend to pay more."  I did.  I am a mathematician.  "Well, women don't have as much  education as men."  I do.  I have two masters degrees.  "Well, women take years off of work to raise small children."  I only took an average amount of maternity leave.  

It was July 2012, when one moment I was  happy with my 16-year career accomplishments and the next moment it all seemed to shatter before me.  As the men in my department shared their salaries,  I quickly found out a depressing truth - all of them were paid more than me, even the newly hired, even though I have equal or more experience, seniority, and education.  All my internal efforts to remedy my pay failed.  I was exhausted and felt defeated. My husband and I talked about what to do, and he said something I will never forget: “One day we will share one of three stories with our daughters.  We fought injustice and won, we fought injustice and lost, or when there was injustice we did nothing.” I knew I would rather lose a fight against injustice than walk away.
When we made that decision, I had no idea how long it would take, or how much we would invest both emotionally and financially. It took six months alone to obtain the right to sue from the Department of Justice because my paperwork got lost. Currently, we are awaiting the motion to summary process.

While many may argue what the pay gap actually is, no one argues whether or not it exists. The reality is that even if the pay gap is five cents, over the course of a lifetime of work, that still amounts to thousands of dollars that women lose in wages and retirement. Statistics show that women begin earning less right out of college. In December Maria Shriver and NBC caught wind of my story, and she visited me at my home to cover my fight for equality as part of The Shriver Report, which details the current plights women are facing in the United States.   To see more about my story and the interview click here.
Fight For Equal Pay

Many women, like me, work years without knowing that the man they sit next to is taking more money home to his family.  As the sole provider, I feel like so much has been stolen from my family –  time, money, and energy that they deserve from me. Only a small number of my coworkers will talk to me about my case. What everyone ignores is what I live with every day – the feeling that in my employer's eyes, I am not worth as much as men and that the stereotypes that come with being a Latina, Native American woman who is a mathematician – stereotypes I thought I overcame – are still there.

Political parties continue to argue over how to remedy pay discrimination. Many say that we do not need more laws, but without the Lilly Ledbetter Act, I would never have had the chance to fight the discrimination I experience. The Paycheck Fairness Act would create better transparency and accountability for employers. These laws do not open the door to frivolous lawsuits. No one would prefer the path of a lawsuit and the drain of standing up to institutions that have deep pockets and no emotional ties to propel them to resolve the issue.
Every day I went to work I exposed myself to twists of the discrimination knife that continues to inflict me. Praise for work well done, requests for work that requires my high skill-level, and statewide recognition for my expertise was tainted with the reality that my former employer chose to continually pay the only full-time woman in the math department less than her male counter parts. 

Would you consider financially supporting my fight for equality?  I have exhausted personal loans and want to see this through.  This is not only for my daughters but for yours.