Changing Hawaii

By Diane Yukihiro Chang

Friday, April 3, 1998

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What do women want?
Pay equity!

WHEN Maui Mayor Linda Lingle met with members of the Star-Bulletin editorial board last month, somebody (OK, it was me) asked if she considered herself to be a feminist. The Republican candidate for governor frowned and paused for a moment. "Feminist? I don't know what that is," Lingle replied. "I consider myself a humanist."

What a disappointing cop-out of an answer. Chalk up another person -- and a strong, capable leader at that -- who considers "feminist" to be a dirty word, when it actually is a synonym for a simple yet elusive ideal: someone who believes in equal rights for women.

Listen, Linda, as long as "humans" of a certain gender earn more money, have more decision-making authority and basically run society, there's no such thing as a level playing field where "humanism" can thrive. Feminists don't want women to rule the planet; they just want the gals to help the guys spin the globe.

On Monday, six members of the state House leadership, led by Speaker Joe Souki, also stopped by the Star-Bulletin newsroom -- but there wasn't a single lady in their group. What does that say?

That a good woman legislator is hard to find?

That not enough wahine are running for office, winning and participating in the processing of writing the laws that affect everyone in the land?

That not enough women are being listened to and respected in the workplace and/or community?

Yes, yes, yes. And it's not getting better, fast.

Just how bad is it? Since today is National Equal Pay Day, take a gander at these sobering statistics from the National Committee on Pay Equity and hold onto your wallets.

It shows that, on average, employers still aren't setting wages on a sex- and race-neutral basis:

Women earn only 74 cents for each full dollar earned by men.

College-educated women earn $11,870 less annually than college-educated men. Even women with college degrees earned only slightly more ($1,820) than men who had not continued their studies beyond high school.

In direct job comparisons, where pay should have been equal, women earned less in 86 of 92 industries, according to the January 1997 issue of Working Woman magazine.

Women represent 68 percent of all part-time workers, who are least likely to have benefits and have the lowest hourly earnings.

Women who had graduated from one of the top 20 business schools earned average annual salaries of $54,749 -- 12 percent less than the $61,400 earned by men with similar backgrounds, according to the Bipartisan Glass Ceiling Commission.

THE status quo groupies in the islands will argue that it's not totally bleak. They might cite a 1990 state ranking, done by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, which showed Hawaii behind only the District of Columbia in median annual female and male earnings by dollar and ratio.

Second in the country! Sounds good, doesn't it?

Sounds great, until one learns that the average woman in Hawaii still made only $19,000 annually while the average man in Hawaii made $25,000 a year. That's 76 cents on the dollar.

Granted, it's two whole cents higher than the national average of 74 cents on the buck.

So why aren't certain "humans" jumping for joy?