By Venus Wu

NORFOLK

In a lifetime of work, typically a professional woman can expect to receive $1 million less in salary than a man would get.

The question is: How can this imbalance be eliminated?

In an effort to raise awareness to the issue of wage equity, The Women's Center of Tidewater Community College this week hosted Evelyn Murphy, president of the Women Are Getting Even Project. The WAGE Project, as it is known, seeks to eliminate wage discrimination against women within 10 years.

"Women earn 77 cents for every dollar that men earn," said Murphy, an economist and former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.

"The solution to this is an activist effort, where women act in ways that are informed, strategic and grass-root," she added.

The battle against wage discrimination does not fall solely on women's shoulders, Murphy said in her talk Tuesday. She said men should be women's "allies" in resolving this issue.

Mary Pat Liggio, coordinator of The Women's Center at TCC, said that men would also benefit from wage equity because "the whole family" gains when women's pay increases.

The wage gap in Virginia is wider than the national average, according to a 2007 report from the American Association of University Women. It showed that women in Virginia earn 67 cents for every $1 men earn, about a dime less than the national average.

Some professional women in Hampton Roads know of no local organization that focuses largely on wage discrimination against women.

Devra Culver, director of development with South Hampton Roads' YWCA, said such an organization "would be too narrow" in its scope.

"Discrimination does not limit itself in one area," said Culver, whose organization strives for wage equity as part of a broader goal of empowering women economically.

There have been efforts, however, to ensure that all workers are paid fairly. TCC, for example, has conducted two pay equity studies in the past 10 years.

"They make sure people are getting what they should be getting in terms of market value," Liggio said of those studies.

While pay adjustments were made as a result of the reports, Liggio said that changes were made with accordance to position, not gender.

Some people may assume that the responsibility of closing the wage gap lies with the government, but Murphy disagreed.

"Government can't solve this problem of wage discrimination," she said. "The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has been underfunded for the last 40-plus years of its existence.... This nation is not ever going to find the priority to find funding for enforcement of anti-discrimination laws."

Although wage discrimination is prohibited in the Code of Virginia and in the federal Equal Pay Act, Murphy said laws alone can not achieve wage equity. She asserted that the national wage gap of 23 cents had not decreased in the past 15 years.

"We passed the law over 40 years ago, but it still goes on," Murphy said of the federal law.