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"Dear Wisconsin State Senator Glenn Grothman: In &amp;quot;celebration&amp;quot; of (We&amp;#x27;re Still Waiting for) Equal Pay Day last week, I called out your justifications for repealing your state&amp;#x27;s Equal Pay Enforcement Act. You know, that the wage gap is really just a gap in priorities because, and I quote, &amp;quot;You could argue that money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.&amp;quot;Flash forward one week and, thanks to a new report from the Pew Research Center, I can call you flat-out wrong. More young women than ever rank &amp;quot;being successful in a high-paying career&amp;quot; as &amp;quot;one of the most important things&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;very important&amp;quot;&amp;amp;#8212;a full two-thirds of &amp;#x27;em, in fact, as opposed to the 59 percent of men who feel the same way. I look forward to seeing your office, now armed with this data, advocating for appropriate compensation for working women, i.e. more cash. Sincerely, Caitlin &amp;quot;Show-Me-the-Money&amp;quot; Kelly In the midst of this whole &amp;amp;#8220;War on Women&amp;amp;#8221; thing, the Pew report is kind of a big deal for gender dynamics. For the first time, more young women than men are putting their careers&amp;amp;#8212;and salaries&amp;amp;#8212;first: 66 percent of women ages 18 to 34 say &amp;quot;being successful in a high-paying career or profession&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;one of the most important things&amp;quot; (18%) or &amp;quot;very important&amp;quot; (48%)... ...as opposed to 59 percent of young men, of whom only 11 percent say it&amp;amp;#8217;s &amp;quot;one of the most important things.&amp;quot; Meanwhile, women and men over 35 have landed on the same page, with 42 percent and 43 percent, respectively, saying it&amp;amp;#8217;s &amp;quot;one of the most important things&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;very important.&amp;quot; I would definitely count myself among that 18 percent of young women. Like many of you, I&amp;amp;#8217;m sure, I pride myself on my job performance and get a lot of personal satisfaction from it. And in this economy, I&amp;#x27;m not exactly waiting for Prince Charming to swoop in and cover my bills. The survey also asked about the importance of &amp;amp;#8220;having a successful marriage&amp;amp;#8221; and &amp;amp;#8220;being a good parent.&amp;amp;#8221; Both men and women ranked these aspirations higher than their careers, with women again placing a higher value on these priorities across the board. While the report left me wondering what, exactly, young men are prioritizing highly these days, the authors walked away with this conclusion instead: &amp;amp;#8220;Thus, the increased importance women are now placing on their careers has not come at the expense of the importance they place on marriage and family.&amp;amp;#8221; I think it&amp;amp;#8217;s great that so many women have high hopes for both their professional and personal lives. What remains to be seen is if all these women who aspire to &amp;quot;have it all&amp;quot; will compromise one day (i.e. maintain the status quo). As things stand now in the United States, motherhood will cost you and, as more women are becoming primary or co-breadwinners, your family. (Fatherhood, on the other hand, is tolerated just fine, in case you were wondering.) One company Down Under has the right idea: Insurance Australia Group recently announced it will double new moms&amp;#x27; normal salaries for their first six weeks back on the job. This is in addition to paid maternity leave from the government and the company. (Meanwhile, the U.S. is the only industrialized nation with no national law mandating paid parental leave.) Maybe this seems a little unfair at first (&amp;quot;Hey, where&amp;#x27;s my bonus for getting a puppy and still going to work?&amp;quot;), but think about it a little. This policy treats working women like the valuable assets they are, worth retaining, not replacing like another proverbial cog in the machine. And if you&amp;#x27;re going to bank on an employee, then it makes sense to invest in her with training, mentoring, sponsorship, and promotion. It sets up a pipeline for women leadership that is sorely lacking so far; no surprise, then, that IAG also aims to have one-third of its senior management positions filled by women by 2015. What do you think of the survey&amp;#x27;s findings? Is a high-paying career on top of your to-do list? How about marriage or kids? Would a policy like IAG&amp;#x27;s change your plans, or do you think I&amp;#x27;m off my rocker to hope it would help level the playing field for women and mothers in the workplace? Photo: Brand X Pictures"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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