By Katy Snyder, JVA Consulting

The Denver Business Journal released the not-so-shocking news last week that Colorado women earn, on average, 80 cents to the dollar when compared to men. Not shocking because this is an issue that most of us have long been aware of. However, Colorado’s pay disparity, which for years was smaller than the nation’s average (in 2003, women were earning over 84 cents to the dollar in Colorado), has grown worse when compared to the nation over the last few years. How can we explain this slide? Is this number just skewed because of the large number of boomer women in the workforce today who have always been paid less than men? Are there other factors at work besides a simple disparity in per-hour earnings? How does the nonprofit sector fit into all of this? Read on to see some common myths about pay inequality debunked, and learn what you, as a nonprofit leader, can do about it.

Myth #1: Women are simply paid less per hour.

While only partially false (women are undoubtedly sometimes paid less for the same work), economists have often cited the fields that women go into or are steered into, which tend to be lower paid (or sometimes become lower paid after women enter them), and the implications of motherhood (studies have shown that women who reenter the workforce after children are less likely to be hired than childless women, and to be offered smaller salaries when they are), as bigger drivers of lower salaries than outright discrimination, at least in recent years. So while women are paid roughly equally to men in fields like education, they simply make less overall because education tends to pay less than, say, science or engineering. Entrenched sexism means that female-dominated fields pay less, and women feel the reverberations of having a child on their salary and career advancement prospects for years. Simply put, the problem is bigger than unequal hourly pay.

Myth #2: The pay gap is lessening, and younger women are less affected.

As much as I wish this were true, it’s not the case. As demonstrated by Colorado’s numbers, the gap has actually increased when compared to data from 10 years ago, and many sources say that young, recent graduates are just as affected as older women. The American Association of University Women study found that within one year of graduating, women were earning about 82 percent of what their male classmates were earning, and those who attended private, nonprofit universities were doing even worse, with women earning only 75 percent of what their male counterparts made. The article also points out that the pay gap is especially onerous for women who have student loans that they must begin paying on soon after college.

Myth #3: There is nothing that can be done.

Short of deciding not to have children or going into higher-paying fields (and even when women enter traditionally male-dominated fields, they earn more than those in female-dominated fields, but they still experience a pay gap when compared to men in their field or fields that have greater parity between men and women), it may seem like there’s not a lot you can do. But that is not true. First, you can vote for candidates at all levels that support equal pay. Everyone’s favorite meme from the second presidential debate between President Obama and Governor Romney had to be Romney’s cringe-inducing “binders full of women” comment, which awkwardly framed his discussion on the perceived lack of qualified women for posts in his state cabinet. What this sound bite overshadowed, however, was Obama’s unflinching position on equal pay, such as making the signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act law his first act upon taking office in 2009. Simply put, if women (and men) want to see change in the way women are paid, we will need to elect leaders who are willing to put this cause front and center, which, arguably, happened in this year’s election. We are on the right track. We are also on the right track to electing women—both Republican and Democrat—who have experienced this kind of disparity firsthand and recognize the urgency for change.

If you feel that you have been discriminated against, look into your state’s anti-discrimination laws. Most have them, and it is a much simpler process to pursue a discrimination claim at the state level than at the federal level. In Colorado, state law prohibits discrimination in employment based on certain characteristics, such as gender. Examples of prohibited discriminatory practices include: failure to hire or promote, harassment, unequal compensation, termination, and other practices. The Civil Rights Division of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Affairs handles discrimination claims and should be your first point of contact to file a claim.

What can nonprofits do?

Although dominated by women, the nonprofit sector itself has not been immune to pay disparity between men and women, especially at the executive level. According to data from The White House Project reported on by YNPN, female CEOs of nonprofits make just 66 percent as much as male CEOs, and they have lost ground in pay parity since 2000, when they made 71 percent of men’s salaries. So what can nonprofits do to lead the way?

When we put the question of remedying gender-based pay gaps to our Facebook friends, we heard the same thing: transparency, transparency, transparency. Many who weighed in said that wage transparency is paramount, including Lynn Ann Leonard, who said we need “transparency in salaries for all nonprofits throughout their organizations. How else are we supposed to use this information for any real reform?” Helping women overcome the fear of negotiating for higher salaries was a tactic mentioned by reader, Mathia Rall, who said, “We need to educate women on negotiation tactics.” Another reader, Lauren Price, shared a great article that says that women are willing to negotiate, but only when a job application specifically says that the salary is “negotiable.” In other words, women are willing to negotiate, but only when they feel that doing so is within the “rules.”

In addition to our readers’ comments, we think it’s important to advocate for change at the systems and policy levels. While it’s possible for some heroic women to buck the system, the fact remains that they are the exception, not the rule. To ensure that all women have the chance to earn at levels equal to men, more is needed:

Make sure your workplace policies allow working moms to get the time off they need and the incentives to come back after having children. Also, make sure not to leave fathers out. Some sources report that offering paternity leave helps not only lessen the burden on women immediately following birth, but also serves to alleviate the stereotype that only women should shoulder the burden of caring for a newborn.

At the nonprofit level, we need to advocate to funders against the starvation cycle and bare bones budgets that many consider the norm for nonprofits. Nonprofits need the funds to adequately compensate their staffs, which are predominantly women. As long as budgets are constantly strained, nonprofit salaries will stay low, which will affect primarily women.

On a broader level, there is room for us to come together as a sector to advocate for equal pay policies, and, more importantly, some sort of equitable pay policies that change the way we value work to help change the perceptions that allow male-dominated fields to pay higher. There is much to be done in this area, and we welcome your suggestions for how exactly this could happen and what form a nonprofit coalition would take.

These are just a few ideas—we’d love to hear more from you. To keep the conversation going, leave a comment in the comment box below.