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We've come a long way, baby.

Or HAVE we?

It always shocks me when I am talking with someone who derides feminists or feminism in general. I usually follow up with a question about equal pay. "Oh, well of course I believe that women and men should be paid the same salary for the same job," they generally respond.

Well, then, sorry to say, YOU ARE A FEMINIST. Equal pay is one of the main tenets of modern feminism whether you are second wave, third wave or new wave.

So, feminists everywhere had a lot to be disappointed with today as the AAUW released the results of a new study on the pay gap between college-educated men and women. (See their web site for the full report at http://www.aauw.org/)

Seems the report found - among other things - that one year out of college, women in 1994 earned 80% of what their male counterparts made. By 2003, a decade after graduation, they had fallen further behind, earning only 69% of men's incomes.

Even more disturbing, this pay gap held despite controlling for the number of hours worked, parenthood and other factors. Overall, college-educated women still earned 12% less than their male peers, according to the report.

What is hardest to wrap my head around is the young women who are only one year out of college. One would presume they do not have pregnancy leave or child care issues to contend with at this point. And they STILL earn less than men? What is THAT all about?

Many of us know that once you have children, take time off from work, start a new career, work part time, flex time, etc., that your earnings go down. BUT TO START YOUR POST COLLEGE CAREER GETTING PAID LESS THAN MEN TO BEGIN WITH?

It does not make sense.

How can we say we have a come a long way?

How will we explain this inequity to our daughters?