There’s a Gap for That

The gender wage gap seems like just another holdover in a society that has never treated women equally. And in part, it really is that simple. But, not entirely. In Bloomberg, Claire Suddath takes an interesting look at a surprisingly hard question to answer: Why Can’t Your Company Just Fix the Gender Wage Gap? “Over the past 50 years, women have achieved an astounding level of equality in the U.S. They have become astronauts and U.S. Supreme Court justices and have come so close to winning the presidency it’s easy to forget that until 1974 they couldn’t get a credit card unless a man co-signed the application. Women are the primary breadwinners in half of all U.S. families. They’re more likely to hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree than men, and should they choose to marry, about a third of them will keep their last name. But one of the most intractable and measurable differences between women and men in the U.S. is the kind of jobs they hold and how much they’re paid.”

+ Those of us in the Bay Area’s tech community like to think of ourselves as the center of the progressive world. But a series of recent stories have made it clear that we also remain stubbornly stuck to our bro culture ways. And the stories keep coming. The latest from the NYT: Women in Tech Speak Frankly on Culture of Harassment. (It used to be a criticism to say a VC was just in it for the money. These days, that sounds like a compliment.)

+ Dave McClure (one of those named in the NYT piece) resigns as general partner of 500 Startups funds.