n (Faludi xiii). Poverty levels are determined by the amount of money a person earns. When women are expected to relinquish power and money in employment, poverty and a loss of status follow.
Seventy-five percent, of women who work, earn less than twenty-thousand dollars annually (Faludi xiii). This is almost double the percentage of working men who earn so little. Part of the reason behind this wage gap is that eighty percent of women, who work, are employed in traditionally female occupations (Faludi xiii). Another reason, for the wage disparity, is that women do not, and have not, had access to successful mentors. Men are taught to understand the rules of employment. Salary offers are just the starting points of the negotiation of a wage and perks; they are not, initially, the final agreement between the employer and employee (Wolf 244). Consequently, a female can be hired at a lower wage and is not thought to be as valuable by the employer since the cost to the employer is lower.
Another cause of the wage gap is true discrimination against women. In a 1990 poll of chief executive officers at Fortune 1000 com
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