U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission
In January 2010, Carlton Hadden, Director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) Office of Federal Operations (OFO), commissioned a work group to identify the obstacles that remain in the federal workplace that hinder equal employment opportunities for women.
This women's workgroup was created in furtherance of the EEOC's overall mission to eradicate discrimination in both the federal sector and private sector workplace. EEOC's OFO ensures equality of opportunity within the federal sector by implementing its regulatory and adjudicatory authority and through use of its oversight function.
This workgroup's necessity is supported by current government-wide data. As just a small example, in 2011, women comprised 43.81% of the federal workforce.(1) Despite this, preliminary data for 2011 shows that women only comprised 37.77% of GS-14 and GS-15 positions, and 30.03% of Senior Executive Service positions.(2) Further, the average General Schedule and Related (GSR) grade for women was 9.6, more than one grade below the average grade level for men of 10.7.(3)
Additionally, this workgroup is timely based on the EEOC's Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2012-2016. The Strategic Plan establishes a framework to achieve the EEOC's mission to stop and remedy unlawful employment discrimination and to promote equal opportunity in the workplace. With regard to the federal sector, the new Strategic Plan sets forth our objective to use education and outreach to prevent employment discrimination, deliver excellent service through effective systems, update technology, have a skilled and diverse workforce, and combat employment discrimination through strategic law enforcement.
In advancement of the mission of the Commission and OFO's oversight responsibilities, between 2010 and 2012, the women's workgroup engaged in a series of discussions with EEO officials, various affinity groups, and subject matter experts. The workgroup decided that it would be most efficient to hold these discussions in conjunction with a similar workgroup commissioned to identify obstacles for African Americans in the federal workplace.
In summation, the workgroup began the dialogue about obstacles facing women by engaging in a roundtable discussion with federal EEO Directors, who are responsible for the implementation of a continuing affirmative employment program to promote equal employment opportunity and to identify and eliminate discriminatory practices and policies. Next, the workgroup engaged in roundtable dialogue with federal Special Emphasis Program Managers, who are tasked with assisting Agencies in ensuring equal opportunity for specific protected classes that are underrepresented. Subsequently, the workgroup held roundtable discussions with various affinity groups, including Blacks in Government (BIG); Federally Employed Women (FEW); and the African American Federal Executives Association (AAFEA).
Additionally, the workgroup dialogued with non-federal interest and advocacy groups, including the Equal Justice Society, the Women's Bar Association of the District of Columbia, Workplace Flexibility 2010, and the Equal Rights Center. Finally, we received input from academic expert Dr. Paula Caplan, who is the Voices of Diversity Project Director for the W.E.B. Dubois Institute at Harvard University and an author, noted research psychologist, and professor. We assured our dialogue partners that their contributions to this discussion would only be generally reported and not specifically attributed to any particular dialogue partner.
Our dialogue partners identified many obstacles to achieving equality for women in the federal workforce and provided recommendations for overcoming those obstacles. For the most part, the impediments identified below were independently and repeatedly identified by our dialogue partners as the most formidable obstacles to equal employment opportunities for women in the federal sector.
We note that while we are not issuing a traditional report with findings and conclusions of the EEOC, we are issuing this report to memorialize the obstacles and recommendations identified by our dialogue partners.
Inflexible workplace policies create challenges for women in the federal workforce with caregiver obligations.
Our dialogue partners reported that a major obstacle that applies to women more than any other EEO class is balancing work and life issues (work/life balance). A prevalent work/life balance issue is caregiving obligations. Caregiving obligations often create conflicts with work for women, particularly in non-flexible work environments.
Widespread cultural and lifestyle changes in American society have led to an overall increase of women in the workplace over the last several decades, especially women with caregiving responsibilities. In the EEOC's Caregiver Guidance (Guidance), the Commission noted "[t]he rise [of the number of women in the American workforce] has been most dramatic for mothers of young children, who are almost twice as likely to be employed today as were their counterparts 30 years ago."(4) The Guidance noted that the total number of hours per week married couples with minor children spent working also increased.(5) In many families, particularly those with lower wage earners, it has become necessary for women to work. A recent Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that a record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family.(6) Despite a greater presence of women working outside of the home, "Women continue to be most families' primary caregivers."(7)
In writing for the Supreme Court in 2003, Chief Justice Rehnquist stated that "the faultline between work and family [is] precisely where sex-based overgeneralization has been and remains strongest."(8) Sex-based stereotyping associated with caregiver responsibilities is not restricted to childcare and can be based on other forms of caregiving, such as for a sick parent, spouse or other relative.(9) Our Guidance noted that women who have caregiving responsibilities "may be perceived as more committed to caregiving than to their jobs and as less competent than other workers, regardless of how their caregiving responsibilities actually impact their work."(10)
Further, our dialogue partners noted that women often face obstacles when returning to the workplace after leaving for a period of time for caretaking responsibilities. For example, because of caregiving responsibilities, women may have fewer years of work experience, may work fewer hours per year, are less likely to work a full-time schedule, and leave the labor force for longer periods of time.(11) In 2009, 24 percent of employed women (age 20 and older) worked part time, whereas only 11 percent of men did so.(12)
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that women may forego advancement or higher earnings in exchange for positions that offer greater flexibility in managing work and family obligations.(13) This information is significant because studies have found that when a woman returns to the workplace after a leave of absence, such as maternity leave, that period of leave has been estimated to result in a wage loss of 3-9% percent per year of absence compared to the individuals with continuous employment.(14)
A recent PEW poll revealed telling societal attitudes about women successfully balancing work and caregiving responsibilities. The poll revealed that about three-quarters of adults (74%) said the increasing number of women working has made it harder for parents to raise children, and half said that it has made it harder for marriages to succeed.(15) At the same time, two-thirds said it has made it easier for families to live comfortably.(16)
Our dialogue partners stressed that the only way to ensure that women with caregiving responsibilities can successfully balance both their work and home-life responsibilities is the implementation of effective and flexible workplace policies geared towards allowing individuals to achieve a work/life balance.
The dialogue partners reported that inflexible federal workplace policies create the following issues for women who have caregiving responsibilities:
The dialogue partners made the following recommendations to address inflexible workplace policies that affect women:
Higher level and management positions remain harder to obtain for women.
Our dialogue partners reported that higher level and management positions remain harder to obtain for women. As we noted earlier, in preliminary data for 2011, women only comprised 37.77% of GS-14 and GS-15 positions, and 30.03% of Senior Executive Service positions.(17) Additionally, the average GSR and related grade for women was 9.6, more than one grade below the average grade level for men of 10.7.(18)
Many academics believe that the "glass ceiling"(19) is to blame for hindering women's progress in ascending the career ladder. The term "glass ceiling" describes "an invisible - but impenetrable - obstacle between women and the executive suite, preventing them from reaching the highest levels of the business world regardless of their accomplishments and merits."(20) In the federal sector, women have made great strides in their representation in the overall federal workforce. However, as the aforementioned statistics indicate, women comprise a less than expected percentage of higher level and management positions. As stated by Valerie Jarrett, the Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama and Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls: "We have made a great deal of progress, but we still have a very long way to go."(21)
Most of our dialogue partners identified a lack of mentoring as a factor in many women's inability to attain higher level and management positions in the federal sector. According to the Office of Personnel Management, "Mentoring is usually a formal or informal relationship between two people - a senior mentor (usually outside the protégé's chain of supervision) and a junior protégé."(22)
The dialogue partners noted that most current managers and senior executives were groomed for their positions by mentors who steered and prepared them for career advancement. Our partners maintained that few management officials formally mentor any employees, and even fewer mentor women because managers and senior executives tend to groom employees for advancement who are most similar to themselves. Our partners stated that because most managers are not women, inequality is often reproduced and creates a profound disadvantage for women.
Our dialogue partners also noted that insufficient training is a significant impediment to women reaching higher level and management positions in the federal sector. Training provides planned, organized experiences that assist in the gaining or expansion of key competencies.(23) Training for women not only builds needed competencies in order to achieve mission success and performance objectives, but also helps prepare women to take on new or expanded work duties and positions, including management positions. Our dialogue partners noted that they believe that inequalities in the federal sector will be replicated and exacerbated if women do not receive developmental training on an equal footing as men.
Our dialogue partners stated that the lack of developmental assignments for women is another impediment to women reaching higher level and management positions in the federal workforce. Developmental assignments are temporary projects assigned for the purpose of exposing employees to work duties and environments that will prepare them for promotional opportunities. Our dialogue partners maintained that, through assignments, managers often steered women into non-management tracks and traditional female positions, such as staff positions or human resources, research, or administrative positions rather than managerial or high level positions.
The dialogue partners identified the following issues related to women's difficulty in obtaining higher level and management positions:
The dialogue partners made the following recommendations to address obstacles related to women obtaining higher level and management positions:
Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields in the federal workforce.
Our dialogue partners reported that women are less likely than men to work in federal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) positions. In fiscal year 2012, women comprised the majority of federal employees working in the fields of personnel management and industrial relations, medical, hospital, dental, and public health, legal, social science, and accounting and budget. (24) Conversely, women held significantly less STEM positions in the federal workforce. Specifically, women held only 31 percent of information technology positions, 32 percent of natural resources management and biological science positions, 28 percent of physical science positions, and 15 percent of engineering and architecture positions.(25) This pattern is similar to the civilian workforce.(26)
Our dialogue partners reported that because a STEM degree is required for many or most STEM federal sector positions, any gender disparities in STEM educational attainment will reverberate in federal sector employment. Women earn substantially fewer degrees in the rapidly growing and higher paying STEM fields of computer sciences, mathematics, statistics, physical sciences, earth sciences, and engineering.(27) Specifically, from 2001 through 2010, women only received 18.4 percent of bachelor's degrees in engineering, 43.1 percent of bachelor's degrees in mathematics and statistics, 41.3 percent of bachelor's degrees in physical sciences, 39.3 percent of bachelor's degrees in earth, atmospheric and ocean sciences, and 18.2 percent of bachelor's degrees in computer sciences.(28) Similar patterns are reflected in the percentage of master's and doctoral degrees in STEM fields awarded to women.(29) The lower percentage of women receiving STEM degrees results in substantially fewer women than men available in the applicant pool to recruit to federal STEM positions, which presents a formidable challenge to efforts to increase women's representation in federal STEM occupations.
Additionally, dialogue partners expressed concern that even when women have STEM degrees, they are less likely to be hired, promoted, and supported than their male federal sector counterparts. We note that a recent Yale University study found that female scientists have a tougher time succeeding in the workplace than their male colleagues.(30) Researchers reported that in rating applicants for a laboratory position, science faculty participants rated a male candidate as significantly more competent than a female candidate with an identical application.(31) Additionally, participants were more likely to hire the male candidate than the female candidate, as well as assign him a higher starting salary and offer the male candidate more career mentoring.(32) Notably, male and female participants were equally likely to exhibit bias against the female candidate, which the researchers concluded reflected unintentional biases that stem from widespread cultural stereotypes about women's competence in science.(33)
The dialogue partners reported that the following issues are related to the underrepresentation of women in STEM positions in the federal government:
The dialogue partners made the following recommendations to address the underrepresentation of women in federal sector STEM positions:
Women and men do not earn the same average salary in the federal government.
Our dialogue partners noted that women in the federal workforce are not earning equal pay compared to men. The gender pay gap is the difference between men and women's average annual salary.(37) The gender pay gap specifically affects women, who continue to be paid less than similarly qualified and experienced men who have similar job duties.
The gender pay gap is a particularly substantial obstacle for women in the federal workforce because in the current financial crisis, federal employees are faced with increased financial challenges, stagnant federal wages, and furloughs. Additionally, more than 12 million American families rely primarily on women's earnings.(38) The District of Columbia, which houses a large portion of federal workers, has the highest share of "breadwinner mothers," with 63.8 percent of mothers in working families bringing home at least half of their family's earnings.(39)
Despite the fact that women are now earning Bachelor's and Master's Degrees at a higher rate than men, men are still earning more money than women in similar positions.(40) Studies show that in the federal workforce, the gender pay gap still exists, although it has declined and is not as significant as it currently is in the private sector.(41) For example, a study conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that in the federal sector in 1988, women earned 72 cents for every dollar a Man earned (a 28 cent difference).(42) In 1998, federal sector women earned 81 cents for every dollar a Man earned (a 19 cent difference).(43) And in 2007, federal sector women earned 89 cents for every dollar a Man earned (an 11 cent difference).(44) The study concluded that seven cents of the current gender gap cannot be accounted for by measurable factors and may be the result of discriminatory practices.(45)
Our dialogue partners noted that African American women and Hispanic women earn even less than the average Woman. Studies have corroborated the dialogue partners' observations, and have found that the gender pay gap is even worse for women who are also part of a minority racial or national origin group. For example, in the private sector, African American women earn only 64 cents for every dollar a Man earns, and Hispanic women earn only 55 cents for every dollar a Man earns.(46) At this time, there is no comparable data available for the federal sector.(47)
The dialogue partners reported the following issues related to the gender pay gap in the federal government:
The dialogue partners made the following recommendations to address the gender pay gap in the federal government:
Unconscious gender biases and stereotypical perceptions about women still play a significant role in employment decisions in the federal sector.
Dialogue partners reported that discrimination towards women today tends to be more subtle and can often be directly attributable to unconscious gender bias. Unconscious bias is defined as "social behavior . . . driven by learned stereotypes that operate automatically - and therefore unconsciously - when we interact with other people."(48) Notably, unconscious bias was also reported to us as a major obstacle affecting other protected groups in the federal government.(49)
Prejudiced actions are often the unconscious manifestation of mental processing and stereotypical associations, of which the prejudiced subject may be completely unaware.(50) While individuals are generally unaware of their unconscious biases, there are tools available to help individuals understand the biases that motivate their everyday decision making. For instance, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a test that assesses bias by measuring the speed with which an individual associates a categorical status (such as women) with a given characteristic or description (such as good or bad).(51)
Our dialogue partners noted that with regard to women, unconscious gender biases result in management viewing female applicants and current employees in predetermined ways. One dialogue partner noted that this is a particularly troubling issue in the recruitment and selection processes where hiring decisions are unknowingly based on whether a candidate has similar characteristics to the recruitment or selecting official.(52) This phenomenon, referred to as the "Mini-Me Syndrome," is problematic for females because the majority of recruitment and selecting officials are male, and they are unaware that they are subconsciously filtering candidates based on their gender.(53)
The dialogue partners reported that unconscious gender bias creates the following issues for women in the federal government:
The dialogue partners made the following recommendations to address unconscious gender biases that affect women in the federal government:
There is a perception that Agencies lack commitment to achieving equal opportunities for women in the federal workplace.
Our dialogue partners reported that an obstacle for women in the federal workplace is that it appears that Agencies lack commitment to achieving equal opportunities for women in the workplace. As examples, the dialogue partners noted that EEO programs lack resources, particularly when compared to other Agency departments, and Agencies are not adequately held accountable when they do not comply with EEO regulations or have been found to have discriminated against an employee.
Our dialogue partners stated that Agencies' EEO programs generally lack adequate resources, including funding, to effectively prevent and address discrimination against women and other groups. In a time of budget uncertainty, all federal Agencies are forced to choose which of their programs will lose funding. It is important that Agencies balance their budget obligations while ensuring that their EEO programs remain sufficiently funded. In accordance with the Commission's Management Directive 715 ( MD-715), Agencies must allocate sufficient resources to create and/or maintain EEO programs that identify and eliminate barriers that impair the ability of individuals to compete in the workplace because of their protected bases, establish and maintain training and education programs designed to provide maximum opportunity for all employees to advance, and ensure that unlawful discrimination in the workplace is promptly corrected and addressed.(54) Our dialogue partners noted that when EEO programs are not adequately funded, it sends the message that EEO issues are not valued as important within the Agency.
The dialogue partners also reported that Agencies are not adequately held accountable when they do not comply with EEO regulations and management directives. As an example, the dialogue partners noted that Agencies frequently do not comply with the timeframes required by EEO regulations when completing EEO counseling, issuing an acknowledgment letter, completing an investigation, or issuing a final Agency decision. The dialogue partners noted that there are no real consequences for the Agency's non-compliance with the timeframes. In contrast, if a Complainant does not comply with a timeframe, it will result in immediate dismissal of their complaint, hearing, or appeal. The dialogue partners noted that this double standard undermines the perception of neutrality in the EEO process and stymies the eradication of obstacles to equal employment opportunities for all groups, including women.
Many of our dialogue partners reported that their Agencies do not comply with the MD-715, in which we require that the Director of Equal Employment Opportunity be under the immediate supervision of the Agency head. Additionally, dialogue partners stated that a significant percentage of Agencies still fail to evaluate managers on EEO factors, which means that those managers are not sufficiently held accountable for their performance in EEO. These practices send the message that commitment to equal employment opportunity is not embraced by Agency leadership.
The dialogue partners also stated that when an Agency is found to have discriminated against an employee, the Agency is not adequately held accountable for the discrimination. The dialogue partners noted that when the Commission only orders Agencies to consider disciplining the responsible management officials, Agencies usually do not discipline responsible management officials. The dialogue partners stated that this unfair practice sends a strong message to employees that EEO is not a priority within the Agency and that discriminators can get away with their illegal conduct. Additionally, the dialogue partners reported that the Commission does not publicize findings of discrimination, and as a result, Agencies are not adequately deterred from changing their workplace practices to ensure that discrimination does not occur again. The dialogue partners noted that these obstacles make it more difficult to effectively combat discrimination and eradicate impediments for women in the federal government.
The dialogue partners reported the following issues related to the perception that Agencies lack commitment to achieving equal opportunities for women in the federal workplace:
The dialogue partners made the following recommendations to address the perception that Agencies lack commitment to achieving equal opportunities for women in the federal workplace:
We have learned that while women have made enormous strides within the federal workforce, there are still significant obstacles to women's attainment of equal employment opportunities in the federal government.
One observation is that many of the obstacles and issues documented in this report have also been reported to us by other protected groups as obstacles to their ability to achieve equal opportunities in the workplace. For example, the
following obstacles and issues were also reported in our federal sector reports as obstacles for Hispanics, Asian American Pacific Islanders, individuals with disabilities, and/or African Americans: lack of sufficient training; lack of
sufficient mentorship opportunities; lack of developmental assignments; underrepresentation in higher level positions; underrepresentation in STEM positions; lack of demonstrable commitment from Agency leaders; lack of management accountability for
EEO in performance appraisals and award criteria; lack of effective Agency accountability for violations of EEO regulations and findings of discrimination; and unconscious biases that influence personnel decisions.
It is also interesting to note the obstacles that were unique to women in the federal workforce. For example, our dialogue partners reported that inflexible workplace policies especially make it difficult for women to balance their work
responsibilities with their caregiving responsibilities. Additionally, while the pay gap is not as significant as it is in the private sector, women typically make less money than men in the federal government. Further, our dialogue
partners reported that stereotypes continue to exist about what positions and roles are considered "traditional" female roles, and those stereotypes influence women's abilities to move beyond those positions within the federal government.
We have learned that further research is necessary to determine what actions can be taken to address the obstacles. For example, a study should be conducted to determine exactly why women are not equally represented in higher level and management positions. Possible analyses in the study could be whether women are not selected for these positions because of discrimination based on sex, or are women not applying for those positions because, for example, of a lack workplace flexibility. Additionally, a statistical study should be conducted to identify the reasons for the wage gap between men and women in the federal government. In a May 10, 2013 memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies, the President ordered analyses, proposed guidance, and recommendations for advancing pay equality in the federal government.(55) Additional and ongoing research such as this will help us determine the measures that need to be taken to ensure that the federal government is the model workplace with regard to equal opportunities for women.
Additionally, the Office of Federal Operations should take steps to further cultivate our relationships with the dialogue partners that communicated with this workgroup, as they will continue to be a great source of a wealth of information and insight into the obstacles that face women in the federal workplace. Finally, Agency officials should champion equal opportunities for women in the federal workforce. The ultimate responsibility rests with Agencies to take seriously the obstacles and issues identified by our dialogue partners, and to make it a priority to adopt the dialogue partners' recommendations contained in this report.
FOOTNOTES:
1 EEOC Annual Report on the Federal Work Force Part II, Workforce Statistics, Fiscal Year 2011 (EEOC Annual Report FY 2011).
2 Id.
3 Id.
4 Enforcement Guidance: Unlawful Disparate Treatment of Workers with Caregiving Responsibilities (Caregiver Guidance), EEOC Notice No. 915.002 (May 23, 2007).
5 Id.
6 Pew Research Social & Demographic Trends, Breadwinner Moms: Mothers Are the Sole or Primary Provider in Four-in-Ten Households with Children; Public Conflicted about the Growing Trend (May 29, 2013), available online at http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/29/breadwinner-moms/ .
7 Caregiver Guidance, supra.
8 Caregiver Guidance (citing Nevada Dep't of Human Res. v . Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721, 738 (2003)).
9 Id.
10 Caregiver Guidance, supra.
11 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Women's Earnings: Work Patterns Partially Explain Difference between men's and Women's Earnings (Oct. 31, 2003), available online at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0435.pdf .
12 U. S. Department of Commerce and the Executive Office of the President, Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being (March 2011), available online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cwg/data-on-women .
13 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Women's Earnings, supra.
14 TD Bank Financial Group, Special Report, Career Interrupted: The Economic Impact of Motherhood (October 12, 2010).
15 Pew Research Social & Demographic Trends, supra.
16 Id.
17 EEOC Annual Report FY 2011, supra.
18 Id.
19 Nora Frenkiel, The Up-and-Comers: Bryant Takes Aim at the Settlers-In, Adweek (March 1984).
20 Department of Labor, Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, Good for Business: Making Full Use of the Nation's Human Capital - The Environmental Scan (March 1995).
21 Rahim Kanani, Valerie Jarrett: Women in America Report Could Change Policies, Huffpost Impact, (March 30, 2011), available online at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rahim-kanani/Women-in-america-report_b_841466.html.
22 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Best Practices: mentoring (September 2008).
23 NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Office of Human Capital Management, Supervisor's Toolbox, Managing Performance and Development, Career Development and Training, available online at http:ohcm.gsfc.nasa.gov/sup_info/toolbox/career/career.htm.
24 The referenced statistics on women's representation in occupational categories is based on the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) Fedscope database. The data source for Fedscope is Enterprise Human Resources Integration-Statistical Data Mart (EHRI-SDM). EHRI-SDM does not include occupational statistics from the following federal Agencies and employees: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve; Central Intelligence Agency; Defense Intelligence Agency; Foreign Service personnel at the State Department; National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; National Security Agency; Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Postal Regulatory Commission; Tennessee Valley Authority; and the U.S. Postal Service.
25 Id.
26 U.S. Census Bureau, 2011 American Community Survey, Table: Occupation by Sex and Median Earnings in the Past 12 Months for the Civilian Employed Population 16 Years and Over, available online at http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_11_1YR_S2401&prodType;=table. Likewise, women are less likely to work in STEM positions in the overall civilian workforce. According to the Census Bureau's 2011 American Community Survey (ACS), women comprised 48 percent of the U.S. civilian workforce but just 26 percent of STEM workers. Moreover, there were 2.5 million college-educated working women with STEM degrees in the overall civilian workforce in 2011, in comparison to 6.7 million men.
27 Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, 2009-2010 Biennial Report to Congress, Broadening Participation in American's STEM Workforce (June 2011), p. 23, available online at http://www.nsf.gov/od/iia/activities/ceose/reports/2009-2010_CEOSE BiennialReportToCongress.pdf; see also U. S. Department of Commerce and the Executive Office of the President, Women in America, supra, p. 18.
28 National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Special Tabulations of the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, Completions Survey, 2001-10, available online at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/2013/pdf/tab5-1.pdf. This data is based on degree-granting institutions eligible to participate in Title IV federal financial aid programs.
29 Id., available online at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/2013/tables.cfm.
30 Corrina A. Moss-Racusin, John F. Dovidio, Victoria L. Brescoll, Mark J. Graham, and Jo Handelsman, Science Faculty's Subtle Gender Biases Favor Male Students, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) (August 21, 2012), available online at http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.
31 Id.
32 Id.
33 Id.
34 U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation, p. 1 (August 2011), available online at http://www.esa.doc.gov/sites/default/files/reports/documents/Womeninstemagaptoinnovation8311.pdf.
35 American Association of University Women (AAUW), Why So Few Women? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (March 21, 2010).
36 For example, in conjunction with the White House Council on Women and Girls, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through Women@NASA, has created a mentoring project, NASA Giving Initiative and Relevance to Learning Science (G.I.R.L.S.). The project offers middle school girls one-on-one mentoring from women working at the Agency. Participants will complete online lessons in STEM fields with their mentors via virtual connection, available online at http://Women.nasa.gov/nasagirls/.
37 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Women's Pay: Gender Pay Gap in the Federal Workforce Narrows as Differences in Occupation, Education, and Experience Diminish, p. 11 (March 2009).
38 Heather Boushey, Jessica Arons, Lauren Smith, Families Can't Afford the Gender Wage Gap: Equal Pay Day 2010, Center for American Progress (April 20, 2010), available online at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/04/equal_pay.html .
39 Id.
40 Women received 57.2 percent of Bachelor's degrees and 60.1 percent of Master's degrees during the 2010-2011 academic year. See Department for Professional Employees, Professional Women: A Gendered Look at Occupational Obstacles and Opportunities (January 2013).
41 Women in the private sector are paid 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. National Women's Law Center, Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (January 29, 2013).
42 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Women's Pay, supra.
43 Id.
44 Id.
45 Id.
46 National Women's Law Center, supra.
47 "[The Commission] recommend[ed] that the [GAO] report be expanded to show how the gender pay gap evolved for different protected groups. In addition, [the Commission] recommend[ed] that the study look at inter-group gender differences, and not merely differences within the same group." U.S. Government Accountability Office, Women's Pay, supra, Appendix VII: Comments from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Acting Chairman Stuart Ishimaru (February 25, 2009).
48 American Values Institute, What Is Implicit Bias? (August 24, 2009),available online at http://www.americanvaluesinstitute.org/?page_id=14.
49 See EEOC African American Workgroup Report (March 2013), available online at http://www.eeoc.gov/federal/reports/aawg.cfm
50 Id.
51 Samuel R. Bagenstos, Implicit Bias, "Science," and Antidiscrimination Law, Harvard Law and Policy Review, Vol. 1, p. 477 (2007).
52 Shah Salma, Equality: Unconscious Bias and the Mini-Me Syndrome, HR Magazine (November 11, 2010).
53 Id.
54 EEOC Management Directive 715 (Oct. 1, 2003), available online at http://www.eeoc.gov/federal/directives/md715.cfm
55 Presidential Memorandum - Advancing Pay Equality in the Federal Government and Learning from Successful Practices (May 10, 2013), available online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/10/presidential-memorandum-advancing-pay-equality-federal-government-and-le .