Getting Even asks: What causes the wage gap? How can it be closed? 

E.J. Graff collaborated on former Lt. Governor Evelyn Murphy’s book “Getting Even: Why Women Still Don’t Make As Much As Men–And What To Do So We Will” (Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, October 2005). The book revealed that the gender wage gap has remained steady for more than a decade–because of illegal discrimination. It brought together in one place—for the first time—a list of sex discrimination settlements and jury awards, revealing the extent of sex discrimination in the U.S. workplace and how that can be attributed to management indifference to active and passive injustice.

Getting Even launched Murphy’s campaign to close the wage gap within ten years, under the auspices of her organization, the WAGE (Women Are Getting Even) Project. The book was called “a compelling and convincing read” that is supported by “copious statistics” and “the testimonies of scores of women who have felt the sting of sex discrimination,” as Cecil Johnson wrote in The Salt Lake Tribune. The book has been praised in print  in such publications as The Washington Post and the Boston Globe, as well as on the web and on local and national media outlets (public and commercial, AM and FM, cable and network) coast to coast, and stayed on bestseller lists for weeks at a time.

In helping Evelyn Murphy to for “Getting Even,” Graff researched the limits and scope of equal employment opportunity and sexual harassment case law, and revealed recent advances in the social science of bias. In follow-up articles, reported commentary, and radio appearances, Graff has continued bringing to the nation’s attention such related problems as sexual harassment, involuntary “mommy tracking,” and the high cost of the wage gap.

Reviews, related articles, and other sources include:

• Mind the Gap, Mothers Movement Online, Judith Stadtman Tucker.
• The Skinny Pink Paycheck Syndrome E.J. Graff and Evelyn Murphy, The Los Angeles Times, Feb. 12, 2006.