Featured FEN Organizations
July 1st, 2010
Bucknell University Would Thwart AAUW ‘Wage Gap’ Bake Sales
AAUW (formerly known as the American Association of University Women) is a formidable nationwide entity with much to contribute to campus debate:
For more than 128 years, AAUW members have examined and taken positions on the fundamental issues of the day-educational, social, economic, and political. Our commitment to our mission is reflected in all aspects of our work.
AAUW boasts "more than 100,000 members and donors, 1,000 branches, and 500 college/university institution partners." In Pennsylvania alone, AAUW has partnerships with 29 colleges and universities—public and private, religious and secular. But AAUW has no official presence at Bucknell University, and I think it would get in a lot of trouble if it did.
One of the ways that AAUW Pennsylvania recommends engaging with the campus is to hold what are known as "wage gap" bake sales:
Hold a bake sale where items cost men a dollar and women 77 cents.
The point of this satirical, political theater obviously is to spread the message that, as they report, "women earn only $.77 of the male's $1.00." The Campus Women's Organization at the University of Pittsburgh reportedly held such a sale last September, "symbolically charging women ...