Class, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that male dropouts earned an average of $36,000 per year during the years between 1983 and 1998, while women with a bachelor's degree earned an average of $35,000 per year. Women with graduate degrees earned an average of $42,000, while men with such degrees earned nearly $77,000 per year. A 2003 report by the U.S. Census Bureau found that the average male, working full-time, year-round, earned $54,803, while for females, the average was $37,123, or 32% less. The gender-based wage gap is present in every profession. For instance, female doctors, on average, earn 58% less than male doctors.

Notwithstanding the advancement of women in the professions (law and medicine, in particular), the wage gap between men and women runs deep and persists. Are the societal expectations of earning power between men and women so ingrained that even the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 cannot overcome their effects?