Women Earn More, for Once

The corporate boardroom - female directors, outnumbered eight to one, might find themselves in a hostile, male-driven environment. However, there is something to make up for it. The median salary for female corporate directors is $120,000 to a comparable man's $104,000.

This is good news for those of us who've been skeptical of the "women earn 80% of what men earn!" line, for which few people can cite a particular study or industry. However, according to recent research, pay equality is still far off. Even adjusting for lifestyle choices like child-rearing, which leads to fewer hours worked and more time off among female workers, one quarter of the pay gap remains unexplained.

A female writer on Monster.com's blogs wonders, "does strong academic performance suggest that young women have too strong a desire to please both in the classroom and at the negotiating table? Are we not instilling in our girls enough of a sense of their own worth?" If she's right, the problem may lie much deeper than corporate sexism.

So why do female members of a company's board of directors tend to earn more? Is it a sense of guilt on the part of their male bosses? Are they more capable of performing their jobs than their male peers? If women are garnering more pay simply to compensate, in a sort of reverse sexism, that's no better than a man out-earning his equally capable female associate. Pay remains unequal. Let's hope that, instead, it's a sign that women have special skills in this area and will soon begin filling corporate board seats.