To the Editor:

I cheered for the bright, hard-working twentysomething women making history by earning 117 percent of young men’s wages (“For Young Earners in Big City, Gap Shifts in Women’s Favor,” front page, Aug. 3). With 53 percent college grads, 15 percent more than young men, we need them to move right on up.

As a former New Yorker, I offer several additional factors for this success.

New York isn’t just an old-boys network; more women bosses means less resistance to hiring and promoting women. More women policy makers lead needed policy change.

Major obstacles remain. Male chief executives outnumber women 3 to 2 with a cash median income gap of 26.7 percent (no perks included). The trend line for women in clout positions has flattened. When these young women start a family, outdated policies force them into a work/family Hobson’s choice—one that is apparently a free choice but really not a choice at all. That’s a terrible waste of talent.

Linda Tarr-Whelan
St. Helena Island, S.C., Aug. 7, 2007
The writer is a Demos distinguished senior fellow on women’s leadership and a former ambassador to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Note from KBJ: Wouldn’t it be nice if we never had to pay a price for our choices? Wouldn’t it be nice, for example, if you could take every morning off to surf and still keep your full-time salary at the law firm? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have every summer off and still earn a 12-month salary with no loss of benefits? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could refuse to fly around the country for work and not lose any pay? The letter writer lives in cloud-cuckoo fantasy land.