Government

Bill package aimed at bridging gender wage gap

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By CAITLIN TAYLOR
Capital News Service
LANSING — When a Michigan woman asked why she didn’t get promoted over her male counterpart, her employer told her she didn’t need the raise, according to Rep. Christine Greig, D-Farmington Hills, who was told this story by a constituent. Her less-experienced male colleague had a family to support, the employer said, while the woman employee’s husband made enough money for both of them. This is a common sentiment among some of the state’s employers, said Mary Pollock, the government relations coordinator for the American Association of University Women of Michigan. “Still, employers say a married woman doesn’t need to be paid what a married man gets paid,” Pollock said. “But that’s just not true anymore.

Public Safety

State Police seek to shrink trooper gender gap

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By BROOKE KANSIER
Capital News Service
LANSING — With male troopers outnumbering females 9-1, the Michigan State Police is reaching out to aspiring woman troopers to improve gender diversity numbers — both in the present and the future. Women make up just under 10 percent of the current State Police force. This number has dropped from past diversity improvements that followed a Federal Justice Department lawsuit against the MSP in 1975, which accused the department of discriminating against females and minorities when hiring state troopers. Col. Kriste Kibbey Etue — who became the MSP’s first female director in 2011 — said that improving this percentage is a priority.