Last week, a friend of mine approached me, frazzled, and told me about a professor who had claimed there is no longer a gender pay gap in the United States. After doing some research, I learned that unfortunately, this kind of thinking is not so unusual: many commentators, including those representing reputable sources, have claimed that in today’s day and age, the wage gap between genders is a total myth.

While there is some misinformation regarding the gender pay gap, to say it does not exist at all is simply obtuse. In reality, the issue is just more complex than many people are willing to consider.

Legally, companies in the U.S. are not allowed to charge women less for performing the same job as their male counterpart; and for this reason, the simple response to the pay gap question would be to state “there is no such thing.”

Additionally, some of the statistics that have been floating around about the real pay gap have been misinterpreted, thereby putting the concept’s entire existence into question.

For example, one columnist from Forbes pointed out, the U.S Bureau of Labor Department states that the median earnings of full-time female workers is 77% of that of male workers, but full-time can mean lots of things. 40 hours? 35? The thing is, the fact that there would be this discrepancy between hours worked by men and women is still indicative of discrimination – that part still seems lost on people.

There is plenty of evidence that proves the gender pay gap is in existence. In late 2018, the American Association of University published a report stating that women earn 80 cents for every dollar earned by men, on average, resulting in approximately $513 billion in lost wages each year.

While this may seem illegal at face value, companies are very savvy at finding ways around it: for instance, new employers will often set starting salary based upon an applicant’s earning history, which puts women at an automatic disadvantage.

Mothers and fathers are also treated unequally, with men being more likely to earn a promotion after having a child. Women, meanwhile, find their wages increasingly difficult to stabilize after becoming a parent, having to balance inflexible work and childcare schedules. These may seem like circumstantial factors, but they are actually proof that women have a very different set of challenges in the workplace – challenges they are not compensated for.

So, in reality, we aren’t just talking about a simple discrepancy in pay. We’re talking about a lack of social supports that put working mothers and females in general at a distinct disadvantage.

The good news is that states are actively seeking to remedy these issues through training seminars and pay equity laws.

The bad news is that claiming the gender pay gap is a myth sets back the entire process and is an insult to all of the women who sacrificed and worked for their equality.

While the wage gap is not as simplistic as it is made out to be, and great strides have been made for women in the workplace, discrimination and inequality is still very much in place. We can’t oversimplify or ignore the problem. So, stop saying it doesn’t exist.