12 surprising women from history who paved the road to equal pay

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• The fight for women's pay equality has raged among activists, celebrities, and lawmakers for nearly half a century.
• Despite landmark American laws, women working in the US still face major obstacles, including a gender-based pay gap that costs them thousands of dollars every year.

The US passed the Equal Pay Act more than 50 years ago, but American women still face a substantial gender-based wage gap.

Despite landmark legislation and radical demonstrations made to push for pay parity between the sexes, the Institute for Women's Policy Research estimates equality might still be $4.

A woman working full-time in 2019 on average earns 80.7 cents for every dollar a man working full-time earns, which shrinks women's annual earnings, the median of which is $9,909 less than men's, according to $4.

Here are some women in politics, entertainment, and social justice who have contributed to the decades of pay parity's progress so far - many of whom you probably didn't learn about in school, and some who might surprise you: