Mary Barra is the GM CEO; since being tapped in December of last year, Barra took a seat at the table as the first female CEO of a car manufacturing company… of any car manufacturing…. of any car manufacturing company in the world. 

Barra's succeeds Dan Akerson, who will stay entwined with the corporation as an outside senior advisor, is rolling in the dough even now that he has changed roles for the organization. As a senior advisor, Akerson will receive a more than $4.5 million salary, during his tenure as CEO he earned a collective $9 million. Going from $9 million to only $4.68 million - I'm sure Akerson is going to by making some lifestyle changes; ya know, tall lattes instead of venti… time are hard, but I'm sure he'll adjust, after all, Akerson's rise within the company came with no previous car-maker experience. 

But Barra, how will she adjust to the new role? Having been with the company since 1980, and being promoted internally from Senior Vice President of Global Product Development - I'd say she's ready. While with over 30 years of experience with GM, she seems a promising new lead, the indicators from the Securities and Exchange Commission seem to indicate otherwise. 

Mary Barra, CEO, will take come an inclusive $4.4 million. That's less than half of what her male precedent took home. Her starting base salary 1.6 million…. his: $1.7 million, with $7.3 million in stocks. 

When gender and career choices come to a cross road, we see one sign oh-so-clearly: 77/100. Female workers earn at a discriminatory rate 77 cents to every male dollar. 

In a study completed by the Center for American Project and Action Fund, women on average will loose $434,000 in income in their lifetime. While to car maker-CEOs, this may seem like chump change when their payrolls seem to roll on and on and on and on… for the average American woman, this is the difference between sending children to college, or not; retiring with security, or not; worrying about putting food on the table, or not. The study found that in 11 states, the missed wages exceeded $500,000 in a woman's lifetime as compared to her male counterpart. 

While the wage gap hits blue-collar, middle-class women the hardest - in a way that can teeter the difference between economic dependance and independence, the reality is when America's most powerful female workers are still being smothered by the glass-ceiling, how are women in the most economically vulnerable circumstances still even breathing? 

When, those who are seemingly, the most educated and professionally successful women in our country are making on average 68 cents to their millionare-male counter parts - how are those women in our nation with [only] a high school diploma, or [only] even an undergraduate degree keeping their homes and families in the lane towards economic independence?!