I conducted my interview with Marianna Page on October 20th, 2022. This interview was conducted in her office at In Prime Legal in Marietta, GA. Marianna and her husband are great family friends of mine, her son Ryan and I have been close friends for the better part of 5 or 6 years now, and I could not think of a better candidate for the interview. She and her husband are both hyper-successful business partners having graduated from Georgia State Law School, worked in corporate law together, got married, raised kids together, and opened their own private law firm. Having taken such similar paths, it was very easy for Marianna to contrast both the similarities and differences the two experienced on the road to get to where they are now. When discussing the gender pay gap, I believe it is very important to talk to a woman, and not just any woman, but one that is an immigrant of the United States (she also hold dual citizenship with Puerto Rico), and she has also become extremely successful and what I would consider to be a pillar of the community.

To start the interview, I really just wanted to dive right into the main question which was when she was working in corporate law did she feel like she was being treated less than equally in the workplace? She went on to describe her experience in the workplace. She said that oftentimes she was treated differently but the reasoning was almost always more than fair. For, wanted to start a family and had a son to take care of, so she would leave the office a lot more frequently than some of her male counterparts that worked 120-hour weeks in order to try and make partner and the shortest amount of time as possible. Her female coworkers that did, this got treated just as fairly as the males, despite a much higher number of males doing this. She went on to say that, there is just a difference between men and women in the industry like that sometimes. She said her husband Jonathan was like that as well, made more money but spent almost all of his time in the office, and even when he was home was answering emails, working, trying to find new business ideas, etc.

When we went on to talk about different industries, she said she was actually surprised given the amount of fairness. Especially because she is in a primarily male-dominated field like law, and she actually believes that the less lucrative the careers are the more equal pay there is just simply because there are fewer factors involved and typically wages will be hourly. She also then went on to talk about company size, the public image of the company, and how these larger companies nowadays this really is not an issue whatsoever because they are so concerned with public image, and they also have hundred-person HR departments that ensure workplace equality and make sure the company functions with as little problems as possible.

We then got to talking about traditional values and morals, and how they can affect one perception of the pay gap. With her being a conservative catholic, she does hold very traditional family values that some people may not, and she went on to say that there is nothing wrong with a woman taking time off of work to start a family and take care of the home, but you can not expect your workplace, especially in a cut-throat industry like law or finance that your firm is going to keep up with your demands for very long.

When it comes to systemic inequality, I think having come from a much poorer country than the United States she, almost finds it comical that people here are able to complain about wages in the first place. She states “this is an amazing country, not perfect, but it is the type of place that rewards working hard and working smart. I believe anyone here should be able to make something of themselves if they really want it that badly.”

To conclude the interview, we touched on different career paths that one is able to take to make the most money, where the pay gap would not matter, as well as why it exists. She personally thinks that 95% if not more people are paid adequately for the amount of work they are putting in, but she does go on to say of course there are going to be some sexist company leaders that think women are inferior to men. She has met men like this before that have not taken her seriously, and she says that just avoids it. Work for a different company, you can go to your computer and find and apply for a job in 30 minutes.