Women workers are attacking low pay and bias from many angles, assailing wage laws that exclude them, suing over outright discrimination, and trying to organize unions. And they’ve been confronting the disrespect that accompanies smaller paychecks.

The pay gap between men and women actually shrank in 2011. Women now average 82.2 percent of men’s earnings—but the numbers don’t indicate progress because all workers lost buying power.

The gap decreased only because women’s pay didn’t drop as far as men’s, losing 0.9 percent while men lost 2.1 percent, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Black women earned 69.5 percent of white men’s earnings, and Latina women 60.5 percent.