Donald Trump has opened up a 7-point lead over Hillary Clinton nationally, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released Thursday.

Trump has 44 percent support to Clinton’s 37 percent among likely voters polled by the conservative-leaning Rasmussen. Another 13 percent favor another candidate, and 6 percent are undecided.

Thursday’s survey marks the third week in a row that the presumptive Republican nominee has led Rasmussen’s poll. It shows Trump at his highest level of support in a Rasmussen poll since October.

According to a RealClearPolitics average of polls, Clinton holds a 3.1-point lead over Trump, 44 percent to 40.9 percent. Most recent polls show Clinton ahead by a small margin, but a CBS News/New York Times poll also released Thursday showed Clinton and Trump tied.

The poll found that voters view Trump and Clinton equally regarding their preparedness for the White House.

Trump has the support of 80 percent of Republicans and 13 percent of Democrats. Clinton has the support of 72 percent of Democrats and just 5 percent of Republicans.

Trump also leads among voters not affiliated with either major party. Among those voters, though, 27 percent prefer another candidate or are undecided.

Trump also leads Clinton by 17 points among white voters and 21 points among men. He also has an advantage over Clinton among voters age 40 and over. Clinton leads by 8 points among women.

The candidates are tied among younger voters.

The survey was conducted among 1,000 likely voters July 12–13. The margin of error is 3 points.

By Rebecca Savransky

The sniper who killed five Dallas police officers Thursday night as they guarded protesters at an anti-police brutality march was angry about recent shootings by police and “wanted to kill white people,” according to authorities.

The Associated Press identified the gunman as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, who was blown up by a police robot while holed up in a parking garage early Friday morning after negotiations with police broke down.

The murderous rampage was the deadliest day in American law enforcement since 9/11 and prompted President Obama to declare it a “vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement.”

“We’re hurting,” said Dallas Police Chief David Brown in a Friday morning news conference. “Our profession is hurting. Dallas officers are hurting. We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city. All I know is this must stop, this divisiveness betweeen our police and our citizens.”

The protest was one of several around the country, prompted by police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

Brown said the dead suspect told authorities he was angry about police shootings.

“He said he was upset at white people,” Brown said. “He said he wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers.”

Initial reports said there was more than one sniper, but at the news conference, Brown indicated the dead suspect may have been the sole gunman. Although he told police he was “not affiliated” with anyone else, three others were being held.

A woman was taken into custody near the garage and two men reportedly seen packing a camouflage bag into a Mercedes before speeding from the scene were apprehended and detained, the mayor said.

A Dallas police source estimated to Fox News that at least 60 rounds were fired over a “large kill zone.” The source added that the shooting would have required considerable planning.

The suspect was killed when police sent an explosives-equipped robot into the El Centro Community College parking garage to detonate the bomb after negotiations went nowhere, Brown said, refuting earlier reports that the man killed himself. Before he died, he had claimed that explosives had been set around the city, and much of downtown Dallas was locked down while police searched before determining there were no bombs.

“It’s a heartbreaking moment for the city of Dallas,” Mayor Mike Rawlings said. “I ask that everybody focus on one thing right now, and that is Dallas police officers, their families, those that are deceased [and] those that are in the hospital fighting for their lives.”

Obama, speaking from a NATO summit in Poland, said America is “horrified” over the shootings and asked all Americans to pray for the fallen officers and their families. He renewed his calls for more gun control.

“There’s no possible justification for these kinds of attacks or any violence against law enforcement,” Obama said, hours after a pre-attack speech in which he cited two racially charged police shootings earlier in the week and called for an end to bias in law enforcement.

One of the cops killed was identified as Dallas Area Rapid Transit Police Officer Brent Thompson, 43. The others were picked off as they stood guard during the protest.

Three other DART officers were wounded, but they are expected to recover, Lyons said. As many as three city police officers reportedly were in critical condition.

Witness Carlos Harris told the Dallas Morning News the gunfire was “strategic. It was tap-tap-pause. Tap-tap-pause.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement saying he has directed the Texas Department of Public Safety director to offer “whatever assistance the City of Dallas needs at this time.”

“In times like this we must remember — and emphasize — the importance of uniting as Americans,” Abbott said.

The protesters had gathered after a Minnesota officer on Wednesday fatally shot Philando Castile while he was in a car with a woman and a child in a St. Paul suburb. The aftermath of the shooting was purportedly livestreamed in a widely shared Facebook video.

A day earlier, Alton Sterling was shot in Louisiana after being pinned to the pavement by two white officers. That, too, was captured on a cellphone video.

Other protests across the U.S. on Thursday were peaceful. In midtown Manhattan, protesters first gathered in Union Square Park. In Minnesota, where Castile was shot, hundreds of protesters marched in the rain from a vigil to the governor’s official residence. Protesters also marched in Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Anti-police protests have roiled the nation in each of the last two summers following controversial police shootings, including the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and last April’s death of Freddie Gray while in custody of Baltimore police.

A Department of Justice investigation cleared the police officer who shot Brown, and, of the six Baltimore police officers charged in Gray’s death, two have been acquitted, one’s case was declared a mistrial and three more face trial.

The attack made Thursday the deadliest day for law officers since Sept. 11, 2001, when 72 officers died, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Fox News’ Bret Baier, Casey Stegall, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Despite clear guilt, there is absolutely no chance that the Obama Justice Department will indict Hillary Clinton.

A damning report authored by the Republican-led House committee probing the Benghazi terror attacks faulted the Obama administration for a range of missteps before, during and after the fatal 2012 attacks – saying top administration officials huddled to craft their public response while military assets waited hours to deploy to Libya.

The report released Tuesday pointedly blamed a “rusty bureaucratic process” for the slow-moving response the night of the attack. The report said despite orders from President Obama and then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to deploy, the first military force did not do so until more than 13 hours after the attack started.

The report said one anti-terrorism security team known as the FAST unit sat waiting for three hours in Rota, Spain, as Marines changed “in and out of their uniforms four times,” and even debated whether they should carry personal weapons, according to one witness. All together, the report said, “it would take nearly 18 hours” for that team to move.

The report described a web of internal debates and hold-ups, including apparent State Department guidance that “Libya must agree to any deployment,” though Panetta would later say Libya approval was not necessary.

While various officials debated how to proceed, U.S. personnel were under attack at two sites in Benghazi.

In the end, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans — foreign service officer Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Ty Woods and Glen Doherty — were killed in the attacks.

CLICK TO READ THE REPORT.

In a stunning detail, the report said the security force that helped evacuate U.S. personnel from the so-called “annex” in the end – “likely saving over two dozen lives,” according to the report – was a unit known as Libyan Military Intelligence composed of former military officers under the Qaddafi regime, which the U.S. helped topple.

The CIA did not know that unit existed. “In other words, some of the very individuals the United States had helped remove from power during the Libyan revolution were the only Libyans that came to the assistance of the United States on the night of the Benghazi attacks,” the report said.

The committee’s work itself was fiercely contested, with Democrats accusing Republican members of trying to politically harm presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time of the attacks.

Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., asked Americans to “read this report for themselves … and reach their own conclusions.”

At a press conference, Gowdy and other GOP lawmakers lamented that no forces were ordered to Benghazi.

“Nothing was ever coming to Benghazi,” Gowdy said.

Lawmakers contrasted the “heroism” of those on the ground with the discussions in Washington. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., described the D.C. attitude as “near fecklessness.” He said, “They were more concerned about how they’re going to offend the Libyan government than how this rescue is going to take place.”

The findings about the military asset response the night of the attacks contrasted with the relatively robust internal debate over the public narrative regarding the attack – namely, claims that the attacks were sparked by an anti-Islam YouTube video.

Watch Benghazi Select Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and committee member Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Ind., Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier.”  

The committee report identified for the first time a White House meeting that was convened roughly three hours into the attack and included deputies to senior Cabinet members and Clinton.

Stevens was missing at the time. But the report found “much of the conversation focused on the video (which) is surprising given no direct link or solid evidence existed connecting the attacks in Benghazi and the video at the time.”

The report found that “five of the 10 action items from the rough notes of the 7:30 pm meeting reference the video.”

The report also showed that there were top-level calls to have the video removed from the Internet, before any of the forces that were ordered deployed “had actually moved.”

The report, meanwhile, found the video narrative was crafted in Washington by Obama administration appointees and reflected neither eyewitness nor real-time reports from the Americans under attack.

One U.S. agent at the American outpost in Benghazi, whose name was withheld for security reasons, told the committee he first heard “some kind of chanting.”

Then that sound was immediately followed by “explosions” and “gunfire, then roughly 70 people rushing into the compound with an assortment of “AK-47s, grenades, RPG’s … a couple of different assault rifles,” the agent said.

In addition, a senior watch officer at the State Department’s diplomatic security command described the Sept. 11, 2012, strikes as “a full on attack against our compound.”

When asked whether he saw or heard a protest prior to the attacks, the officer replied, “zip, nothing, nada,” according to the Republican majority report.

“None of the information coming directly from the agents on the ground in Benghazi during the attacks mentioned anything about a video or a protest. The firsthand accounts made their way to the office of the Secretary through multiple channels quickly,” the report concluded.

Five days later, then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice went on every national Sunday talk show. She told Fox News Sunday, “What sparked the recent violence was the airing on the Internet of a very hateful, very offensive video that has offended many people around the world.”

The report also said, “Security deficiencies plagued the Benghazi Mission compound in the lead-up to September 2012.”

Panetta bluntly told the committee “an intelligence failure” occurred with respect to Benghazi. Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell also acknowledged multiple times an intelligence failure did in fact occur prior to the Benghazi attacks.

The committee proposed 25 recommendations for the Pentagon, State Department, intelligence community and Congress aimed at strengthening security for American personnel overseas. Among them were: Figuring out who is in charge in such situations, holding joint training exercises, and improving communication.

The GOP report came after a report by the Democrats on the panel saying that security at the Benghazi, Libya facility was “woefully inadequate” but Clinton never personally denied any requests from diplomats for additional protection.

Democrats have long slammed the committee’s work as partisan, and Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon repeated that charge Tuesday.

“Far from honoring the four brave Americans who died, the Benghazi Committee has been a partisan sham since its start,” he tweeted.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner defended the department in a written statement issued shortly before the report’s formal release, while saying the “essential facts” surrounding the attacks have been known “for some time.”

“We have made great progress towards making our posts safer since 2012,” Toner said. “… Our implementation efforts include work to expand the corps of Diplomatic Security personnel, enhance interagency coordination to address threat information, expand the Marine Security Guard program, and accelerate projects to build and upgrade secure facilities.”

He said the department “cooperated extensively with the Select Committee,” providing over 50 current and former employees for interviews and over 100,000 pages of documents.

The report, though, said the department “withheld a number of documents from the Committee based on ‘executive branch confidentiality interests,’ an administration-constructed privilege not recognized by the Constitution.”

Fox News’ Catherine Herridge and Bret Baier contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON –  A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the government’s “net neutrality” rules that require internet providers to treat all web traffic equally.

The 2-1 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is a win for the Obama administration, consumer groups and content companies such as Netflix that want to prevent online content from being blocked or channeled into fast and slow lanes.

The rules treat broadband service like a public utility and prevent internet service providers from offering preferential treatment to sites that pay for faster service.

The Federal Communications Commission argued that the rules are crucial for allowing customers to go anywhere on the internet without a provider favoring its own service over that of other competitors. The FCC’s move to reclassify broadband came after President Barack Obama publicly urged the commission to protect consumers by regulating internet service as it does other public utilities.

A former model who was featured at the center of a lengthy New York Times report that assailed Donald Trump’s treatment of women said Monday that her account was taken out of context, misquoted and “spun” by the Times in order to portray the Republican presidential candidate in a negative light.

“They spun it to where it appeared negative. I did not have a negative experience with Donald Trump,” Rowanne Brewer Lane told “Fox & Friends.”

Lane briefly dated Trump after the 1990 encounter described in the Times article. But the way she described their relationship and that encounter on Monday was much different than the way it was portrayed in the front-page weekend article that ran under the explosive headline, “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved with Women in Private.”

The article opens by describing how Lane, then 26 years old, met Trump at a pool party at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., estate. According to the piece, Trump had barely met her “when he asked her to change out of her clothes.” He gave her a bikini, which she changed into. Lane is quoted as saying, “He brought me out to the pool and said, ‘That is a stunning Trump girl, isn’t it?’”

The Times goes on to describe the incident as “a debasing face-to-face encounter between Mr. Trump and a young woman he hardly knew.”

But Lane told Fox News that was not the case.

“He never made me feel like I was being demeaned in any way,” she said, calling the article “very upsetting.”

“The New York Times told us several times that they would make sure that my story that I was telling came across … that it would not be a hit piece,” she said. “That my story would come across the way that I was telling it … and it absolutely was not.”

Lane said she did in fact meet Trump at that pool party, but said he had simply offered her a swimsuit – she said “okay,” since she hadn’t brought one.

As for Trump’s comment about her being “stunning,” she said, “I was actually flattered” by that, not demeaned. “That’s what I told the Times and they spun it completely differently.”

She described the now-presumptive GOP presidential nominee as a “gentleman” and said she planned to support him in the election.

The Times reporters, meanwhile, defended their story on Monday.

“I think readers of the story can digest what happened to her at Mar-a-Lago,” reporter Michael Barbaro said on CBS’ “This Morning.”

He said, “Recall in my interview with her … she basically expressed that ‘I was taken aback by this.’ And I think that’s how we depicted it.”

“We gathered a variety of voices. And our story is not just Rowanne’s account. It’s the experience of many women,” reporter Megan Twohey said on the same program. According to the article, the reporters interviewed dozens of women who had worked for, dated or interacted with Trump.

In a written statement, a New York Times spokesperson also said: “Ms. Brewer Lane was quoted fairly, accurately and at length. The story provides context for the reader including that the swimsuit scene was the ‘start of a whirlwind romance’ between Ms. Brewer Lane and Mr. Trump.”

Trump, though, took to Twitter to hammer the Times over the piece, following Lane’s comments on Fox News. Trump initially misspelled Lane’s first name as “Roseanne,” before correcting himself.

FoxNews.com

We have so many opportunities in the workforce, yet women are often still told that we’ve got to run ourselves ragged and forego balance in order to break through the glass ceiling. Why?

Part of the reason work-life balance is difficult to achieve is because our society places so much weight on the financial success of one’s career.

For women, this has been particularly difficult because of the claim that we are underpaid compared with men and the notion that we have to work twice as hard to get to a level playing field. The ubiquitous statistic that women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn is a compelling story that points to systemic discrimination against women.

The problem is that it’s untrue. In reality, in our 20s women are paid better than men—by 8 cents on the dollar. And overall, 72 percent of women say they have about the same opportunities to advance to top executive and professional positions in their companies as men. We are now as likely as men to be company managers.

Now, it is true that on average men earn more than women, and they also hold a greater number of executive positions. Yet this wage gap is usually not the product of workplace discrimination but rather is the product of the choices and needs of both women and men. Here’s a radical thought: Women are different than men, and our priorities, demands, and career paths differ in most cases because of our own choosing.

Rather than pitting men and women against each other and using simplistic numbers to suggest that women are victims, we ought to acknowledge these differences and embrace the choices we make

When we take into account things like education, hours worked, industry, experience, and career choice, the wage gap disappears.

Rather than pitting men and women against each other and using simplistic numbers to suggest that women are victims, we ought to acknowledge these differences and embrace the choices we make, understanding the different salaries that may result.

For instance, most women today prefer not to work full time while their children are growing up. This decision naturally slows our workplace trajectory and can decrease our wages when we do return, particularly when you take into account that only 40 percent of women who take time off for children re-enter full-time work.

Women also work fewer hours than men on average—thirty-five minutes less per day than men among full-time workers—often due to the fact that mothers voluntarily provide more time at home caring for children. I understand this desire to be home with our children; the bond of motherhood is the strongest emotion I have ever experienced. Feminism refuses to acknowledge and validate this option.

Additionally, women are more likely to be teachers and men are more likely to work in finance. Women also tend to choose jobs that offer more regular hours and greater flexibility—jobs that can accommodate the demands of raising children and managing other familial demands, but which may pay less.

We don’t all have to be on a path to the Fortune 500. I am so encouraged by the fact that as women gain greater opportunities in the workplace, they are choosing to enter careers that interest them, even if many of these careers have lower earnings over the long run. We absolutely should encourage girls in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In the past there has not been enough emphasis on this opportunity, and we can do better. I also believe that it should still be their choice.

Perhaps more opportunities for girls and boys at the elementary school level will orient more women toward these fields, but for now we must acknowledge that women’s career choice is a factor that affects the wage gap—and that giving women choice without guilt isn’t a bad thing.

As long as women recognize the financial implications of their career choices, I say, “Good for them!” No one should choose a career based on money alone. There’s not enough money in the world to compensate for a job you hate. I encourage women to choose a career they love, as long as it’s honest work and pays the bills. They should also look at all their options. We often limit ourselves.

Now, all of this is not to say that some fields are still difficult for women to break into or that there aren’t bad bosses. Humans are still sinful, and therefore discrimination against women does still exist.

However, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act have given us recourse in the courts and act as a deterrent to unfair employers. Concerned Women for America recently filed an amicus brief in support of a woman who was discriminated against by UPS because of her pregnancy, and she won. We have legal recourse, and we should use it if we are wronged—including and perhaps especially when it comes to sexual harassment.

I experienced sexual harassment in one job as a twentysomething, and it was disgusting and humiliating. I was highly employable and therefore sought and got another job, but sexual harassment is intolerable. Our daughters should never have to put up with that nonsense—and thankfully they don’t have to. We are blessed in this country by equal protection under the law, something women in much of the world can still only dream about.

Overall, the insistence on a wage gap and on widespread discrimination against women is sometimes used by feminists to perpetuate the notion that patriarchy prevents us from attaining career success and equity with men. Victim bating is politically profitable for feminists, but it simply doesn’t hold up. While choices we make about motherhood, work hours, and industry sectors may hinder our corporate-track momentum or stall our wages for a period of time, they are also opening up avenues to a work-life balance that is manageable and allows us to flourish.

By Penny Young Nance @PYNance