As Jeanne Dost flips through her recently published book, “Women: Two Decades of Discovery,” she smiles as familiar names meet her eye. Dost counts many of the women pivotal to the women’s movement in the past few decades as friends, and has been an important figure in local women’s history.

Dost was originally a professor of economics at Oregon State University, when she began examining the wage disparities between men and women at the university. What she found shocked her and others, and was so alarming that as a result of her study wages at the university became much more equitable, although there continues to be a wage disparity among genders at OSU and across the nation.

“The administration never forgave me,” Dost laughed. She retired from OSU in 1991 and lives on Whidbey Island, Wash.

Her work on wage disparity eventually led to being asked to head the women’s studies department and the newly created Women’s Center. She admitted that it took an arm twisting to get her involved.

“I just couldn’t believe there was anything interesting about women,” she said. It turned out to be the best experience of her life, and her passion for women’s equality issues continues today.

“A lot of people thought this field was going to go nowhere,” Dost said of women’s studies, but by 1990 two-thirds of all universities were offering courses in the subject.

Coming from an economics background, what interests Dost most is what the numbers tell us about the current situation of women. Women make up one-third of the work force, but earn only one-tenth of the world’s income, and own less than 1 percent of the world’s property.

“I was compelled to write this book” about women’s issues, she said, because she didn’t see another book like it on the market. It took her 11 years to complete the book, and she said the numbers still astonish her.

Dost also focuses on the links between racism and sexism as forms of oppression, and made sure to include minority women’s issues, especially the struggle of African American women, in her book.

“Every kind of discrimination galls me,” she said.

Feminism, in Dost’s view, means working to make the world a better place for everyone. It does not take away power from individuals, but seeks to empower everyone to leave behind “the sickness of sexism and racism,” and once that is accomplished, “something magical happens,” people gain pride in being feminists.

While Dost explored the gains women have made legally, economically and socially, she is most interested in how far American society has to go before true equity is reached. Currently, women with a doctoral degree make the equivalent salary of men with only bachelor’s degrees, Dost said, and over a lifetime, the wage gap is even more dramatic between men and women.

“I just get very upset with this kind of data,” Dost said, “but you have to look at the data … it isn’t getting any better.”

For more on Dost’s book, go to www.rosedogbookstore.com/wotwodeofdi.html.

Theresa Hogue is features reporter for the Gazette-Times. She can be reached by e-mail at theresa.hogue@lee.net or by phone at 758-9526.