Kay Jewelers, Zales, and Jared the Galleria of Jewelry are all owned by the same parent company. And that parent company is promoting a toxic culture that enabled sexual harassment and abuse, abuse of power, and pay disparity.

According to a piece in the New York Times Magazine, there is a toxic culture of “unequal pay, harassment, or worse.”

The report showed that less qualified men were repeatedly given raises and promoted and paid better than women. In only one case at a certain Jared store was a woman paid more than a man (and it was only when you compared the highest paid woman to the lowest paid man).

Dawn Souto-Coons worked at a Jared in Florida for almost 14 years when she filed a lawsuit against the company alleging sex discrimination. The lawsuit is still ongoing. At one point, the lawsuit amassed nearly 70,000 women.

She alleges that for four years, she had been passed over for a manager position or even an interview in favor of a less qualified man.

She also discovered that "The women's hourly wages averaged $10.39, and the men's averaged $13.40 — so that on average, a woman working a 30-hour workweek for 52 weeks each year would make $16,208.40 before bonuses, while a man working the same amount would make $20,904."

Three regional vice presidents at the parent company are accused of having "sex with women employees and conditioned women's success at Sterling upon acceding to such demands, an expectation attributed to other male executives as well." Many male managers repeatedly made sexual comments about female customers or colleagues — it is just a part of the company culture.

These issues have been reported since 2017 - but the toxic culture is still prevalent in the company. And it needs to change.

Sterling Jewelers Inc. needs pressure to start making real, tangible change in correcting their toxic workplace culture and wage gap.