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Though women have definitely made giant strides to gain equality with men in the work world, it seems we are perhaps still not quite there yet. Well, three women are fairly certain that they are not there yet, at least, as they have filed a suit against Bank Of America/Merrill Lynch for allegedly discriminating against them (for being women, that is) while they were working for the company.

All of the women worked as financial advisors, one in New York, the other two in Florida. The same legal team that represented the female financial advisors who sued Smith Barney in a suit that was settled for $33 million in 2008 is representing these three.

They are claiming bias on the basis of gender in account distribution, partnership opportunities; up-front money, pay-out rate, and other benefits of their compensation plans; as well as other opportunities for brokers to increase their income. They are charging that these violations are systemic and based upon company policies and practices, not simply the actions of particular men.

One of these three women, Judy Calibuso, has stated that she was retaliated against after she filed a complaint of discrimination with the Equal Opportunity Commission in 2007. She did this after meeting with her manager and asking for fee-based accounts; he told her he preferred to disperse them to a male colleague. All three are said to have complained internally, after which they were retaliated against.

The women are seeking class action status for their claims against the company, describing a pattern of “cumulative advantage” in which male advisors are given preferred accounts before female who work in the same positions and who are then repeatedly rewarded for their following successes. The suit blames “subjective decision making” of branch managers for this biased pattern.

The discrimination evidently – according to the women – got even worse when the merger of the individual companies of Bank Of America and Merrill Lynch took place. The women have not one giant glaring complaint of bias, but of hundreds of small slights that have added up to cause them to be at a disadvantage to their male counterparts.

At least we have come to a place where women have the right to speak out against the discriminations we still sometimes face and can trust that we will be heard and even deemed as “right” (in the eyes of the law) when we believe we don’t have to just sit back and be second banana, regardless of long-standing, traditional company policies.