No more Gender Pay Gap- Pay Me Right!

Pay Wo-Men Equal Wages!

The genders receiving unequal pay is a thing of the past – or at least you’d think it would be!

In this sense, society is taking a long and slow road to equality. Women are doing the same job and being paid less for it. There should be no more gender pay gap- pay me right.Light shining on gender signs - gender pay gap

Since 1979, women were estimated to make 62% of what men made.It has become increasingly more equal and some jobs have managed to close the pay gap completely.  Job’s such as Advertising Salespersons and H.R. Specialists get equal pay regardless of gender, but, there are still jobs that need to make this happen. My question is, why is there such slow progression?

According to the White House governmental page, women in America are earning 78 cents to every dollar that a man earns. This comes with real consequences for the women trying to provide the everyday necessities for their families. In many cases women are the breadwinners for their families!. As Claire Miller stated, “the pay gap is because of gender, not jobs”.  This is an interesting example:

An article written in The New York Times showed that women doctors and surgeons earn 71% of men’s wages. I strongly believe, for any job being preformed equally well, equal pay is expected. This is clearly not the case. So, I argue that maybe women should only put in 71% of effort into their work. Why should they do the same amount of work and not get the same rewards? We’re told that closing the pay gap is “complicated”  why is it complicated?
In the example of doctors, what if… in a life-threatening situation, a patient is undergoing surgery and the female surgeon turns around and walks out. The woman has completed 71% of the surgery, but this is the percent of work she is paid to do 71% of the job. The surgeon’s days work is done. She’s not paid enough to complete her surgery. It seems ridiculous to suggest doesn’t it?

“I do not want to die before closing the pay gap” – Actress Emma Thompson

The website for the Women’s Equality Party online found that women are more likely to sacrifice the opportunity to earn a wage for the sake of their family and some argue, such as U.S. Government expert Robert Longley, that this is the underlying reason of suppressing women’s wages, as they are typically the ones to leave the labor force for longer periods of time. Women should be valued more in paid work and at home.

People treat this issue as an annoyance. Feminists have become an annoyance. Women schoolteachers aren’t asking to be paid the same as a politician. This is not gender equality. Women aren’t asking for more, they are asking for the same. Equal pay for equal work, it seems only fair. It is not an unreasonable request!

Women’s equality parties and movements have been around for ages, trying to raise awareness and make things equal for the genders. In so many ways media has a platform for social debate and has helped to broadened perspectives and expose social issues such as the gender pay gap. There is no need for the gender pay gap. We need to work to close the gap and faster than the attempts thus far. I don’t understand how it can continue to slip under the radar and out of the publics concern.

Thankfully society are making strides in the right direction.  There are movements in place and company set targets, to make the workplace as equal as possible.  HeforShe (2014) is a UN Solidarity Movement for Gender Equality. The goal of the movement is to mobilize 1 billion men to accelerate the achievement of gender equality, as women’s rights issues are human rights issues.

“HeForShe uses innovative online, offline, and mobile phone technology to identify and activate men in every city, community, and village around the world”.

One of the strategies is to accelerate women’s economic empowerment and HeforShe recognized that men play a critical role in supporting and enabling women’s economic empowerment. Research found that there is a significant gender gap in leadership and pay, but HeforShe engages CEOs and other leaders as champions for gender equality and encourages them to address these issues and see the benefits of having this equity in the workplace.

Hopefully having movements like this in place will mean more equality in our society and more opportunities for our women.

How many more speeches, groups or parties will there need to be before equal pay is fully reached. What will it take to get women paid right?


Links: 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/jobs-where-women-make-much-less-than-men-2015-04-22

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/the-pay-gap-is-because-of-gender-not-jobs.html?_r=0

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/02/emma-thompson-i-do-not-want-to-die-before-closing-the-pay-gap

http://www.heforshe.org/-/media/heforshe/files/our%20mission/heforshe_overview_brief.pdf

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/womenspay.htm

http://www.womensequality.org.uk/equal_pay_and_opportunity

 

6 thoughts on “No more Gender Pay Gap- Pay Me Right!

  1. Really insightful article bringing to attention a sad but true issue that remains in today’s society.

  2. With so much going on in the world let’s hope the focus on achieving pay equity for woman doesn’t get lost in all the other noise.

  3. This is truly an eye opener, I agree that both women and men need to be paid equally! It is definitely an interesting article to read with great insights to such a discarded issue.

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