Money Makes the World go Around, then why does gender come into it?

A friend of mine commented this week, as I went off on a conversational tangent about men complaining that women didn’t fight to pay for dates, they offer but when the man insists they quiesce, my point was that when women are paid the same as men, then men can complain (yes I know I reduced a multidimensional issue to 2 dimensions), his reply was yes but the pay gap is virtually closed nowadays.  That made me think, that comment in itself unmasks a much deeper belief that inequality is evening out and women have less to fight for, less need overall and therefore need less support, understanding and belief in women’s issues.

I wish that were true.

If I go to work for one day I would like to be paid as much as a man in an equivalent job with an equivalent skill set and this is the basis for the demand for equal pay.  

Historically, in western countries, women in the 20c were only allowed to work until they were married (or …gasp…fell pregnant out of wedlock) then they were expected to be unpaid labour in the home eventually becoming a parent who would be expected to raise the children single handedly (unless they had paid, female, help) whilst simultaneously being viewed as having an easier ride than their husband who was seen as having to look after them. The man, meanwhile, would be expected to go to work and earn the money to keep his family whilst his wife looked after his every need regardless of her daily wishes.  This, obviously, contributed to the mental ill health of women through the ages.  Imagine not being able to choose how to live your life (a lot of women still can’t).

In Iceland the Equal Pay Act of 1961, USA 1963, Australia 1969, England 1970 and New Zealand 1972 for the private sector, tackled pay discrimination based on gender.  This is at a time when women were still not employed to do certain jobs because they were women, but at least if they could do them they should be getting equal pay to their male counterparts.

Why would we not want to pay people equally for the work they do? Jobs that require equal skill, risk and knowledge, well the most obvious reason would be cheap labour.  

Some people genuinely believe that women are not as capable as men and so do not deserve the same pay (majority of believers are men but there are some women in this pool) and so they make a lower pay offer for the same job as a higher earning male counterpart (this can be a conscious or unconscious bias. How many times have you assumed a man can drive but assessed for yourself a woman’s skill in a motor vehicle where you are a passenger? Nowadays I cringe at the level of ridicule my brother and I levelled at my mum when she dared say she was a good driver, yet my dad was the instigator of accidents and both of us believed him to be skilled at driving and implicitly trusted him behind the wheel).  

Stereotyping of male and female roles, then paying the women’s roles less.  The Glass ceiling is very relevant for women, their skills are often underestimated and under utilised.  Women are perceived to be more likely to take advantage of parental leave (maternity, sick leave to look after children or ageing parents).  Women may also take lower paying jobs in favour of having flexibility to be able to work from home or a shorter distance to travel to work because they are still expected to do the lion’s share of caring work within the family.

In schools girls’ ability in maths and science is often perceived as lower than boys by teachers (let's hope this one is an unconscious bias) so they are not encouraged to pursue science and technology careers.

Women of a minority living in a western country have a larger pay gap than caucasian women.  In the USA non-hispanic white male wages were compared with latina women who earned 54% of their white male counterpart’s wages, black women were paid 58% and native american women were paid 60%.  All women earn less than men but if you are a woman of a minority race you earn even less.

Where are we now?

In 2017 Trump, by executive order, revoked Obama’s 2014 fair pay and safe workplaces order.  The 2014 order was put into place to ensure that companies who were able to contract to the government were abiding by work and labour laws, which among other things insisted on transparency of female worker salaries and banned forced arbitration clauses in sexual harassment claims (I wonder why Trump felt the need to reverse this?)

Men still hold the majority of senior roles and therefore often gatekeep the positions alongside or beneath them as they are frequently decision makers for who will be hired for these jobs.

In 2023 the UK the gender pay gap for all employees is at around 15% which means that women (in comparison with men) work for free for 56 days or around 2 months of the year, men take home 2 months more salary each year than women. In the 50-59 year old bracket it is 20.8% which is 76 days of the year worked for free.  The USA it is 17%, New Zealand 8.6%, Australia 15% and Iceland …..drum roll please…..0.9%.

Equal pay laws were introduced around 1970….1970 actual laws were passed to govern equality in pay and this has still not been achieved 53 years on.  I find this soul crushing, the law has been in place since before I was born yet I do not earn as much as my male counterparts.

Any man (or woman) who disagrees with feminism is clearly uninformed, is as thick as two short planks rubbed together or has weaponised ignorance.  

I think I might move to Iceland.