Women have struggled for centuries to be seen as equals to men. Currently in 2011, women can attend college, play professional sports, vote and are told we can do anything we want. As advanced as our society is in many ways i.e. technology, the United States still views men as superior to women. Many countries may say that women in the United States have too much freedom and need to be more traditional. However, I do not buy that. Women need more freedom in the United States and in every country. One specific aspect of our lives that is not free is the wage inequality between men and women. In my paper, I will discuss why women are subjected to lower wages and why this needs/must be dealt with. I will discuss how a woman makes less money in every job than men, typical women jobs and how women are discriminated in the workforce by merely being women.
To begin, women currently make about 75% of what men make. Now, you might say, “Well gee, that is significantly better than what women made in the past”. Yes, it is extremely higher than what women use to make in the past compared to men’s earnings, however women should be making 100% of what men are making when performing the exact same job. We see the wage gap increase significantly when we look at the highest paid jobs: CEO’s. Women make up 47% of the workforce, yet only make up 3% of Fortune 500 CEO’s. This is a large problem because men are holding most of the wealth in the United States. According to CNN, women will not receive equal pay until 2050. This is 100 years after Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Law. The Equal Pay Law, “prohibiting discrimination based on sex resulting in unequal pay for equal work” clearly is not living up to its standards. Unequal pay arises in every single job in the United States, even in the industries that are predominately women. For example, women nurses make 91% of male nurses and women teachers make 87% of what male teachers make. One question we ask is why?
When we look in to what jobs are most popular for women, we can see why there is a huge wage gap between men and women. The five most popular female jobs are secretaries and administrative assistants, registered nurses, elementary and middle school teachers, cashiers and retail salespersons. In 2009, 46% of all women graduated college compared to 36% of all men who graduated college. Women make up more of the college graduates and make up almost half the workforce, yet we still get paid less. According to AFL-CIO, an average woman who works full-time from age 25 to age 65, retirement, will earn $523,000 less than the average man. A lot of this has to do with the jobs that women hold. A study by the University of California Los Angeles, found that men are more likely to major in engineering and science where there is a large demand for those majors and the pay is on average higher in these fields. The sad news is that women only make up around 12% of these majors. These statistics make me wonder why women want to work in jobs that are paid less?
Many women choose these most popular women jobs because of family life. Women will work part-time more often than men so they can be around to help raise their children. We are told that we can have a successful career and family and basically “have it all”. However, we see statistically that women are not viewed or treated as equals in the workforce. In the chapter “Mommy Tax”, Crittenden discusses how women are subjected to harsh realities when it comes to trying to balance family with work life. Many women decide to be a stay at home mother or work part-time because their husbands are making a larger income. Another reason why there is a huge wage gap in regards to gender is due to the fact that many women take off work for a part of their life to raise their children. When they end up going back to work, they face smaller wages than they would have collected if they had remained in the workforce. Most often the women are the ones to stay at home because when they become pregnant they actually start to earn less. According to General Accountability Office, women with children earn about 2.5% less than women without children. Ironically, men with children earn 2% more on average than men without children. These statistics show how discrimination faces women in the workforce.
Women face discrimination in the workforce in multiple ways. One way is discrimination targeted at pregnant women and mothers. Crittenden shares the story of DiBiasi who was basically forced to resign from her job. She was given a new job from the one she had previously been so successful at and purposely given long hours that she could not manage with children. She tried her best to stay with her job to show her bosses that she was committed no matter what. DiBiasi was discriminated against so much that her company forced her out of her job. However, this is extremely hard to prove because there is no definition of what makes an employee a “good” employee. This discrimination has caused women to be 20% more likely to resign from their full-time job than men. “Mommy Tax” really frightened me because I plan to “do it all”. I had never imagined that I would be discriminated against in the workforce for being a mother as long as I was doing my best at work.
Women also face discrimination when they reach their dreams of being in a high-up position in a company. Successful women without children are portrayed as crazy women who are so obsessed with their job and their job is all that matters. This stereotype tends to make employees feel bad when a woman does not have family and is work-driven. In class, we looked at a list of stereotypes in regards to both men and women. All of these stereotypes are ridiculous, but sometimes it easy to buy in to them without even realizing a stereotype is incorrect. When a woman has a baby, the stereotype is “She’ll cost the company money in maternity benefits”. However, when a man is having a baby, the stereotype is “He’ll need a raise”. As much as these are both indeed stereotypes, the statistics in the proceeding paragraph demonstrates these stereotypes.
We are told we can “have it all”, but not all of what men have. The United States needs to recognize women as equals to men. As much as men would like to believe women have the same rights, they know they often have it much easier when it comes to the workforce. I believe that women can receive equal pay before 2050. This is not just an issue for some women of different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. This is an issue for all women and needs to be acted upon by all women. It is important for women to be motivated and feel confident in obtaining any job they want no matter if it is predominately men or women. Aviva Wittenberg-Cox, from the Harvard Business Review Blog, said, “Women represent one of the world's biggest and most under-reported opportunities”. Women need to be utilized more efficiently and need to be paid 100% of what men make in the same exact job.
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-05-10/living/cb.25best.paying.jobs.4women_1_median-weekly-earnings-wage-gap-lawyers-women?_s=PM:LIVING
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/womenspay.htm
Whitney and I wrote on similar topics, and I agree with her opinions about the wage gap. Whitney begins to touch on one of the things that really got me thinking as I was researching the wage gap; it is the question of why women are so much less likely to choose majors or seek careers in engineering and the sciences. I have struggled to understand why this continues to be overwhelmingly true, and I find it hard to believe that women are fundamentally less inclined to do well in or enjoy these fields. Are there subliminal pressures on women to stay out of these careers? Is it a product of the pressure on women to be family/care-giving oriented? The other question we must ask is why these occupations pay so much more than traditionally female dominated jobs. Our society provides higher financial reward to the people who take care of our electronics than to the people who take care of our children.
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