The Pay Gap

Discussion about the pay gap can be excruciating because it is a very complex topic. I don't care do debate how many cents on the dollar women make. Sometimes it is foul play and other times it's fair.

Pay equity means equal pay for work of equal value. But how do we decipher what is valuable and what is not and who gets to make those decisions? Since we live in a patriarchy, obviously men do, and it is becoming increasingly clear that traditionally female careers are undervalued and underpaid.

"Janitors, two-thirds of whom are men, make $12.13 per hour, while maids and housekeepers, nearly 9 in 10 of whom are women, make $9.94 per hour." PBS

Today's workforce remains profoundly segregated by gender. I pose that women's work is undervalued because women themselves are undervalued. We see this in other arenas too. Recently, I heard a young girl talking sports with a few of her male friends. She brought up gymnastics. Her male friends stopped her and said, "That's not a real sport!"

Now it may be they just don't like gymnastics, but the more plausible answer is that gymnastics is a female dominated sport and therefore they undervalue it for that very reason. Women are put down in very subtle ways every day. "Don't throw like a girl. Don't be a sissy!" We're taught to hate ourselves. Maybe not directly, but subtly over the years it builds up often leading to things like self harm and anorexia or bulimia.

If you think you're not worth anything, you dare not ask for anything -- not the raise you deserve or the respect you are due as a fellow human being. In result, many women are impoverished or dependent on men. They stay on the street and get sexually assaulted. They stay in abusive relationships and get killed.

We hear time and time again about the "business case for change". In our capitalist society, it seems that doing the right thing doesn't matter in the slightest. It's the money that talks. And we know that equality in the workplace means billions of dollars for the economy. But why is the business case for change not working in the way we thought it would? Because men fear women having power and freedom more than they like money. My guess is because they think we'll treat them the way they've treated us.

Note: Addressing the low pay and poor advancement opportunities in women’s work is essential to confronting systemic racial and ethnic inequality. Women of color are disproportionately represented in these jobs: They are a third of the female labor force but nearly 45 percent of women in these jobs.