Is the Gender Wage Gap Real?
Julia Carpenter, of CNN, reports in her article ¨Why Men Need to Believe in the Wage Gap" that, ¨Female workers, on average, earn around 80 cents for every dollar a man makes. The gap is even wider for women of color"(Carpenter 1). The wage gap was one of the many issues brought up by the Women's Suffrage Movement and has been debated for decades since. However, some people today believe that this inequality has been fixed and people who complain about the wage gap are "crazy feminists" who want attention. This could not be further from the truth. The wage gap is still very much real due to societal norms influencing women's pay, along with menś persistent disbelief in this systematic issue and need to be addressed and changed accordingly.
A reason the wage gap still exists is our societies persistent concept that women are "less than" men instead of realizing that woman are people too and judging people based off stereotypical gender roles. Systematic boundaries, like the idea that women are mothers and stay at home and take care of children etc. ect. are old fashioned and sexist, and yet they still hold far to much influence over the way women are paid in may work fields. Julia Carpenter, of CNN, reports in her article "Why men need to Believe in the Wage Gap" that, "Much of the gender wage gap can be explained by factors like "occupational segregation" (when work in female-dominated fields is valued less than work in male-dominated fields) and women's traditional roles as unpaid caretakers and caregivers, according to the Pew Research Center"(Carpenter 2). Gender roles have a influence on pay that is, in a lot of cases, subconsciously assigning roles to people and then not realizing how it is affecting the people involved. Business owners have learned to take advantage of people and women have become easy targets due to the ability to justify paying them less with things like "she might get pregnant and need paid leave". This sexist and unjust generalizing is what is hurting many women in their work fields. Likewise, in the article "8 Big Problems for Women in the Workplace" by Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett gives more insight on this, summarizing a study that shows how gender roles influence women's pay. "A 2008 report called "The Athena Factor" found that women in high positions in male-dominated fields, such as tech, suffer harsher penalties than men when they slip up¨ (Barnett 5). This research further proves that our societies gender-biases influence a wage gap because work field that are male dominated are much more likely to demote women's status and pay, widening the interspace in salary. Those who disagree with this claim may state:
... there are two possible explanations - not necessarily mutually exclusive. One is an environmental explanation, where social norms make it harder for mothers to stay in the workforce. Under this explanation, moms may find that they aren't offered certain opportunities - a job that requires significant travel or long hours, for example - because of the perception that they are the primary caregiver to a child. Public opinion data that Kleven cites shows, for example, that most Danish adults (and American adults, for that matter) believe that women with young children should not hold full-time jobs (Kliff 4).
However, just because it is public opinion does not mean it's right. It was public opinion that slavery was ok, but does that mean it's copacetic? Just because someone is a mother does not mean that they should be paid less for performing the same jobs as man. Sarah Kilff of Vox states "...a sharp decline in women's earnings after the birth of their first child - with no comparable salary drop for men" (Kilff 1). Giving birth to life does not make one less intelligent or responsible. If anything it makes them more so.
Another reason the wage gap still exists is men refuse to believe that it is a real thing and still very relevant is many people's lives. To more clearly comprehend this situation, one must understand how sexism has been taught to people since birth. For many people, it has become a subconscious way of thinking, like manners or sarcasm. Many men deny the wage gap because they don't want to face reality. However, this does not make the salary difference between men and woman any less real or valid. By rejecting the notion of the wage gap, they are simply making it easier for it to exist. Julia Carpenter of CNN reports in "Why men need to believe in the Gender Wage Gap" that:
"Ariane Hegewisch, study director at the Institute for Women's Policy Research, believes there's another element to men's disbelief: They don't want to believe they are benefiting from an unequal system - which would imply that they've been rewarded for more than just their own merits. "You don't want to be the bad guy, so you kind of rationalize it in your head," Hegewisch said. "There are lots of ways of making sense of this for yourself, which doesn't really address the kind of more structural inequalities that I would think we need to fix"(Carpenter 2).
To elaborate, mens willingness to explain a way a system that they unjustly benefit from, even if they aren't aware of it, is creating a more stable platform for this patriarchal setup to go unnoticed. Imagine writing an essay. Putting a ton of effort into it and want to do well. But on receiving the paper, it only got a 77% while everyone else got a 100. The paper was as good, if not better, than everyone else's. The whole class simply denies the unfair scoring. Now, imagine that paper was what paid for food, housing, and other necessities. Carpenter then proceeds to report,"Hegewisch says part of this is men's belief that while some workplaces may be unfair, theirs is not. When confronted with a pay gap between one man and one woman, she said men will often point to a reason other than gender to explain the pay disparity: "she is getting paid less because she is not as good at her job" or "I make more money because I work more hours than she does," or "the man has more qualifications"(Carpenter 3). This research further proves that mens disbelief is furthering the existence of the wage gap. Clearly, if the social majority refuses to stand up for equal pay rights, they are simply passively agreeing with the sexism of the gender wage gap. Because men hold 77 percent of American government positions according to Time magazine as of 2016 (Adams 1), they are much more likely to deny the wage gap instead of doing anything about it. Those who disagree with this claim may state "No matter how many times this wage gap claim is decisively refuted by economists, it always comes back. The bottom line: the 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full-time. It does not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week. When such relevant factors are considered, the wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing"(Sommers 3). However, woman still on average make 23-cents less than men. In fact, why should there be any difference in any on the above stated "relevant factors". Women should have equal access to job opportunities, promotions, education, etc. CNN's Julia Carpenter says "..Detractors on both the right and the left have said the wage gap is a myth, concocted from skewed stats." (Carpenter 2). Therefore, it is obvious that due to biased presentation of information, this article is trying to present information that really says "Women are a disadvantage for gaining access to higher paying jobs" as a reason the wage gap doesn't exist.
When considering the issue of the gender wage gap, it is clear that it is still very real and very relevant. It's important to recognize how it is affecting a huge amount of the population and is only based in outdated gender roles and patriarchal ideologies. Ignorance has never solved problems before, so why should it now?
