Blog for Fair Pay Day is THIS FRIDAY, April 18!
Join me and hundreds of other bloggers in writing about why it’s important that women are paid equally for equal work. Learn more about the Fair Pay Restoration Act here, and click on the “Take Action” button to contact your senators in support of this legislation (if you’re a US citizen).
Some facts:
- “Women make only 75.5 cents for every dollar that men earn, according to a new release by the U.S. Census Bureau [in 2004]. Between 2002 and 2003, median annual earnings for full-time year-round women workers shrank by 0.6 percent, to $30,724, while men’s earnings remained unchanged, at $40,668. The 1.4 percent decrease in the gender wage ratio is the largest backslide in 12 years (since 1991). The 2003 Census data also show the first decline in women’s real earnings since 1995.”
- The ratio of the annual averages of women’s and men’s median weekly earnings was 80.2 for full-time workers in 2007, down from 80.8 in 2006.
- “In 2005, college-educated women between the ages of 36 and 45 earned about 74.7 cents an hour for every dollar earned by a man of the same age and education, down from 75.7 cents a decade earlier”
I hope you’ll join me in writing about why it’s vital that women’s work is as respected as men’s work. See you this Friday!
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Isn’t it odd that even the least piggish of men and many women will still try to argue that women don’t actually get paid less for the same work than men? They always trot out the whole “women make different choices” bullshit, as if it’s a choice to stay home to take care of children when men (usually) won’t quit their jobs to do it.
A good example I use to shut these people down comes from the headhunting industry. I happen to know someone who does headhunting in the retail industry. He says that if you take two comparable companies with similar revenue, one that caters to men and has male employees for the most part, and another that caters to women and has mainly female employees, their pay will differ wildly. For example, a district manager at a company like Victoria’s Secret will make 25-40% less than one for Foot Locker, equal experience and skill assumed. Having worked in retail for many years when I was younger, I can tell you there aren’t a lot of women in upper management at Foot Locker, nor a lot of men working as DM’s for Victoria’s Secret. So let’s say that you take a district in which these two brands pull in roughly equal revenue and have a similar profit margin (actually, the margin is likely higher at Victoria’s Secret). Why are the women being paid 1/4 to 2/5 less for the same job? I know that’s a random example, but…
That same “women make different choices” bullshit goes as far up the piggish-dude ladder as John McCain. Apparently, because of these “different choices” that women
makeare forced into, McCain believes they need “better education and training,” not equal pay for equal work. So, let me get this straight: the women who are already working the same/equivalent jobs as dudes need MORE training so that they can get the same pay? Someone needs more training on his listening, reading, and comprehension skills. Oh, and bonus, the Ledbetter Act will just create “all kinds of problems” in McCain-Land — probably because it would give women the ability to voice all of the inequities surrounding work and pay in this country. Gourd knows there are too many to count, and if all women were empowered to do something about it legally, businesses might have to stop giving their CEOs billion-dollar bonuses. (Of course, the ensuing recession — not a real recession, mind you, just the whoosh of reality into the upper-class’s empty skulls — would be blamed on feminists. Just like everything else.)I think your point about equivalent jobs in the same industry but not in the same business is really interesting — I hadn’t even thought about that. I wonder if the ERA, if it ever goes up for a vote again, would allow for such comparisons. That’d go a long way toward correcting pay inequities.