The pay gapThere is a pay gap between men and women in every occupation from high school teachers to doctors. You would naturally think that with years of women fighting for equal rights we would be past this point, but we’re not. For the U.S. to have a true democracy women need to be viewed as equal to men.
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The Democrats spoke out about the issue trying to pass a bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act, to close the pay gap between men and women. They stressed to the Republicans that women earn 77 cents to every dollar a man makes, but the Republicans claim that they had “more important” political agendas” to take care of. The pay gap is going on all throughout the U.S. but it’s different in each state. “Washington D.C. is the best place to go for equal pay because women are paid 91% of what men get paid, and the worst place to go is Louisiana because women are paid 66% of what men are paid.” Instead of having the gap be different in each state, we should solve the issue at hand! Fill the gap all over the country and have women finally equal to men.
Brit Hume claims “Women make different choices with the types of jobs they seek, they make different choices in reaction to marriage and childbirth; when those factors are taken into consideration studies have indicated that the pay gap all but evaporates.” So he’s basically saying as long as women don’t get married and have children the pay gap will go away in no time, which is a horrible excuse because there is still a pay gap with single women as well. “Single women are even more adversely affected by the wage gap than married women. Single women earn only 78.8 percent of what married women earn, and only 57 cents for every dollar that married males earn.” This just made the situation worse because single women earn less than married women, and it doesn’t matter if you’re single or married there is still a pay gap.
Professor Steven Horwitz, from St. Lawrence University, makes an interesting point “the case that our expectations about women’s roles versus caring for children in the household, men’s roles about caring for children in the household are very different. If we think those are poor choices, If we want to see women’s pay more equal to men, what we need to do is convince more women to go into area such as the sciences and the mathematics, and the engineering, and we need to convince more men to take responsibility for children in the house, when those begin to even out, we’ll see wages begin to even out as well.” He makes a good point about most women take time off and take care of their kids which is where they don’t make a lot of money and most men aren’t the ones taking care of the kids. It’s also true that more men are into the sciences and engineering jobs which pay more than most occupations that are majority female. However there are still some women engineers who still get paid less than their co-workers, which is why there is no excuse.
If you thought the issue couldn’t get any worse, you’re in for a surprise. The pay gap is broken up into races as well, so the white and asian women earn more than the black and hispanic women. “In 2010..., white women earned 78.1 percent compared to white men, African American women earned 89.8 percent compared to black men, Hispanic women earned 91.3 percent compared to Hispanic men, and Asian women earned 79.7 percent compared to Asian men. The wage gap is lower for black and Hispanic women in part because wages for people of color tend to be lower overall.” There shouldn’t be a difference in pay because of ethnic background because we live in a democracy but that topic is for another time. The gender pay gap doesn’t just affect one person, it affects families. “In 2010, 63.9 percent of families, a mother was either a single working mother or bringing home as much or more than her husband or bringing home at least a quarter of the family’s earnings. When women’s wages are lowered due to gender discrimination, their families’ incomes are often significantly lowered as well.” If women’s pay were equal to men families would have much more money than they have now. “Mothers earn about 7 percent less per child than childless women. For women under 35 years of age, the wage gap between mothers and women without children is greater than the gap between women and men.” You would think that the more children women have they would earn 7 percent more than women without children, but they don’t. Basically the more children you have the less money you will make.
“What can we do about this situation?”, you may ask. Well we could have all women stop getting married and having children like Brit Hume said. Or we could have more women go into science and engineering fields like Professor Steven Horwitz said. What we really should do is pass the Paycheck Awareness Act and stop coming up with excuses not to, and make the first step to make this country a true democracy. Ghandi said “To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman ...If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage?”
Bibliography:
Oliver, John. "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Wealth Gap (HBO)."YouTube. YouTube, 13 July 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfgSEwjAeno
Drexler, Peggy. "Mom and Dad, Please Explain This One To Your Daugters." The Huffington Post. N.p., 2 Jan. 2015. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/gender-inequality/ (Links to an external site.)
Horwitz, Professor Steven. "Do Women Earn Less than Men?" YouTube. YouTube, 30 Aug. 2011. Web. 21 Jan. 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow
Lynn, Sarah J. "The Top 10 Facts About the Wage Gap." American Progress. Center for American Progress, 16 Apr. 2012. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2012/04/16/11391/the-top-10-facts-about-the-wage-gap/
Hill, Catherine. "The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap (Fall 2014)."AAUW: Empowering Women Since 1881. N.p., 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.
http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfgSEwjAeno
Drexler, Peggy. "Mom and Dad, Please Explain This One To Your Daugters." The Huffington Post. N.p., 2 Jan. 2015. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/gender-inequality/ (Links to an external site.)
Horwitz, Professor Steven. "Do Women Earn Less than Men?" YouTube. YouTube, 30 Aug. 2011. Web. 21 Jan. 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow
Lynn, Sarah J. "The Top 10 Facts About the Wage Gap." American Progress. Center for American Progress, 16 Apr. 2012. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2012/04/16/11391/the-top-10-facts-about-the-wage-gap/
Hill, Catherine. "The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap (Fall 2014)."AAUW: Empowering Women Since 1881. N.p., 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.
http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/