Women’s No Pay Day
October 30th, 2007
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Today is Women’s No Pay Day. Its a day to make people aware that (as you see above) on average 17% of women are paid £4000 less than their male counterparts, thats the same as working for free from October 30th till the end of the year.
So please join in Fawcett and Unison’s campaign to make people aware, and fight the blatent sexism that still happens in some workplaces. If you can, print of flyers from the website, tell people about the day or just be aware of it. And be sure to sign the online petition.
Via Fawcett Society
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Tags: , fawcett, feminism, no pay day, unison, womens no pay day
Posted in
feminism, life, work |
October 30th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
And once again the US lags so far behind that we can barely be seen… Even though many of our feminist organizations pride themselves on being the most active in the world. *hangs head in a sigh*
November 1st, 2007 at 8:32 am
17% less. That’s quite a lot.
But I doubt it is all quite as black and white as this suggests. The vast majority of the senior managers in my company are male and yet the professional pool they are recruited from is about 35% female (and increasing).
Female members of the workforce are far more likely to take career breaks, or to work part time (as a lifestyle choice) or to simply not to apply for the promotions. Women’s careers often comes second to their partner’s. Not because of some latent sexism within a relationship, although that may be the case in some instances, but for far more complicated social and enviromental pressures.
I’m not saying that two people doing the same job shouldn’t earn the same wage. I’m saying that individuals should be paid on merit, and a less qualified or less hard working individual should not be given equal pay with a colleague unless they earn it.
November 4th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
The fact is that a lot of those ‘lifestyle choices’ and ’social and environmental pressure’ are intrinsically linked to a society which puts men’s interests before women’s - a wise woman once said to me “the men can ever expect is privelege, the best women can ever expect in equality”, does that make sense?
The Fawcett campaign is based on like for like professions and cites the police among others who have not sorted out their pay inequality. It isn’t just about men and women doing the same job and being paid differently though - it’s also about traditionally female jobs being paid less than traditionally males despite the equal responsibility or skill each role takes - the example Fawcett gives is between a day-carer and a car mechanic. The women who are paid to look after your vulnerable, delicate, impressionable children are paid much less than the chaps who dain to change your oil. I know that’s not the be all and end all of mechanics, but what I’m saying is, if your car breaks down it’s not neccessarily the end of the world, if you child is not given access to proper daycare while you’re at work, THAT is a major problem.
In relationships where women’s careers come secondary to their partners, they don’t always have the 100% choice there - for a start if they have socialised to believe that a woman’s place is in the home, and that even if a woman gets an education and works, when she has children it is her duty to stay at home, they are making a choice based on their percevied ‘place’ in society. Women’s jobs can often seem less important than men’s because if they somehow find time to do all the housework, pick the children up from school, and cook, as well as hold down a job, then the job must not be that difficult, tiring or cognitively challenging.
“I’m saying that individuals should be paid on merit, and a less qualified or less hard working individual should not be given equal pay with a colleague unless they earn it.”
That really makes it sound like you think that women generally don’t pull their weight in the workplace and that justifies their being paid less, or that is the ‘not so black and white’ that you mentioned earlier.
The UK are the worst in the whole of the EU with regard to this pay gap.
LFG - don’t sell your US activists short, they’re doing what they can and they’re doing a damn good job of it!