Tuesday November 4 was Equal Pay Day
Imagine if your boss came over to your desk this week, thanked you for all your hard work so far, but said that the company wouldn’t be paying you for the remainder of the year.
You’re still expected to be in the office on time, work late on that big pitch or project and hit those targets. You just don’t get paid for your time. Why? Because you’re a woman.
Ridiculous, yes? Of course it is. In case you didn’t already know, Tuesday November 4 was Equal Pay Day, thus named because, thanks to the growing gender pay gap in the United Kingdom, women are in effect working for free from then until the New Year.
What’s worse is that, despite numerous targets and campaigns, the pay gap is actually getting bigger by the year and women still earn an average of £5 000 a year less than men in comparable jobs.
If this surprises you, I’m sure you’re not the only one. I spent my 20s lucky enough to be constantly employed, earning just about enough to pay my rent and keep myself well stocked with Weetabix and cheap vodka.
Workplace inequality
I would certainly have called myself a feminist, but if you had asked me about workplace inequality, I would probably have shrugged and said: “Well, it’s never been an issue for me.”
I believed that people were given a pay rise because they asked for one, that some friends earned more because their hours were longer and that my bosses had made it to the top because they were good at their jobs.
Then I got a little further along in my career. Slowly but surely, friends were pushed out of high-powered jobs after having children and struggled to rediscover their place in the working world.
I was told by a recruitment consultant to take off my engagement ring before going to interviews, as it “gives the wrong impression”. I realised that, for many women, the further along the career path they get, the more barriers suddenly pop up to block their path.
Everyone starts asking the dreaded: “Can we have it all?”
Judgement
On the other side of the coin, women who focus on career over family are judged: I heard a high-powered woman in television described as a “media widow” because she has yet to settle down. Meanwhile, her single male contemporaries, of which there are many, see their eligibility go up by the year. I could go on.
The truth is that the blazing inequality facing women in the workplace will affect everyone eventually.
You might find that attitudes towards you change as you get older, or you might proceed happily before suddenly hitting an unexpected glass ceiling.
You might move jobs and suddenly find that everyone assumes you’re the secretary, not the boss. You might find that your relationship status is brought up more than the quality of your work, and people ask questions and make assumptions if you’ve chosen anything other than the traditional route of marriage and children.
Gender inequality affects everyone, not just women. It makes workplaces less productive, creates workforces that are out of touch with the dynamics of the real world and robs talented women of rewarding, fulfilling roles.
Men as providers
It puts huge pressure on men to “provide” for their family: a notion that should be laughably outdated, but that I hear more and more from men whose workplaces offer so little flexibility that sharing childcare is simply not an option.
Research has shown that women are far less likely to ask for a pay rise than men. So for us, the first step is simply to ask.
But the bigger problem is one of culture and habit; something that requires company leaders to take a stand, acknowledge that the current system is not working and take active steps to change the status quo.
Make pay brackets public, offer fathers more options than simply a week or two of paternity leave, instil quotas for women at board level – whatever it takes. The fact that, in 2014, the pay gap has actually widened should be a warning to us all, and a call to action for business leaders across the country.
If your boss walked over to your desk today and told you that you would be working for free until the New Year, you wouldn’t stand for it. It’s time we stopped accepting and started asking the questions that really matter. – © Guardian News & Media 2014