by Leah Massingham
November 20th was Equal Pay Day in the UK. This is the day that marks, based on average pay, women no longer being paid for the year.
In comparison to male counterparts, the final month and a half of the year total to the difference between genders.
While many people think the gender pay gap is an old obstacle, and surely no longer a western issue, this is a misguided belief.
Essentially, for 6 weeks women are working for free.
Socially there is the belief that we have moved away from the pay gap because of all the work we have done to combat it. When it’s mentioned now it’s often batted off as a thing of the past.
Yet, The Fawcett Society, a UK based charity that campaigns for women’s rights and gender equality, have found that the gender pay gap has actually increased to 11.3% this year from 10.7% last year.
A scary statistic that shows us we’re actually going backwards on this issue.
The pay gap is calculated as the average amount that women are paid compared to the average amount that men are paid. Therefore it is affected by a plethora of variables.
Women being paid less than men for the same job role does feed into this, which is the hardest circumstance to explain and understand, but it doesn’t make up for the statistics entirely. It also accounts for things like women not being hired, promoted, or given the same amount of hours.
The gender pay gap battle has been fought by women for decades. In 1997, the pay gap was at its highest at 27.5%. Since then, it has steadily decreased... until now.
The reasons why women are still grossly overlooked when it comes to fair pay aren’t clear, but research has shown a few key things.
Firstly, statistics indicate that domestic responsibilities, such as childcare, are still disproportionately handed off to women. The lack of equally shared responsibilities within families leads to women not being able to be as flexible with their work hours as their male counterparts.
This leads to women not being able to work overtime, adapt to changes, or sometimes makes them unable to work full time hours at all. All of these circumstances lead them to be overlooked for pay raises and promotions which broadens the gap.
Another big component is that women typically work in lower paid sectors. In most cases this can be attributed to systemic misogyny and stereotypes that are still thrust into society. There are still stereotypical ‘male jobs’ and ‘female jobs’.
Again, this can often be to do with childcare responsibilities. For example, women are more likely to work in hospitality and retail jobs as they often have flexible shift patterns.
However, it is also to do with the way women are perceived.
Due to women being seen as more nurturing, they are encouraged to go into health and social care jobs which are fundamentally underpaid.
Moreover, because of the belief that women are vain and materialistic, a lot of women are motivated to go into beauty related sectors such as hairdressing or beautician work.
All of these jobs are important despite the stigma, yet are often seen as low skilled and get overlooked.
One of the most frustrating parts of this is that it’s seen as a choice.
Women ‘choose’ to do these jobs because they want to be home more. Whilst this might be true for some, quite often it is not necessarily that women want to but rather that they have to.
With no accessible childcare options or career paths, women’s choices are limited to what is deemed appropriate for them. Overlooking women is something society has done for millenia.
Despite the Equality Act (2010) making gender a protected characteristic against discrimination, women are still not acknowledged due to their gender and age.
A survey conducted by Slater & Gordon found that more than 40% of employers are hesitant to hire women of a childbearing age.
The Office of National Statistics considers women to be of childbearing age from 15-45 years old. This means for 30 years of a woman’s life they are ignored when it comes to jobs and promotions just in case they have to take time off to have children.
There are all sorts of reasons why this is an awful statistic. Not only is a woman’s family plan none of anyone’s business, it is also a gross oversight to assume that all women want children. It’s also incredibly inconsiderate to assume that a woman can have children just because of her age. Are women expected to put their childbearing status on their CVs to combat this?
New examples of international, blatant misogyny are being highlighted almost daily. Right now, being a woman feels incredibly uneasy and at times quite scary. There are fundamental systemic misogynistic ideologies that seem to have been overlooked in recent years. Valuing women shouldn’t be an anomaly, it should be standard.
Edited by Emily Duff