The Gender Pay Gap, Teensplained

It has been 58 years since the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which made it illegal to pay men and women different salaries for the same work based on their sex, was signed into law. Yet men and women are still not paid the same money for the same work, as shown by the ever so persistent gender pay gap: On average, women make about 82 cents for every dollar a man of the same qualifications makes, with many women of color making far less. What’s more, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimates that, at this rate, women and men won’t be paid equally until 2059. That will have been 96 years (from the time the Equal Pay Act was put into effect) of women struggling to make ends meet while their male counterparts are doing just fine. The amount that a woman makes compared to her male counterpart depends on factors such as ethnicity and location.

In addition to this, women-dominated fields are some of the lowest-paying ones. Careers such as child, family, and school social workers; executive secretaries; guidance counselors; etc. are key examples.

Not only do women not get paid equally because of their gender, race, or career choice, but many experience pay gaps based on where they live. Take California, which is the state with the smallest gender pay gap. Women in California make approximately 87.8% of what men make. The state with the largest gender pay gap is Louisiana, where women make approximately 68.9% of the average man’s salary. This is likely because Louisiana’s existing laws on pay equality are weak compared to other state’s laws. Lawmakers have rejected 28 equal pay bills in the past decade in the state of Louisiana alone.

Unfortunately, 46% of men believe the pay gap is “made up to serve a political purpose,” according to a survey done by Survey Monkey in 2019. It’s an attitude that doesn’t seem to have changed much over time; Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said that when she started her legal career she often felt like a kindergarten teacher in her attempts to make men understand that gender inequality was a legitimate concern.

There are ways we can all work to fight the power that the gender pay gap has, though. Advocate for your workplace to use a skill-based assessment and interviews in hiring, rather than going off of first impressions, such as appearance (unconscious-bias training in a workplace helps). Women must also do everything they can to advocate for themselves and lean into salary negotiations. Claim salary transparency so that people know when there’s a problem with the equality of salaries, and promote diversity by promoting diverse people.

Though women might be the most disadvantaged by the gender wage gap, there is no reason why a man can’t be an advocate for wage equality. As Sarah Silverman put it, “We don’t get what we want, we get what we think we deserve. Ask for more.”