The Gender Pay Gap is Mostly a Myth

I want to first of all come out and say that I am NOT a third wave feminist. I think that it was very admirable for first wave feminists to come out and give themselves a chance to vote in the early 1920's when women and most men were not doing so. It is that kind of bravery and no nonsense attitude that women of today need to look at and feel proud of. While the racial minorities in this country were gaining equal rights in the 60's and 70's, so were second wave feminists. In an attempt to gain equal treatment and equal pay in the workforce, second wave feminists won themselves a great victory and now women can have the same job as men and get equal pay.

Recently, however, it has come out that women receive 70 cents for every dollar that men receive. Now you might be looking at that and say to yourself, "now Hank, that seems really unfair." I will respond by saying that it does SEEM really unfair, but there is actually a reason for this. You see, men aren't actually receiving 30 more cents than women are for the same job. Moreover, they are actually receiving the same pay. There are two problems in this country and they both go completely against women and most people claiming there is an unfair gender pay gap might not see it first hand.

The first problem is the less obvious one. It is very unfortunate for me to say this and I hope this trend changes, but as of today, women are around 25% of Computer Science and Engineering majors  and at the same time, they are around 75% of Health Professions, Education, Social Work and Psychology majors, they are around 65% of total Foreign Language, English, Art, Communication and Journalism majors, and finally, they are less than half of the Math, Statistics, Physical Science, and Business majors. Now this might be truly terrible of me to say, but for the most part, women on average choose career paths that get them less money. This isn't all women, but it is a lot and it is most. Men on the other hand, choose more business, math, and science degrees and as a result go into higher paying fields. Not all, I was a social science student and thus, I won't get as high of pay. That was my choice, unfortunately, and I will have to suffer through it.

The second problem should be way more obvious. Unfortunately a lot of women have to do something called "giving birth" to children. And while it is something that they might want to do and they might get time off from their job to do, it might make them less unattractive to employers. Not to mention, women usually take care of the kids and that means taking them to daycares, going to after school activities, having their kid's friends tag along. Now, should the father take part in helping out more? Of course they should, but that isn't what this is about. Females who read my posts might be looking at me like "what a damn misogynist, I can't believe he would say such horrible things about women and how we do this and that and still get less pay, like it is a good thing to not hire women in the workforce because we get pregnant."

Well let me tell you a story about a time I actually temporarily took over for a woman on maternity leave. I was brought on about two weeks before she actually gave birth and her boss gave her about four months to be on maternity leave. I actually thought in my head that this wasn't nearly enough time, but I didn't actually say anything about it. Anyways, when four months came around, the principal at the preschool that I was working as a temporary front desk administrator for was actually getting extremely worried because the woman hadn't come back and I hadn't been relieved. About a month later, we all learned that she wasn't coming back and that the principal at the preschool had to hire a new person to fill her role, thankfully it was also a woman.

The fact of the matter is that according to The Atlantic, 43% of women who are pregnant, actually leave their jobs for good before or soon after having children. This is specifically bad in education jobs because students depend on their teachers, but if the teacher is out for an elongated time, then districts and principals often have to depend on substitute teachers to fill the role of the teacher. Often times these teachers have to come in at the middle of the school year and the students have to start over with someone new. I am not saying that you shouldn't have kids and that you deserve 70 cents for the dollar, but the reality is that this is a reason why business don't hire women on the level that they should.

My conclusion is that 70 cents to the dollar is not the number that women specifically get paid. Women are earning the same amount as men are, but because men choose higher paying careers on average and because women don't work as long as men, then the average pay works out to men earning more on average. I am going to leave all women, however, with this message and I hope you all listen to it. If you are earning less than a man at your job for the same amount of work, you have a duty to yourself and women that hold your same position to come forward and ask why you are not receiving the same amount of money as a man. Now, it could be because that man is a more senior employee or it might be because of gender inequality in the work force, but you have to say something. You might get fired from your job for speaking up, but you are doing women who take your post in the future a favor because you might advocate for equal pay if your boss happens to be a sexist. I hope this was an educational piece for people who believe in this type of gender inequality and I hope you all have a good day!