A man and his son are in a car accident. They are taken to the nearest hospital. The emergency room doctor says, “I can’t operate on this child. This is my son.” Who is the surgeon?
If you said the mother congrats! If it took you a little longer than expected to figure it out don’t necessarily blame yourself, society has programmed us into thinking certain professions are either male or female. Doctors are males, teachers are females the gendered list is extensive and is just part of the problem.
With career day upon us I thought it would be the perfect time to discuss an issue that affects all women, whether they want to acknowledge it or not, and that is the wage gap. As many know, women make only about 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. I’m not sure about you, but that pisses me off if a woman is working just as hard, if not harder, than her male counterpart she deserves to have equal pay. Yet, wage differences are not just about women and men in the same job/same position that have different earnings it is also about the types of jobs women and men are often encouraged to pursue. Jobs that typically have a higher percentage of women are also jobs that typically have lower earnings. This higher percentage is not because women are “better” at these type of jobs, rather these are the jobs that women are encouraged and pushed into, you can see this play out in the riddle above. A teacher can make up to $60,000 while an electrician can make up to $81,000 which one do you think will be more geared for little girls?
I have heard critics say that it is not fair to look at the 77 cents model because there are other factors that play into earnings, such as women are more often part-time employees and they take more time off. Okay, let’s look at some of these factors shall we? Keeping in mind the patriarchal society in which we live that affects them all. Women work part-time, fine, but why do women work part-time? Is it because they are not offered the full-time positions? Could it possibly be due to employers preferring to hire men because they supposedly take less time off. And why do women have to take time off? Well, if she wants to have a child at some point she is going to have to take leave from work, but should she be penalized because nature has it that women are the ones who give birth? Also, if our patriarchal society did not deem it that the woman should be the one caring for the children then she would not be the only parent who had to leave work to take care of a sick child. Some people might try and counter that if the man makes more money than he should be the one who stays at work so that more money comes into the household. Okay, fine, I’ll give you that, granted the fact that he has a higher paying job still probably plays into issues that were previously discussed, but whatever. What if that was not the case? What if the woman made more money than the man? Would he then be the one expected to take time off to take care of a child? More often than not that isn’t what happens, the mother is still the one who is expected to take care of the child. This puts many women in a double bind, on the one hand they need to work in order to take care of their families, but if they are seen as working “too much” then they are seen as bad mothers.
Unfortunately, this is not the only double bind that women find themselves in within the working world. In order to make it in the corporate world, one often has to be assertive, aggressive, demanding, and goal oriented characteristics often associated with men in our culture. So, how is a woman supposed to succeed? By adopting these traits of course! When she does she’s seen as a go-getter, someone who is bringing the company lots of money and she may even get a promotion or two. At some point it stops though, she hits that glass ceiling and traits that once made her stand out, in a good way, are now the ones that she needs to change because she’s “too bossy” “too aggressive” “a bitch”. These “bully broads” are then encouraged to tone it down, or even go to seminars to help them overcome these attributes. If you have time watch this video, where one woman, Jean Hollands, sets up classes that teach women how to be more feminine in the workplace.
This just makes my blood boil! If you don’t have time to watch the video, I’ll just give you some of my favorite highlights. She encourages women to pepper their speech with “ums” and “uhs” and to use less intelligent language, to be less articulate. She wants women to wear pink and she encourages women to cry at work. Wait, WHAT? Yes, you heard me ladies and gents, if women want to make it in the working world this is what she should be doing. So, let us see if I got this right, as a woman I should be aggressive and demanding enough to get the job done which will promote me to higher levels, but when I get there I have to stop being these things or I won’t be able to succeed any longer, and at the same time by losing these traits I am also ensuring that I won’t make it any higher in the organization because I will no longer have the qualities that got me there in the first place. Pissed off yet? This doesn’t affect just women who are working their way up, but all women in that because being seen as someone who is “assertive” is so contradictory to the way women are supposed to act in the work place they are less likely to make certain demands. For instance, part of the wage gap is influenced by the fact that women often aren’t asking for promotions or negotiating their salaries. This isn’t because they don’t want to, but that society tells them they shouldn’t. Now tell me, how is that fair?
So tell me readers, has the wage gap personally affected your life? Though, it really affects us all whether we realize it or not. Do you agree with what the “bully broads” are doing? Or do you think it’s teaching women “submissive” behaviors? Would you be willing to sound less articulate, just to make others feel better? Let me know in the comments!
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