Gender Wage Gap:
A Social Injustice
Kattie Andrus
English 122: English Composition II
Erin Reaume
May 19th, 2014

Imagine yourself going into work every day, punching the time clock with your fellow coworkers who complete the same job tasks as you but when payday comes around you have only earned about three-fourths of what they were paid. Wouldn’t you be a little outraged or even feel somewhat belittled? In America today statistics indicate there is a gender income gap where women and men do not make the same money for the same job. This is a profound exploitation of women in the workplace. It has been proven over time that women are just as capable as performing jobs that are or were traditionally dominated by men and women should be paid for these jobs equally. Even though there are many stereotypes about women in the workplace, women should earn the same amount of money that men do when performing the same job. By addressing the negative stereotypes of women, understanding the causes of the gender income gap and bridging that wage gap, we are ending a social injustice against women and ensuring gender equality in the workplace.
The notion that a woman’s work is not as valuable as a man’s is an archaic way of thinking. This idea comes from early America which was a Christian society where many of the beliefs held at that time came from the Bible. And in the Bible it says “ The Lord says to Moses, ‘Say to the people of Israel, when a man makes a special vow of person to the Lord at your valuation, then your valuation of the male from twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be 50 shekels of the sanctuary. If a person is a female, your valuation shall be thirty shekels.” (Leviticus 27: 1-4, Revised Standard Version) Briefly this means that men are more valuable than women therefore a man’s work is more valuable than a woman’s. Fundamentally women were viewed as the weaker sex and not as valuable as a male. At that time in our history many people also felt that the women’s work was less valuable because they were not supporting an entire family as a man would. This may have held true then because woman rarely did the same work as men and normally tended to the house and children. And any acceptable part-time job they had were viewed as extensions of the women’s role in society. Some jobs they held were house-cleaning, sewing, or caring for children of others. But this does not hold true today. Today women make up about half of the United States workforce and Conway states in Singled Out,(2013) “They also earn less: At a mean $41,687 annually, single women make the least of all groups classified according to marital status. Among single women, single mothers are the worst off, making $23,000 a year.” (p. 42) This stoic notion that women don’t support families even if it is themselves only hurts women and especially single mothers. As a society we hear that men are harder workers or that they are the breadwinners. But so many women now are breadwinners or are the head of the household. Women have become an important part of the workforce in America doing more jobs than what was once considered an extension of a woman’s role in society. Women are very prevalent in every field of work and completing the jobs as well as men. Also by not paying a female the same as a male is a form of exploitation. Exploitation is defined as the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work. And by not paying women the same as a man is a prime example of exploitation. The companies and business that still hold the same view as Colonial America and pay women less than men reap the benefits of society’s stereotype of women. There are no longer restrictions on the type jobs women hold, so why should their pay be limited because at one point their work was viewed as less valuable by society.
Not only is unequal pay unfair but it is also illegal. Many women in the 1940s flooded the workplace during wartime because the men were overseas serving and fighting for our country. This helped ease the strain of needed workers in areas that were dominated by men. Approximately 6.6 million women joined America’s workforce and they worked on aircraft production, shipbuilding and other fields normally performed by men. So looking back we can attribute our success of winning WWII to the women that joined the workforce. Without these women to fill the jobs that men normally completed, the United States would not have been so prepared to fight that war. The new female presence in the workplace helped ease some of the legal roadblocks and in 1963 the Equal Pay Act was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy. The Federal Government recognized the need to prohibit unequal pay. This act banned the payment of unequal pay for equal work. But stated by Yearley in Congress Passes the Equal Pay Act (2013), “The act ended one phase of a long struggle and opened a fresh phase that presidents, Congress, and the federal courts would continue to define for years to come.”(para. 1)
Today women still fight the battle of unequal pay not only during their years of employment but also into their retirement years. One of the reasons for the gender income gap is that it goes undetected. In Beyond the Paycheck Fairness Act: Mandatory Wage Disclosure Laws- A Necessary Tool For Closing the Residual Gender Wage Gap it says (2013) “United States woman continue to earn only about 77 cents to the male dollar. The significance of this discrepancy becomes even more apparent when one looks at the impact of the gap over an entire working lifetime. A woman who makes 77 cents on the male dollar loses a total of $1.2 million dollars over the course of her working life.”(p 1) But one of the reasons for this difference in pay is because many companies prohibit the disclosure of wages and salaries. And many companies retaliate against woman that discuss with coworkers their wages and ask for equal compensation. These companies want to keep their wrongdoing a secret and will find loopholes or invent excuses to why they are unable to pay equally. They reap the benefits of women workers by exploiting the stereotype that a woman’s work is less valuable. But it doesn’t just end with being paid less over a working lifetime. If a woman is paid less then she contributes less into her 401(k), IRA, and even social security. So when a woman retires not only has she felt the effect of being paid less throughout her life but now she must deal with not having the savings she will need in retirement. If it were possible to pass a law where wages could be disclosed it would ensure equal pay. Right now in Congress it is being discussed to pass a bill to ensure equal pay for equal work. This bill would require employers to publicly disclose their job categories and pay scales. It would not require them to disclose each employees pay. With this information woman would be able to negotiate a better pay in the workplace. As of now women who believe they are a victim of unequal pay must hire an attorney, file a lawsuit and endure a lengthy legal process to find out whether or not they are being compensated equally. As stated in Should Congress Pass S. 2199, the Paycheck Fairness Act? by Mikulski “We are on the floor today to say we want to end the soft bigotry of low wages for women. Equal pay for equal work. No secrecy. No retaliation. No loopholes. No way. Today is the day for equal pay.” (p.14) Women should have the right to know when their work is not being compensated equally and stand up for themselves without the fear of retaliation so that this injustice may no longer plague society. In the workplace today statistically there is a gender income gap where men and women do not make the same money for performing the same job. The income gap is profound and more light should be shed on this topic. Women have come a long way since the 1960s when the Equal Pay Act was passed by President John F. Kennedy but have yet to receive salaries that are equal to those of men. There are stereotypes of women that are no longer acceptable or viable today. Women are a vital component to the United States workforce making up about half of it and many of those women are supporting families on their own. But without fully changing the way some of our nation perceives women and their role in society a solution to the gender income gap may continue to afflict the women workers of the United States.

References
6.6 Million Women Enter the U.S. Labor Force. Salem Press Encyclopedia (2013) 89313625
Bertagnoli, L. (2014). Where Women Aren’t. Crains Chicago Business, 01496956 Vol. 37, Issue 4
Conway, K. (2013). Singled Out: the GOP Needs to Reach Unmarried Women. National Review, (18)
Kulow, M. (2013). Beyond The Paycheck Fairness Act: Mandatory Wage Disclosure Laws- Necessary Tool For Closing The Residual Gender Wage Gap. Harvard Journal On Legislation, 50(2), 385-435.
Should Congress Pass S. 2199, the Paycheck Fairness Act? (2014). Congressional Digest, 93(5), 14-31
Yearly, C.K (2013). Congress Passes the Equal Pay Act. Salem Press Encyclopedia