What is equal pay day?

Today, April 12, 2011, is Equal Pay Day. This date symbolizes how far into 2011 women need to work to catch up to a comparable man's salary. As recent as 2008, the gap between men and women was 77 cents per dollar.

This gap is even more stark for women of color - "Latinas earn 58 cents and African American 68 cents for every dollar men earn." (National Committee on Pay Equity).

Doesn't more education help?

Some people say, "But look at all these women in college and graduate school! Getting more education will help, surely."

Not so, I am sorry to report. In fact, at the highest level of education the pay gap is the largest:

Credit: Professor Hilary Lips, Northwestern Univ. [source]

[source]

Isn't a woman's choice to get paid less than men?

Then people say, "Well, what about all those women choosing to [rear children, go into professions that don't pay well, etc.]". Professor Lips writes as much as the media loves to say it's a woman's "choice", there are far more factors at play:

Women’s choices are not the problem.

Individual women can sometimes evade the effects of the gender pay gap by making certain kinds of choices, such as selecting male-dominated occupations, working more hours, avoiding parenthood. However, these choices occur in an environment suffused with subtle sexism and discrimination: there are more barriers for women than for men to making certain choices, and the consequences of some choices are starkly different for women and men.

Moreover, these individual solutions are not effective on a societal level; they work only if the women enacting them remain in a minority. For example, if most women moved into jobs that are now male-dominated, signs are that the salaries associated with those jobs would likely drop. But, by making it difficult to go against the tide, the forces of discrimination ensure that most women don’t move into such jobs. And as long as a few women get past the barriers, the illusion persists that any woman could do it if she wanted to—it’s a matter of free choice. However, women’s choices will not be free until their abilities and their work are valued equally with men’s, and until women and men reap equivalent consequences for their choices in the realm of work and family. [source]

This comic sums up the 'choices' argument best:

Credit: Amerstand at Alas, a blog. [link]

This post is depressing. Can you please give me some good news, FCS?

I am happy to report the news isn't all bad. Asian-American women, you're doing the best of all of us, making 91 cents on the dollar to men. And my fellow Engineering women, we're looking at 96.7 cents at least for the first three years of our careers. [source]

What can I (a woman) do to close the gap for myself?

Ask! Ask for a raise. Ask for a promotion. Apply to tons of jobs and get employers into a bidding war over you. Negotiate that starting salary.

Just don't be a wallflower, waiting around for people to recognize your brilliance. Fellow FCS Valerie Aurora has some great negotiation tips on her website. Remember - don't be afraid of people getting mad at you!

What can I (man or woman) do to close the gap for others?

If you're in a position of power over people's salaries (manager, department head, dean, etc.), go through your employees' salary data and crunch the numbers. Check for statistically significant differences between your male and female employees of comparable experience level to ensure salaries are fair.

Also, be sure when you assess employees for raises/tenure/etc you are using equal objective criteria. When you give an employee a merit raise, make sure you use the same criteria for John as for Jane.

Finally, remember to laud the ladies! Talk up the professional accomplishments of your female colleagues to anyone who will listen. Be a sponsor.

In case you missed it amidst all the other news last week (Wisconsin protests, New Zealand earthquake, The Last Airbender winning worst movie of the year), there's a debate raging across the pond as to whether there ought to be quotas for hiring more female CEOs to lead companies. I've been watching this debate unfold, because the comments people leave on these articles provides some insight into the thinking of some very polarized people. Furthermore, they reveal some seriously flawed assumptions.

Let's take Mike for example:

People should not be chosen for a job on the basis of gender, race or religion. In every case a job should go to the person best able to carry out that job. --Mike Rose, UK

You know, Mike, I agree with you 100%. I think that is a great statement. Except, please do something for me. Explain to me how a hiring manager identifies who the "best person able to carry out that job" is. Is it based on an objective, quantifiable measure? Say, number of publications, number of profits earned, number of customers acquired? Is it based on a gender-blind objective assessment of a candidate's writing skills, technical skills, or thinking skills?

Oh, it's usually not? Huh. Then how can best be determined? Awfully fuzzy, I'd say.

Here's the thing: in corporate America (and in your case, corporate Britain), there is systemic bias and discrimination against non-majority people. I say non-majority because this bias is something that goes beyond race, ethnicity, and gender discrimination. It also includes socio-economic status, parental status, marital status, sexual orientation, and cultural background.

You see, many of the people being discriminated against don't "fit" the mold very well. So in addition to never even getting called in for an interview because their name is "Jamal Brown" instead of "John Smith", if they are interviewed they don't make the final cut because they didn't fit the majority image the hiring manager had in their brain.

So in nearly every case, we're finding the majority person getting the top jobs because the non-majority person didn't fit this non-objective image of "the best person able to carry out that job".

Someone asked the head of Associated British Foods about its CEO hiring decisions. It 'says it has a duty to appoint the best candidate, "and to date that person has been male"'. (The Times, 25 Feb 2011).

Riiiight. Ok, Mike, let's look at the logic here:

• Companies always hire the "best candidate".
• The majority of Fortune 500/FTSE 100 companies are run by wealthy white men.
• Therefore, the best people to lead Fortune 500/FTSE 100 companies are wealthy white men.

Ok, I'm done picking on Mike. Fortune 500/FTSE 100 companies, this message is for you:

     If you are truly committed to diversity, PROVE IT.

Stop padding your website and brochures with pictures showing how diverse you are and actually bring in some diverse leaders. Take a chance on a non-majority person for once. I promise, we don't bite. Usually.