Gender Wage Pay Gap

The gender wage gap can be explained by the statistic; the female-to-male wage ratio of 2010 was 77% (Ferris & Stein, 2014 pg 255). This means that in 2010, the average female made 23% less in yearly earnings compared to men. Ethnicity can also be included to explain the wage gap. This can be explained by the statistic; Asian males make the most money compared to all other racial groups (Median, 2012). The symbolic interactionism view on gender can be explained as “Gender is learned through the process of socialization; gender inequalities are reproduced through interactions with family, peers, schools, and the media” (Ferris & Stein, 2014 pg 247).

This essay expresses the opinion of Tara Siegel Bernard on behalf of the existence of the gender pay gap and focuses on it being a primary issue in the workplaces of major companies. The essay goes on to discuss how our society expects women and men to both behave in particular ways and how that idea has contributed to the ever present pay gap, such as how “. . . the imbalance often traces back to women being hired at a lower salary than their male peers” and “. . . women are less inclined to ask for raises. . .” Pointing out the possible reasons for the gender pay gap helps to establish the need for companies and our country’s leaders to find solutions.

“When women succeed, America succeeds” ~President Barack Obama Imagine being a hard-working woman with a successful career and a well-known name. Now imagine making 0.07% of what your male counterpart is making. Unfortunately, in today's world, imagining this is not impossible, seeing as though it is happening right now in Hollywood.

“We hold the truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal,” Elizabeth Stanton once said (Hillinger). The document “Declaration of Sentiments” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton was written for the women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls in 1848. This document was signed by 68 women and 32 men; this was the beginning of the women’s rights movement. This document explains how women aren’t treated as equals like men were. It lists accusations towards men and how women had few legal rights and no career opportunities.

Canadian women earned 87 cents to every dollar made by men in 2015, according to Statistics Canada in a statement released on International Women’s Day. This statement was released to show how today’s wage gap has improved compared to the 77 cents women made to every man’s dollar in 1981 (CBC News). It’s meant to represent an improvement and is supposed to be a good thing, yet it is not. Why? Because this statistic should not even exist in the first place.

According to Heidi Hartmann, a feminist economist and founder and president of the Washington-based Institute for Women 's Policy Research, “The Census Bureau reported in August, based on the Current Population Survey, that women’s real median earnings fell by $171, or 0.6 percent, from 2002 to 2003, while men’s increased by $336, or 0.8 percent. (The increase for men was not statistically significant, but the decrease for women was)”(Heidi). In light of these trends in women’s wages, women’s economic status has endured in the post recession period. Ida L. Castro, in her article on Discrimination in the workplace says, “ Over a woman’s lifetime, unequal pay hurts a lot. It directly affects how much- or how little- her pension and social security payments will be.

It is apparent that males have always been seen as the dominant and tough gender, while females are seen as the submissive and weak. Males would be the ones to do all the hard labor and work as professionals like business men bringing food to the table while women were expected to stay home, cook and clean for the husband after a long day of work. It was frowned upon if the women ever took the position of man, as it made the male look like the “weak” one. These are the gender roles that have set up the way of living for the longest time. It has never been challenged until recent years, mainly around the World War II era.

Gender equality: the pinnacle concept that American society is not-so desperately trying to achieve. Many Americans have convinced themselves that gender equality was remedied by the Nineteenth Amendment and the Second Feminist Movement, and have not considered the thousands of steps that are left on the journey. In recent years, a matter of public interest has been the gender wage gap, stating that women are earning significantly less money than men for doing an equivalent amount of work. Critics of the effort to “break the glass ceiling” claim that a pay gap does not exist, and that if it does, it is because women either do not work as hard, have to tend to their families, or hold lower paying jobs. However, the gender pay gap has been proven to exist in a variety of different forms,

Although the Equal Pay Act of 1963, where men and women must get paid the same amount for the equal amount of work they did, it is still visible that the pay gap is still there (“Understand the Basics” 1). It is shown that women make seventy-seven cents for every dollar that men make (“Understand the Basics” 1). Statistics show that women are continuously paid as little as 77% of what men are paid for the exact same work, and this holds true to some extent in nearly every profession. If women were to receive pay equal to that of their male counterparts, as they should, the United States economy would produce $447.6 billion of additional income. Over the past years, women have been taking over the jobs only men once used to do.

Todays women are more educated, more confident, more motivated, so they could have same career’s position like men in society, even though equal payment still has not reached in many countries even in a developed county such as Canada. There are some factors that related to unfair wages for different gender. According to the National Household survey shows while women made up 48 per cent of the workforce in 2011, they were most likely to be employed in sales and service jobs (27 per cent), followed by business, finance and administration (24.6 per cent) then education, law and community and government services (16.8 per cent). Among the 20 most common jobs for women, women accounted for more than nine out of 10 workers in: administrative assistant;

Paying attention to Harvey Mudd College, a liberal arts college in California we see compelling evidence of just how successful women can be in STEM. In just five years, Harvey Mudd College dramatically increased the number of women computer science majors at the school by revising how we approach women to STEM fields. Harvey Mudd College was able to successfully integrate women into STEM fields by revising their required computer science course to emphasize broad application of computer science, and accommodate different levels of experience in technology. This wasn 't all Harvey Mudd College did though, they also provided students with early research opportunities, creating resources women are able to utilize for their course that they may otherwise not have been able to access. This is incredibly important in a bias field where men have more

The long gender inequalities in society women had much greater opportunity than men did and women had their occupational structure to become more open to mobility to better well-paid jobs on graduation. Today woman is having less of an education than men. Woman today is

The gender wage gap should not be considered as women’s fault or poor decisions regarding their majors, type of job, or whether if they have children or not, since they pay gap still exist after the first year of college according to some data explained by

Women now go to college and have full time jobs but they still are not as equal to men as we’d like to think they are. Men and women are still being treated differently in many places during life. Wage Gaps between Genders

In a more recent history, the changing economy alongside the rise of feminism and the breakthrough of birth control, resulted in the swap over of gendered household duties. Consequently, this has also impacted fathers’ roles in the household. Another factor which resulted in the shift of gendered roles was the absence of male workers who became soldiers during the Second World War, which required women to fill the traditional manufacture jobs previously held by men. The war industry also created many new manufacturing opportunities which has continued long after the end of the war and has not declined. Studies indicate that between 1948 and 2001, the percentage of employed women, or women seeking work nearly doubled.