Please mind the pay gap!
It might shock you to learn that despite the Equal Pay Act 45 years ago, women are still paid significantly less than men. On average, 19.1 per cent; this is one big, gaping gap. Yes, women’s rights have certainly come on in recent years. Yes, England is a country where women have laws protecting them which mean they can’t be beaten or used as sex objects and baby producers, neither are they subject - as someone women are in the world - to restrictive laws about their clothing when leaving the house, and of course all young girls are entitled to an education. However, society is still failing to see the gender injustice right in front of their eyes: unequal pay.
There are four reasons for this - none of them logical or acceptable. The first is discrimination. Surely that’s illegal, you’re thinking. It is indeed illegal in Great Britain to discriminate against one’s ‘protected characteristics’. These include: age, sex, race, nationality, sexuality, religion etc. This law is meant to protect you at work, in education, as a consumer and when using public services. Nevertheless, some women still receive less pay than men who do exactly the same job and work just as hard. Surely it is time that we wake up to this and start enforcing the law? If not, what is the point in having these laws if they aren’t administered?
Reason number two for the barriers women face is unequal caring rights. A common yet unfairly traditional belief that surrounds women is that they should stay at home to look after the children. Meanwhile, the man of the family goes out to work and earn the money. As a result, more women work part-time and these jobs are typically lower paid. The pay gap opens up hugely once women reach their forties. Often, they return from a break to raise children and find that their male colleagues are being promoted ahead of them.
Reason number three is the divided labour market which means that women are still more likely to be in low paid and low skilled jobs. As many as 80 per cent of people working in the low paid care and leisure sector are women, while only 10% of those in the better paid skilled trades are women. 80 per cent of those working in the low paid care and leisure sector are women, while only 10 per cent of those in the better paid skilled trades are women. These figures are shocking and reflect the fact that these caring jobs were never seen as 'breadwinners' jobs'. To put it simply, women are paid less because they tend to do what was seen as 'women's jobs' - basically because they are women. Yet women can do just as well as any man in any job, if not better.
Lastly, men are put in more senior roles. They continue to make up the majority of those in the highest paid and most senior roles – for example, there are just five female Chief Executives in the FTSE 100 (Financial Times Stock Exchange). Only five!
Don’t get me wrong, in a lot of instances it just so happens that a man is genuinely better suited for a job so he gets the promotion over the women. However, there are facts and figures which show that it isn’t always a coincidence and women are demeaned and degraded when it comes to wages. For this reason, people need to stop being so oblivious to this huge inequality that affects so many and start putting pressure on the government and employers to close up the gender pay gap once and for all.
Georgina Sharma, Y10
There are four reasons for this - none of them logical or acceptable. The first is discrimination. Surely that’s illegal, you’re thinking. It is indeed illegal in Great Britain to discriminate against one’s ‘protected characteristics’. These include: age, sex, race, nationality, sexuality, religion etc. This law is meant to protect you at work, in education, as a consumer and when using public services. Nevertheless, some women still receive less pay than men who do exactly the same job and work just as hard. Surely it is time that we wake up to this and start enforcing the law? If not, what is the point in having these laws if they aren’t administered?
Reason number two for the barriers women face is unequal caring rights. A common yet unfairly traditional belief that surrounds women is that they should stay at home to look after the children. Meanwhile, the man of the family goes out to work and earn the money. As a result, more women work part-time and these jobs are typically lower paid. The pay gap opens up hugely once women reach their forties. Often, they return from a break to raise children and find that their male colleagues are being promoted ahead of them.
Reason number three is the divided labour market which means that women are still more likely to be in low paid and low skilled jobs. As many as 80 per cent of people working in the low paid care and leisure sector are women, while only 10% of those in the better paid skilled trades are women. 80 per cent of those working in the low paid care and leisure sector are women, while only 10 per cent of those in the better paid skilled trades are women. These figures are shocking and reflect the fact that these caring jobs were never seen as 'breadwinners' jobs'. To put it simply, women are paid less because they tend to do what was seen as 'women's jobs' - basically because they are women. Yet women can do just as well as any man in any job, if not better.
Lastly, men are put in more senior roles. They continue to make up the majority of those in the highest paid and most senior roles – for example, there are just five female Chief Executives in the FTSE 100 (Financial Times Stock Exchange). Only five!
Don’t get me wrong, in a lot of instances it just so happens that a man is genuinely better suited for a job so he gets the promotion over the women. However, there are facts and figures which show that it isn’t always a coincidence and women are demeaned and degraded when it comes to wages. For this reason, people need to stop being so oblivious to this huge inequality that affects so many and start putting pressure on the government and employers to close up the gender pay gap once and for all.
Georgina Sharma, Y10
