F-Bomb by Lauren McKeon

Author:Lauren McKeon [McKeon Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781946885180
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.

Of all the many social trends that are emblematic of women’s inequality in the workplace, none is as longstanding or as starkly evident as the wage gap, and, thus, none has been so consistently attacked and dismissed. It’s so battered that, in September 2016, during the height of the presidential PR war in the US, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) released a tip sheet titled “Five Ways to Win an Argument About the Gender Wage Gap.” The 79.6 annual wage ratio figure in the US, the sheet acknowledged, is often derided as “misleading, a myth, or, worst of all, a lie.” (Canada’s wage gap ratio is actually slightly worse at 72 cents, down from 74.4 in 2009, giving it the seventh highest gap out of the thirty-four countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.) The IWPR authors contended, however, that the naysayers were often disastrously simplifying a complex figure, usually explaining it away as a woman’s “choice” to work in lower-paying jobs or her “choice” to leave the labor force once she had children (sarcastic air quotes are totally mine and 100 percent intended). In reality, a plethora of research has shown that underlying factors are far more complicated, ranging from discrimination in pay, recruitment, job assignment, and promotion, and—yes, sure—lower earnings in traditionally women-centered occupations, as well as women’s disproportionate share of the family-care pie. (Why can’t we ever get a larger share of, say, the lemon meringue pie? Wouldn’t that be nice and also delicious?) But that doesn’t make it a lie, argued the authors, and what’s more, the very reasons it can be explained away—those listed above—are precisely the reason we can’t fall into the mythical-thinking trap.

The myths IWPR countered in its tip sheet made regular appearances in my interviews with anti-feminists: that women choose to work in crappy jobs; that the most commonly used wage gap statistic doesn’t take account of differences in job sectors or hours worked; or (as we tackled in the previous chapter) that women just don’t want to work. It’s true that some industries and occupations don’t reflect the annual earnings wage gap. Some are even worse. In the US, women physicians and surgeons earn 62 percent of what men earn; financial managers earn 67 percent, despite making up a larger percent of the job sector; chief executives earn 70 percent, and make up only one-quarter of that particular high-earning, high-power slice; and, even in jobs such as retail (sales) and housekeeping/janitorial (supervisors), the number hovers at 70 percent. In occupations where women’s earnings are close to on par with men’s, including maid/housekeeping positions, food preparation workers, office clerks, and even bus drivers, certain glum caveats remain. Those women a) also tend to comprise the majority of workers; or b) the jobs tend to be especially low-earning and precarious; and c) any higher earnings reflect successful collective bargaining among unions, making those jobs the exception, not the rule. Sometimes, there’s even option d) a nasty combination of the above factors and other less easily identifiable ones.

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