The Discrepancies Between the Working Wages of Women

In this paper, I will be covering the discrepancies between the working wages of women and and the working wages of men. This paper will look into gender, but will also focus on race and class. I will be looking into the wage difference between women without considering men, women's wages while considering men's wages.

I think this issue is very relevant, both to the everyday concerns of women and to the class itself. By focusing on the wage gap between women - not only compared to men, although that will be discussed - I believe I can help illuminate some of the inequalities in society, the workforce, and the feminist movement itself.

This focuses mostly on gender and class, in accordance to laws, or lack thereof.

Using data from various articles, citing the laws themselves, and using the American Association of University Women's 2014 study about the wage gap, I will be able to elucidate a better understanding of the pay gap as it exists today, how far we have come, and how far we have left to go to eradicate it.

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Although the Equal Rights Amendment was never fully ratified and struggles to get passed to this day, the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. Ideally, this law was supposed to address the wage gap between men and women for the same work. The bill itself states: "(1) No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate...between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs".

Although the bill was passed in 1963, it has never been truly enforced on a wide scale. And although Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, passed 1964, bars all forms of discrimination in employment, this hasn't eliminated the fact that, as of 2013, white women make 77% of every white man's dollar. Why this is, and why there is also a wage gap between white women and women of color, along with white men and men of color, is an issue that intersects gender, race, and class.

In the American Association of University Women's Fall 2014 Edition of "The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap" the AAUW reveals several important statistics. The study covers everything from states with the highest and lowest wage discrepancy, the wage gap based on race and education, the wage gap based on age and gender, the wage gap between women of color and men same race and then women of color as compared to white men. White men are, across the board, used as the rubric on which the wage gap is based. This "white as normative" rubric is harmful in some ways, but it does give us something to compare the rest of the data to.

Something that has greatly changed since the passing of the Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act has been the amount of women in the workforce. The collection of statistics entitled "101 Facts on the Status of Workingwomen” elaborates that since 1950, women in the workforce has gone up from 18.4 million women to 70 million in 2006 – and since the passing of the Equal Pay Act, the wage gap has only shrunk by one-third of one penny per year. "Over the course of her career, the average woman loses $523,000 to the wage gap” (101 Facts). This continuous arrested development in wage equality signals that we are not adapting or changing quickly enough, especially not for a workforce faced with stagnant minimum wages.

"If women received the same salary as men who work the same number of hours, have the same education or union status, are the same age, and live in the same region of the country, then these women's annual family incomes would rise by $4,000, and poverty rates would be cut in half” (101 Facts).

Especially when we consider other factors about a person - like age, race, and education level - we see that the wage gap has larger effects than just paying women less. According to the AAUW study, the most marginalized group in terms of pay would be Hispanic/Latina Women, aged 45-54, with a Master's Degree. Now, although women with Master's Degrees make considerably more money than women with less education, women with Master's Degrees make the least about of money compared to men with those same degrees - 74%.

We are also shown, time and again, that while Hispanic/Latina women make close to 90% of the earnings of Hispanic/Latino men, they make the least amount compared to white men - 54% (AAUW). No matter the field, Hispanic/Latina/o people make far less money across the board when it comes to most professions. It's interesting to think that, at a point, the wage gap helps contribute to the social stereotypes of people of color being poor – they would be less poor if they were paid the same as our rubric-by-necessity, the white male. If the wage gap was closed between gender as well as race, it would be interesting to see how many classist stereotypes would become obsolete.

Especially when it comes to talking about working mothers, who are still discriminated against, the wage gap becomes more so because of women's "second shift" at home. Although we've recently seen shifts in the status quo, it is still predominantly women who sacrifice careers to stay at home with children. "Four in 10 workingwomen work evenings, nights, or weekends on a regular basis, and 33% work shifts different from their partners" (101 Facts). Taking into consideration things like African-American women accounting for 30% of all female-headed households, yet only bringing in an average of $12,244, we can see that women are being somewhat punished for their decisions to be both mothers and be a part of the working force.

Talking about the wage gap is not only incredibly important when we consider the daily interaction of women and the law, but when we consider this course as a whole. The wage gap is one of the few issues that clearly shows the inequalities found in our society when it comes to gender, race, and class. How these factors interact with the law in this situation is very telling of the fact that our country is not the progressive country we assume ourselves to be or could truly be. Our refusal to enforce the laws in place, or bring about new legislation dealing with the wage gap, shows that we as a whole society do not truly care about the pay inequality happening in our country – a fact that is also brought home by our refusal to adapt the minimum wage to a living wage. This effects everyone, but it especially effects women who have to take caring for their families into consideration.

Solving this would be tantamount to many women working, whether or not they are mothers. Even if we forego the wage gap found within race and simply focus on the gendered wage gap, fixing that problem so that all women made 100% of what men make would make a tremendous difference. But, to be honest, we cannot truly forego race - because this is an intersectional issue, it requires an intersectional solution.