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Writer's pictureMaya ALTANTAWY

The Gender Gap in Employment.


This article is focused on the following UN Sustainable Development Goal:



Women have been fighting for their rights ever since July 1848 in the United States. Many strong women like Susan B Anthony had to march so that women could have temperance, abolition, the rights of labor, and equal pay for equal work. She was also a pioneer crusader for women's suffrage in the United States. Women finally got to vote for the first time in 1869 when Wyoming, the first state to let women vote, passed a law letting them vote. It didn't become official for all fifty states until Congress Approved the Nineteenth Amendment, which let women vote in all fifty states. This amendment was officially ratified on August 18, 1920. In the early 20th century, most women in the United States did not work outside the home. Those who did were primarily young and unmarried and that was less than 5% of women. This is because people didn’t think it was suitable for women to work when they had a husband that worked and a child that she should be taking care of. Between the 1930s and mid-1970s, women’s help in the work field began to rise, with a huge percentage of women being married. By 1970, 50% of single women and 40% of married women had contributed to the work field. We can see that women had to fight very hard for their rights, and they had to fight just to get the same rights as men. My question is does this still happen to women? Do they still fight just to get the same rights as a man?


In the USA, women earn a median of 20% less than men on an hourly basis, and the employment rate is about 10% lower than men.

Women also get pushed into low-earning jobs through discrimination, which excludes them from higher-paying occupations, or socialisation, which makes them more likely to seek these jobs. One researcher showed that about 15% of the gender wage gap would be removed if men and women were equally represented in the place in which they are working, but 85% would be removed if they were paid equally in each of their jobs.


“Men earn more than women on average, but not that much more when they work the same job and have similar experience and abilities.” Let's talk about what PayScale has discovered about the gender pay gap, they have discovered that men do earn more than women even though they have the same experience, went to the same colleges, and work the same job and the same amount of hours, they discovered that men do get paid more and it’s not by much but that’s not the problem. The problem isn’t that they get paid more even if it is a small amount, the problem is that they get paid more at all even if it’s by a dollar they had the same experiences, they went through the same training courses and they attended the same college’s the only thing that differentiates them is that of their gender, just because one is a woman and one is a man and how is that fair? People often say that women earn less money because they have to go home early and raise their children and create their families but that couldn’t be further from the truth, yes, women do have families but that doesn’t mean that they go home earlier than other men in their jobs. Women and men work the same hours and they leave at the same time to go home a woman still gets paid less than a man so it’s not about raising a family it’s simply about that one candidate is a woman and the other is a man and because he is a man he gets paid more which is not fair to the women that paid the same amount for college as the man and put in the same amount of time and effort into her work as he did, and therefore they should be paid the same amount as each other.





Women still have to fight for their equal rights even to this day because gender bias continues to create huge obstacles for a lot of women. Ongoing struggles include ensuring equal economic opportunities, educational equity, and an end to gender-based violence. Women still make just 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. The United States Department of Justice informs us that about one in four homeless women is homeless because of violence committed against them. Just because things have gotten better for women ever since the 18th centuries and the 19th centuries does not mean that all is well and there are no stereotypes about women and they are equal to men.


The fact is we are still fighting for equal rights to a man and we still have to fight and campaign and have peaceful protests for just the bare minimum.

We are in the 20th century these stereotypes that were created in the 18th and 19th hundred such as “Motherhood biases” and “Negative Bias” still exist to this day because if you truly think about it we constantly hear the term “A child needs their mother” but a child also needs their father, both parents should be their for their kids and spend time with them equally not one more than the other women shouldn’t be paid less just because of they are mother’s to a child because a man is also a father to their children. Negative stereotypes are when a person thinks negatively of a woman at their job just because she is a woman. A person who thinks with such a negative stereotype bias is always judging the women that they work with to be less talented, less equipped for challenging assignments, and less capable to advise or supervise, than a man who also works at the job firm. Such a person is not always intentionally antagonistic to women or even knows that they are acting in discriminatory ways toward them. But there are still some men with influence over women’s careers who are very biased against women. Some men still get aggravated if a woman gets a position in the company that they wanted, and they go to their boss and tell them they are more suitable for that position when the boss asks why many of their replies are because she is a woman and that they are a man they also make the argument that they could contribute more to the company because they could work for longer hours. Again that is not true because the women who got that promotion that you wanted may have worked at the company for longer than you or it could just be simply because they contributed more to the company than you for example for many companies such as retail, the more sells you get the better you are and the more likely you are of getting a promotion because of how good your sales have been that month. Hence you are going to earn more but some people can't comprehend the idea of a woman being better at her job than a man.



In conclusion, we need to start changing our mindset. We need to look at women and men as equals because at the end of the day we are one. We still have the same experience as each other and we get the same education, we shouldn't be judged for something that we can't control. We should be looked at and viewed the same and be paid the same amount as each other.

Remember, change starts with you.


 

Yellen, Janet. “The History of Women’s Work and Wages and How It Has Created Success for Us All.” Brookings, Brookings, 7 May 2020, www.brookings.edu/essay/the-history-of-womens-work-and-wages-and-how-it-has-created-success-for-us-all/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.


National Archives. “19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s Right to Vote (1920).” National Archives, 21 Sept. 2021, www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/19th-amendment#:~:text=Passed%20by%20Congress%20June%204. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.


“The Women’s Rights Movement, 1848–1917 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives.” History.house.gov, history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/WIC/Historical-Essays/No-Lady/Womens-Rights/#:~:text=The%20phrase%20%E2%80%9CVotes%20for%20Women. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.


Petrongolo, Barbara. “The Gender Gap in Employment and Wages.” Nature Human Behaviour, vol. 3, no. 4, 4 Mar. 2019, pp. 316–318, 10.1038/s41562-019-0558-x. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.


Payscale. “Do Men Really Earn More than Women? - Infographic - PayScale.” PayScale, 2013, www.payscale.com/gender-lifetime-earnings-gap. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.


Al, Andie. “Negative Bias: When You’re Judged Just for Being a Woman at Work.” Andie & Al, 28 Dec. 2015, andieandal.com/gender-stereotypes-part-negative-biases/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.


“Sojourner Truth—Eloquent Advocate for Women’s Rights | Seneca Falls and the Start of Annual Conventions | Seneca Falls and Building a Movement, 1776–1890 | Explore | Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote | Exhibitions at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress.” Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, www.loc.gov/exhibitions/women-fight-for-the-vote/about-this-exhibition/seneca-falls-and-building-a-movement-1776-1890/seneca-falls-and-the-start-of-annual-conventions/sojourner-truth-eloquent-advocate-for-womens-rights/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.


“Women in Work: A Brief History of Women in the Workplace — Future of Work Hub.” Futureofworkhub, www.futureofworkhub.info/comment/2021/7/6/women-in-work-a-brief-history-of-women-in-the-workplace#:~:text=The%20National%20Service%20Act%201941. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.


“10 Barriers in the Way of Women’s Participation in Labour Force.” Https://Www.outlookindia.com/, 14 Feb. 2022, www.outlookindia.com/website/story/opinion-10-barriers-in-the-way-of-womens-participating-in-labour-force/359398. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.


Kara, Beste. “EBRD, ILO and TBB to Encourage Women’s Employment.” TR MONITOR, 24 June 2021, www.trmonitor.net/ebrd-ilo-and-tbb-to-encourage-womens-employment/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.





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