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Gabriela Martinez
Jillian Bennion
English 2010
9/19/2015

Equal Pay for Equal Work Regardless of Gender

When President John F. Kennedy passed the equal pay act of 1963, the gender pay gap
in labor was an issue that affected millions of women across the nation (Brown 39). Prior to 1963
it was considered acceptable to deliberate pay women less than men for the same job performed.
This type of discrimination in the workplace based on gender is commonly referred to as the
gender pay gap. The passing of the equal pay act, was meant to signal a change, and an
opportunity to bring about fairness to women in the workforce. Fifty-two years later this gap has
slightly narrowed (Brown 39) In "Breaking Down the Wage Gap, an article written by Mary
Johanna Brown, chair of the New Hampshire womens foundation states that for comparatively
the same amount of work, women only earn .77 cents for every dollar that men earn (Brown 39).
In this essay I will discussing the myths and realities of the gender pay gap. I will talk about the
socio-economics effects that the gender pay gap has on the working woman. I will also try to
bring awareness to the importance of taking the necessary steps to closing the gender pay gap.
A common misconception as to why the gender pay gap is still prevalent in todays
society is because women tend to pursue careers that are not in a higher pay range such as law,
medicine, or politics. If this is in fact the reason why women earn less than men in the
workplace, the easy solution would be for women to simply change careers. Sadly, it is not so.
Research shows that when womens ratio of workforce is higher compared to mens in a new
field, salaries do in fact go down. The reality is that women still get paid 24 cents less on the

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dollar than their male counterparts, while performing the same types of jobs for the same amount
of time (Henslin 394). In fact, sociologist Dr. James Henslin believes that while women make up
over 47% of the workforce in America, men can expect to earn $688,000 more over the course of
their careers than women. Furthermore, due to the nature of womens roles in todays society as
the primary caretaker of children in the home and their perceived familial responsibilities, many
women get mommy tracked, and are not being considered for promotions that could benefit
them by increasing their income and putting them in track for more C level positions (Henslin
395). Companies consider these mothers as not committed to the job and far less reliable
employee than a father would be. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has made this issue a
part of her campaign platform. Highlighting the fact that over two-thirds of all the people living
in poverty in the United States, are women. Making gender the biggest poverty indicator in our
society (Wade, Ferree 275). While progress has been made, there is still a lot of work to be done,
so that women in this nation can say that they benefit from a legally given right that was put into
place over fifty-two years ago. This essay will address the gender pay gap in the U.S. workforce
and the negative effects that it has on womens ability to access power, wealth and prestige in
todays society.
A common misconception is that the gap is not real because of how the data for statistical
analysis on this issue is interpreted. Some believe that the research and statistics are not taking
into account the fact that men work more hours per week than women, when in reality statistics
show the difference in pay based on gender when all other factors are equal.
It is also believed that women do not know how to negotiate for equal pay in the workplace, or
simply choose to pursue lower paying careers. In reality, women lack mentors or successful
executives willing to guide them and/or sponsor them in their journey to leadership and good

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negotiation (Henslin 309). Women are not so much pursuing these careers but it could be argued
that they are being geared towards them instead, and to what is commonly considered gender
appropriate fields and positions in the workplace. In fact, in the United States women represent
90 percent of registered nurses, 92 percent of receptionists, 94 percent of administrative
assistants, 98 percent of dental hygienists, and 86 percent of paralegals (Wade, Ferre 119-120).
This is not say that women do not become doctors or lawyers but that when they do, they will
typically be assisted by a woman. These types of arrangements put women in subordinate and
hierarchical relationships with men in the workplace, making them dependent on men for
approval and wages, which ultimately could affect their financial wellbeing (Wade, Ferre 120)
This in turn can make women more afraid of retaliation, perpetuating the belief that women earn
less than the other sex because they do not know how to negotiate for better wages. Also, the
disparity in income equality varies from state to state, demonstrating that as a woman the
chances of receiving a competitive salary is greatly affected by physical location and not so
much by experience, abilities and qualifications (Henslin) Furthermore, research seems to
suggest that in fact, women of all races make less money than men of the same race, but the size
of the gap differs (Wade, Ferre 286). The gap its at its widest in those higher earning fields that
require professional degrees such as law and medicine and that it is lower in fields that tend to
pay less overall because racial minority men, with the exception of some Asian groups, earn
especially low incomes (Wade, Ferre 286). Hence showing that regardless of race, simply being
a woman can in fact be a deterrent to a persons success in earning an equal and fair salary in the
workplace.
When women started joining the workforce during the industrial revolution, they were
seen as the weaker sex, and as a mean for supplementary income as opposed to main providers

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for their families or themselves. In this way employers could justify paying them less than men
(Wade, Ferre 169-170). Since then, womens roles in the workplace have changed gradually; Its
estimated that during the 1890s one of every five workers were women, fifty years later during
the 1940s that number had grown to 1 out of four, by 1960, one out of three and today, about
one out of two workers are women (Henslin 309). Even though this change in labor has brought
about many opportunities for growth for women, the gender pay gap its still an ongoing issue. A
woman can expect to only earn .77
cents (Brown 39). In the year 2013,
full-time working women only
earned 78.3 % of the amount men
did (DiMaria 19). This disparity in
wage affects womens ability to be
financially stable, not only do
women earn less than men while in
Poverty rates based on age and gender in the year 2014 in the

U.S.

their working years but in their

retirement years as well. Sadly, over a lifetime the average woman will make $434,000 less in
income than the average men. Women with college degrees stand to lose about $713.000
(Wade, Ferrer 286). This difference in income over a lifetime affects the amount of accrued
contributions paid to social security by women, thus affecting the amount of money they can
receive at retirement. Coincidently, womens average social security retirement benefit is about
75 percent that of men (Wade, Ferre 286), which happens to be very similar to the gender pay
gap difference women need to contend with while being a part of the workforce. On 2014
women were the poorer gender in all adult age groups, the U.S. Census Bureau reports (see

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figure 6). The report shows poverty rates in the nation based on age group and gender. While in
the youngest age group theres only a small difference, the gap widens with age, reaching its
widest point in the retirement age group (65 and older) showing women as being far more
affected by poverty than men. Income inequality is one of the reasons that can explain these
findings, if women earn less than men, it would only make sense for women to be indisputably
economically affected by how much they earn at work.
There are several issues that are intricately sown into the gender pay gay problem that
directly affects women and their families. One of them being the glass ceilingalso know as the
invisible barrier that prevents women from reaching the highest positions available in their job
field. Women cant break thru the glass ceiling because they are stereotyped as less capable to
perform C-level positions than men; are considered bad leaders, and better as a support for men
(Henslin 311). Even in fields in which the majority of the force is female, men still have the
upper hand and can climb the leadership ladder faster than women. This phenomenon is known
as the glass escalator (Wade, Ferree 285). In a study of 5,734 elementary and high school
teachers it was found that men were three times more likely than women to be promoted to
administrative positions over a two-year period (Wade, Ferree 308). Furthermore, women can
be judged on the fact that they have a reproductive system that could one day interfere with their
work related obligations, allowing employers to use this as an excuse to pay women less than
men, known as motherhood tax, or mommy tracking. This problem is even bigger for mothers,
who can in fact, expect a 7 percent decline in wages per child (Wade, Ferree 310). In todays
society, 34% of women on the workforce are the sole breadwinners for their household. Closing
this gap is essential to their and their families chance of surviving; the gap affects many
mothers ability to provide for safe housing, good nutrition and opportunities in general for their

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children (DiMaria 19-20). Because with every child a woman has she can expect her income to
go down, - in many cases by getting her working hrs. Reduced by the employer- women then
cant afford daycare for their children, which in turn forces them to work less and earn even less,
perpetuating the levels of poverty women already find themselves in.
Our society practices androcentrism, or gender based prejudice, in which men are granted
a higher status, respect, rewards and power than women, based on their gender alone.
Androcentrism is the type of gender discrimination that is still deeply engrained in our minds,
due to the more traditional gender roles we grew up with. A perfect example of this is that while
women get mommy taxed, men on the other hand receive a fatherhood premium in which
married fathers earn 4 to 7 percent more than married men without children (Wade, Ferree
310). The reason for this discrepancy can be attributed to the fact that society still thinks of men
as the main providers for their children, excluding the big percentage of mothers that are in fact
the sole breadwinners for their households. Just as there has been a feminization of poverty, in
which being a woman can put a person at a higher risk for living below the poverty line, theres
has also been a masculinization of wealth, which refers to the large amount of men in the highest
paying careers (Wade, Ferree 274-275, 293-295). This demonstrates that our society believes in
an androcentric pay scale, that dictates how much a woman can earn based on the gender
composition of the job (Wade, Ferree 292). Or in other words, the gender of the job in question;
Jobs that are considered men jobs pay 5 to 21 percent than those considered women jobs (Wade,
Ferree 293). This common belief puts women at a lower level socially and economically while it
strips away the prestige that women deserve as equally hard working and productive members of
our society when compared to men, especially considering that after all they represent about 50
percent of the workforce in this Country (Henslin 309)

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The reality is that the gender pay gap affects everyone in this society, from women and
their families to the regular hard-working tax payer, because women are the poorest of the
genders- specially as they get older- and cant work anymore, they might depend heavily on
social security programs as an aid for survival, costing the tax payers money regardless of
gender. Therefore, in order to close the gap, our society must work collectively. Legislators must
be persuaded to analyze the problem in depth and make the necessary additions to our current
legislature that would first ensure that women have the right to equal pay in the workplace and
second that businesses would be heavily sanctioned or offered more incentives depending on
their willingness and capacity to comply with the law. Young girls do not have enough good role
models to guide them and inspire them to go after those higher, male dominated careers, and as a
society we still push them to fulfill those assistant- to, careers. As is it right now, we are not
giving girls the tools necessary to eradicate the gap. Women are still a minority where it really
counts, at the top. Women do not hold enough powerful positions yet, in corporate America or
the government and in order for the gap to close that needs to change. Men also can play a big
role in closing the gap, if not the biggest role, because as of today, they do hold the most power
politically and in corporate America, giving them the power to truly change the way women are
seen at work, and the opportunities they are given. Above all, we must learn to separate gender
from work abilities, and not value work both socially and economically- based on the
antiquated idea that some jobs are simply better suited for a certain gender, simply because
society dictates so as opposed to peoples real capabilities and talents regardless of gender.
The gender pay gap is a real, on-going issue in this country that affects millions of
women in this nation and their families. While the equal pay act of 1963 was signed in place 52
years ago, it did not do much in closing the gap, especially in the last 10 years (Brown 39). In

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spite of the fact that women in this country enjoy many freedoms, have a lot more opportunities
for personal growth and access to education compared to other women in other cultures, they are
still being discriminated at work. Women are still seemed as less capable than men for
leadership positions and even in those careers in which women are the majority, they get paid
less simply because they are considered woman jobs. Working mothers have even a harder time
getting equal pay at work because employers consider them even less committed to their jobs
than childless women are. For a country as big, resourceful, and technologically advanced as this
one we are still at .24 cents of a dollar short of being fair to the American women and their
lawful right to earn a fair salary in whichever field they might choose to pursue. Thus providing
them with the same opportunities to achieve the same level of power and prestige, which in turn
will provide them with a salary that its worthy of a member of our society, regardless of gender.

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Works Cited
Brown, Mary Johanna. "Breaking Down the Wage Gap: Myths, Realities and A Way
Forward." Business NH Magazine 32.6 (2015): 39. Small Business Reference Center.
Web. 14 Sept. 2015.
DiMaria, Frank. "Why The Gender Pay Gap Persists." Hispanic Outlook In Higher
Education 25.10 (2015): 19. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.
Henslin, James. Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach. 11th ed. New Jersey:
Pearson, 2015. 308-313. Print.
Labaton, Vivien. "5 myths about the gender pay gap." The Washington Post 2014: Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 Sept. 2015.
Wade, Lisa and Ferree, Myra Marx. Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. 1st ed. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 2015. 115-313. Print

Poverty by Gender and Age. U.S. Census Bureau. 2014. Government of the United States.
Web. 20 September 2015.