Gender Pay Gap Persists
The article describes and summarizes the topics we have been
talking about in class this past week. The gender pay gap is a reoccurring
issue around the world and it was not a hard topic to find an article about. Women
tend to pick college majors and careers that pay less. They also tend to work
less hours then men. The article says, “Today, women still tend to enter lower-paid fields such as
education and social sciences, while men typically major in engineering and
computer science.” This contributes to the inequalities women face in the pay gap
with men. What doesn’t make sense is how such a significant gap still exists
between genders since they implemented the Equal Pay Act 1963.“If a young man
and woman fresh out of college with the same degree walk into a large firm,
typically, the man can get placed in higher-wage jobs than the woman,” says
Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. That is
a scary thought for me and other current female college students. The fact that
I am working towards a college degree and may still be discriminated against
just because I’m a girl is intimidating. No one wants to hear that a man applying
for a job with the exact same credentials as them has a better chance at
landing a job just because of our gender. The article also says that employers
are sometimes willing to negotiate pay, but women are less likely to try and
negotiate it to begin with. Men obviously benefit from this form of
discrimination and even though women are starting to close the distance in the
pay gap, it still exists. I am proud to say that I don’t contribute to this problem
because I work hard for what I want regardless of any gender discrimination I might
face. I was fortunate to grow up with a mother that worked really hard and
landed a great job out of college. She is extremely successful and a high
paying business executive. I remember she would tell me when I was growing up,
that she was always the odd one out in her business meetings because more often
than not, she was the only female in the room. Now that I’m taking this class
and we address these topics, I see exactly what she was talking about. The
inequality in the workforce is still present and the pay gap still exists as
much as people like to believe it is a problem of the past. I think women need
to continue to challenge the system by choosing majors and careers that pay
higher. Eventually they could close the gender pay gap entirely.
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