gender wage gap Archives

This Women’s History Month, Let’s Focus on Women’s Futures

It’s Women’s History Month again! So, as with any month that is dedicated to highlighting the history of a “minority” (and we use that term loosely, since women make up more than half of the population) or marginalized group, there will be a lot of focus on historical figures who have beaten the odds and have made a big difference. And that’s great: history is there for us to learn from, and that’s what we should be doing.

But the problem with this way of thinking is that there’s a danger of losing sight of those who couldn’t beat the odds, and those who are still working to do so. So while we’ll certainly think about women’s fascinating past this month, and how we’ve gotten where we are today, we also want to focus on the futures of all women. To do that, let’s look at ways that we can ensure bright futures for all women. One way to do this is by supporting organizations run by and for women that strive toward equality in the present.

Where We Are Now

There’s no doubt that women have made great strides over the centuries, especially over the last one, and we would never want to diminish those hard-fought battles, and the rights and achievements we have attained. But it’s also clear that we still have a long way to go. Consider these stats about where we are today:

The gender wage gap persists – In 2020, women earned 84% of what men earned, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. Based on this estimate, it would take an extra 42 days of work for women to earn what men did in 2020. Those extra few cents also mean that women make at least $80,000 less over their lifetime than men – and that doesn’t even take into account the fact that African American, Latinx, and Indigenous women will earn even less over their lifetimes.

Domestic violence is still an alarming problem – More than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) in the U.S. will experience rape, physical violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, and nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this adds up to more than 10 million people – and again, these numbers change when adjusting for factors like race, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and housing status. In addition, on average, more than 3 women are murdered by their intimate partners in the U.S. every day.

Sexual violence and harassment plague us – One in five women in the United States has experienced a completed or attempted rape during their lifetime, and 81% of women have reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. And consider this unexpected statistic: the estimated lifetime cost of rape is $122,461 per victim.

Women are still underrepresented – Women are 51% of the population in the U.S. but make up only:

- 27% of Congress at large

- 24% of the U.S. Senate

- 27% of the U.S. House of Representatives

- 0% of presidents of the United States

- 30% of statewide elected executives of any kind

- 31% of state legislators

- 31% of the largest cities’ mayors

- 25% of mayors in cities with populations over 30,000

And, again, these numbers are not adjusted for race, income level, or age.

Access to reproductive healthcare remains an issue – Although most U.S. maternal deaths are preventable, we have the highest maternal mortality ratio among wealthy nations. In addition, contraception and assisted reproduction services are often unaffordable and out of reach for many, and 90% of counties in the country are without a single abortion provider. African American women, Indigenous women, and people of color, and those living in rural communities and with lower incomes, are disproportionately harmed when healthcare is inaccessible. For example, African American and Indigenous women in the U.S. are roughly three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women.

Organizations to Support

The above facts and statistics highlight just a few of the issues that continue to stand in the way of ALL women moving forward, and having the chance to make history. And these numbers can make things seem hopeless, or like nothing has changed or will ever change, but that’s not true! Things have gotten better, and can continue to improve, thanks to the hard work of many people. So what can you do, if you’re not in the position to get into the trenches and do some hands-on work? You can help by supporting the following organizations.

Note: we have highlighted issues and statistics here in the U.S., as well as organizations aimed at supporting women in the U.S., but there are many, many excellent organizations helping women around the world that are well worth your time and money.

1. National Women’s Law Center

The National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC, has played an active role in the passage of legislation that supports women’s rights. It also advocates for women’s health care and reproductive rights, as well as the rights of children and families. Its current 100 Wins 100 Days campaign is asking for the Biden administration to prioritize a range of political initiatives from passing the Equality Act to protecting tipped workers, who are primarily women, impacted by the pandemic. You can donate to the National Women’s Law Center to support its fight for gender justice.

2. Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women

According to the National Institute of Justice, four out of five Native women experience violence in their lifetime, so the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women (CSVANW) is dedicated to ending violence against Native women and children. By advocating for and engaging with tribal communities, CSVANW is working toward a future where all people can feel safe.

3. I Support the Girls

I Support the Girls serves women and girls experiencing homelessness, and it does so in a way that is often overlooked. They believe “A woman shouldn’t have to choose between feeding herself and her personal health. Every woman should have the ability to maintain her dignity.” So they collect and distribute essential items, including bras, underwear, and menstrual hygiene products to women experiencing homelessness, impoverishment, or distress like domestic violence.

4. Trans Women of Color Collective

stop violence written in a stop sign — *INCITE! works to end violence in our homes, communities, and at the state level.*

The Trans Women of Color Collective “seeks to shift the narrative of surviving to thriving in our communities.” The group provides a network to trans women of color where they can meet entrepreneurs, healers, and collaborators to help them succeed.

5. INCITE!

A network of self-described radical feminists of color, INCITE! works to end violence in our homes, communities, and at the state level. They’ve created accessible activism toolkits to help encourage community organization against issues that disproportionately impact women of color like police brutality and gender violence.

6. National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum

The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) is currently the only national organization dedicated to empowering Asian American and Pacific Islander women and girls through community mobilization and political change. They do this through their work in reproductive rights advocacy, economic justice, and immigrant rights.

7. Women’s Prison Association

The Women’s Prison Association works to keep women out of prison, support women who are incarcerated, and help women who were previously incarcerated set up for life afterward. This includes finding affordable housing, preparing them for job interviews, or locating any mental health services they might need.

8. Girls Who Code

Girls Who Code empowers young women to pursue careers in technology and computer science. The organization offers after-school coding classes for young women in 3rd grade through 12th grade, as well as summer programs and an alumni network. They have worked with 185,000 girls in all 50 states, and college-aged alumni of the program are majoring in computer science at a rate 15 times the national average.

9. The Center for Reproductive Rights

The Center for Reproductive Rights uses litigation and advocacy to fight for the rights of women to have access to quality reproductive health and resources.

10. Girl Up

Girl Up is a nonprofit organization that works to defend gender equality through leadership development training sessions for school-aged girls and women, according to the website. There are currently 3,300 registered Girl Up clubs in 50 US states, two territories, and 118 countries.

11. UltraViolet

According to their website, UltraViolet “work[s] to end violence against women, increase economic security for women and families, and ensure that all women have access to full and affordable health care services.” They do this through “a combination of organizing, technology, creative campaigning, and people power.”

12. She Should Run

She Should Run is a nonpartisan organization that inspires women to run for office by providing a free starting place for women to explore running for office. Its current goal is to get 250,000 women to run for office by 2030. Through its Ask a Woman to Run tool and She Should Run incubator, women from all backgrounds can enroll in courses on leadership, networking, and communication skills to build their individual paths to candidacy.

13. Poetic Justice

Poetic Justice offers both in-person and remote creative writing for women in a growing number of prisons in the U.S. According to their website, their “vision is to offer opportunities for healing and growth by holding space to process trauma and rewrite personal narratives to transform the story of incarceration.”

It’s extremely important to know our history, but it’s just as vital that we support our present and empower our future. The organizations above are working hard to do this – and there are so many more that are doing so, as well, it just takes a little research to find one that speaks to you. So if these many, many organizations and many, many women and allies who are hard at work are any indication, the future is bright.

The Gender Wage Gap Is Real and It Doesn’t Seem to Be Going Anywhere

Did you know that September 18th is International Equal Pay Day? And maybe you missed Women’s Equality Day on August 26th, or National Equal Pay Day, which this year was on March 24th, held symbolically on that date to represent the number of extra days, on average, women have to work to catch up to what men were paid the year before. So why do we need all these days – and more importantly, why should more of us sit up and pay attention to them?

Well, women make up more than half of the population of the U.S. (51.1% at last count), roughly 47% of the American workforce, and earn well over half of all types of degrees in the U.S. – but what don’t women earn? The same amount of money that men earn, often for doing the same jobs: according to many studies, women in the U.S. earn approximately $0.82 for every dollar earned by men, and that gap can be even greater for women of color: it’s important to point out that African American women had to work until August 23rd, and Latina women will have to work until October 21st of this year to make the same as men made in 2020. Not only that, but at the current rate of progress, this gender wage gap won’t close until 2059, or even 2093 by some estimates – so what does this mean for women, and is there anything that can be done to speed things up?

What Is the Gender Wage Gap?

The gender wage gap, or gender pay gap, is one of those things in life that we know is there, but can be hard to put our fingers on. After all, how many of us are inspecting our colleagues’ paychecks, or how do we know how much another person would be earning if they had our job? Not only that, but there are laws against gender-based pay discrimination, such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and we’ve got to trust that employers are doing the right thing, right?

Well, unfortunately, whether it’s intentionally done or not, the truth is that, according to a 2021 report from Payscale, women earn on average 82 cents for every dollar men earn, meaning there’s an 18% gap in pay between the two. But is that literally the case for every woman’s paycheck? Well, no: not only is that number an average, that 18% is described by some as the “raw gender pay gap”: some people believe that, when accounting for other factors besides gender, such as education, experience, location, and industry, the gender wage gap is really closer to 2%.

This adjusted number is known as the “adjusted” or “controlled gender pay gap,” and there are a few things you should know about it:

Using an adjusted gender pay gap might make it seem like gender-based pay discrimination is a smaller problem than it is, but that’s because it really narrows things down to people doing the same job and getting different pay. Looking at it this way misses all the differences in opportunity between men and women that can be a problem for women even before they get to the bargaining table.
Even if you do just look at the adjusted gender pay gap, making 2% less is still problematic. For one thing, making 2% less for a few years may not seem like that much money, but over the course of decades, it can amount to a significant difference in earnings. Not only that, but if you go into a new job with a history of earning less money, you are more likely to be offered less money, and the cycle will continue.
We don’t seem to be making any headway when it comes to the adjusted wage gap, which makes it even more of an issue. This 2% is equivalent to making 98 cents on the dollar, and in 2015, the controlled wage gap was 97 cents on the dollar – that’s just 1 cent improvement in more than five years.

However you look at the gender wage gap, it’s real, and it represents, on average, $406,280 in lost income for white women, and that number can top $1 million for Hispanic women and is just shy of $1 million for Black and Native American women. Some studies even put the average at more than $530,000 to nearly $800,000 lost to the most fortunate women! It’s a problem that doesn’t seem to be going away, and is one that has many complicated reasons behind it.

Sticky Floors and Glass Ceilings

In the words of U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe at a Congressional hearing on March 24, 2020, “One cannot simply outperform inequality. Or be excellent enough to escape discrimination.” For women, the hurdles to making equal pay are high, and have been in place for decades, making them hard to move. There are multiple reasons behind the gender wage gap, and it can be hard to pinpoint them all, but some experts break them down into two categories: “glass ceilings” and “sticky floors.”

You’ve probably heard the term “glass ceiling” at some point: it refers to obstacles that stand in the way of women’s advancement, and is usually a problem for women who already have fairly good jobs and who might be stuck in middle management positions. On the other hand, the term “sticky floors” is used to describe a discriminatory employment pattern that keeps women at the bottom of the job scale. The many complicated reasons behind women’s inequality in the workplace, whether they’re considered a “glass ceiling” problem or a “sticky floors” problem, include:

The fields in which women dominate tend to pay less than fields dominated by men, no matter the level of education or skill required. And guess what? When men start to get into these professions, the pay goes up for them, but the same is not true when women get into male-dominated fields.
Women face conscious and unconscious bias; according to the Pew Research Center, 42% of women say they have experienced gender-based discrimination at work. These biases can include the old standards, like women are less efficient, or don’t have the stomach for business, but can also include more subtle biases, like assuming women are going to take parental leave or get pregnant and quit. Stereotypes about women can also make it harder for them to get heard in salary negotiations.
The “sticky floor” is a thing because, well, it’s a thing: women are more likely to have to take lower paying jobs; in fact, two-thirds of low-wage jobs in the United States go to women.
Women tend to have less time and energy to focus on work because – get this – many are doing as much as 30% more unpaid work than men, like household chores and raising children. We know, there is literally not one woman out there who is shocked by that statistic.
The “motherhood penalty” is real: women are more likely to take time off after a birth, and moms are less likely to be hired, they receive lower salaries when they are, and they are less likely to be promoted, despite the fact that studies show mothers make very productive employees (again, is anyone shocked?)

All of these factors add up to real-world problems for women in the workplace, and, because they’re so difficult to address and change in substantive ways, things don’t seem to be moving forward in any real way.

Is Anything Changing?

not equal sign in blue — *The gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the United States over the past 15 years, and won’t be getting better anytime soon.*

Unfortunately, when it comes to the gender pay gap, there’s even more bad news: according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the pandemic has set women’s labor force participation back more than 30 years. And even if it looks like the gender wage gap has decreased recently – for example, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that the weekly gender wage gap for full-time workers shrunk to 17.7% from 18.5% – that’s only because so many low-wage women workers lost their jobs during the pandemic, thus raising women’s average pay relative to men’s.

Bigger picture, the Pew Research Center announced earlier this year that according to its research, “The gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the United States over the past 15 years or so.” And it probably won’t get much better anytime soon, since the effects of the pandemic on the economy might mean that many women will have to take lower paying jobs. Not only that, but many will have missed out on valuable work experience and will have gaps in their employment history, both of which will make negotiating for higher pay even more difficult in the future.

What Can Be Done?

Again, we can’t just expect that women can outperform discrimination, as Megan Rapinoe said. This is not a women’s problem, it’s a societal problem, and there is no one quick or easy solution. There are, however, a few policies that workplaces and the government could look at to help:

Ban secrecy surrounding pay, and work to change the culture that treats salary as sacred and rude to ask about. After all, how can you know that you are being paid unfairly if you don’t know how much others make?
Prohibit employers from using pay history to determine how much a new employee should make.
Make sure businesses regularly do internal reviews of compensation data to ensure there is no gender wage gap at their company.
Either eliminate salary negotiations, or institute a policy of using “salary bands” to give a range of pay for each position, in order to level the playing field between men and women in salary negotiations.
Guarantee workers paid time off for parental and sick leave.

Ok, so maybe the news about the gender wage gap isn’t great. But now we know, and knowing is half the battle – so now we all need to get behind women and decide that this is just not acceptable – and maybe, in the next few years, we’ll be able to push that date back from March 24th to something closer to January 1st.