Mar 08 2010
A Week of International Women’s Day: #1 Equal Pay
Starting back on this abandoned blog with a series of thoughts on women’s issues this week. Today is International Women’s Day and also, in Victoria and Tassie, Labour Day so work seems an appropriate subject.
“Women in today’s workplace still earn less than blokes, they work harder for promotion but are often overlooked in favour of men for more senior positions, and when they retire, have far less income to retire on. If they have children, most of the childcare, or organising it, will be left up to them. They will often work in poorly paid casual or part-time positions in order to prioritise family, especially in the pre-school years. ”
— Trish Bolton, Feminism is more than a memory
- Women’s average full-time weekly earnings - 17.2% lower than men
- Women’s average, inc. part-time and casual work - 35% lower than men
- Women’s likelihood of old age poverty - 2.5 times higher than men
- Women’s average lifetime superannuation - 50% of what men have
MY RESPONSE TO THE FACTS:
Are these figures quite appalling? Yes. Are they unjustifiable? Certainly. Do I feel enraged? I simply… don’t.
As a lifelong feminist, I have always found it difficult to get worked up over the pay equity issue. Partly, it is a question of triage. If the average woman has enough money to feed and clothe and house herself and her children, then my focus will be on other issues. In the face of serious threats to women’s health and safety, for example, the question of who is getting the biggest piece of the pie becomes rather trivial to me. Will a few more female CEO’s or female millionaires - often lauded in the media like some kind of breakthrough for women’s rights - change the daily experience of the average woman’s life? Make her more free? The average woman, and even the average man, will never have access to that rarified air.
Incidentlally, the pay gap is actually at its widest in that rarified air. (Women CEOs, for example, are often earning 50% less than a male in similar positions.) The lowest paying jobs are where you will find the smallest gap. And yes, yes… Women are over-represented in the lowest-paid jobs. It kind of makes that old catch-cry of “Equal Pay for Equal Work” seem rather silly when women don’t get ‘equal’ work.
And perhaps I should be more outraged about that. Because that IS about cultural attitudes and stereotypes which inhibit a woman’s power to choose. Of course I agree that any woman who wishes it should have equitable career rewards and opportunities for advancement but the reality of this capitalist, consumerist Western society is that the majority of all people do work that is not particularly fulfilling or financially rewarding. The issue for me is not whether women should be getting more of the pie: It is whether or not that pie is worth buying into at all.
Can we measure someone’s societal value by their earnings, or by the prestige of their position? Should we? Yes, I know we do… but should we?
What exactly is wrong with those “low-paid” jobs anyway, apart from the fact that my telly might not be as big as my next-door neighbour’s? Would I somehow feel more important and valued if I was an accountant than I would if I was answering an accountant’s phone? Would I actually be more important, or are we really just talking emperor’s new clothes here? Can my paycheque really define my value as a member of this society or, after a certain point, actually improve the quality of my life, not just its appearance?
I might sound facetious but I am actually serious. Our society places a lot of emphasis on work (in that old male ‘public sphere’ anyway) as identity and it grades identities with a rather ridiculous scale. Doctors sometimes save lives. But garbage collectors do more to make my life livable every week.
Isn’t there the danger of actually creating another yoke around women’s necks with the pressure to be ’successful’? Isn’t this simply another double-edged sword for women, like sexual liberation, where more is expected and less is given? (Not that I’m knocking sexual liberation, but any number of conversations with women worrying that making a phone call after sex might be overstepping the bounds tells me there is some power imbalance there.)
I would suggest that this social pressure already exists. Over the last decade several older feminists have come out and said, “We got it wrong: You can’t do everything. That Superwoman thing was a big mistake.” And we know what the crux of the Superwoman problem is, and it is a significant part of the problem with pay disparity: Motherhood.
In a brief discussion on Facebook earlier today, it was pointed out to me that because of lower earnings, often women are dis-empowered in the negotiations at home about who will work and who will care for the children. If women earn less money, they will obviously be the ones who will stay home, or do flexible, low-paid work to supplement the family income. This does take some choice out of the equation, it’s true, but I am not by any means convinced that even with equal work and equal pay there would be equity in those negotiations anyway.
And this is where the way we value work and the way in which we assign social value really comes to the fore: Even when both (heterosexual) parents are working full time, the majority of housework and childcare falls on women. The vast majority of all unpaid work has no (acknowledged) social value and continues to be “women’s work”. There will most certainly never be equal pay for equal work while this division of labour remains so firmly in place. And while perhaps some legislative action and governmental changes might improve a woman’s pay cheque, and even her social status, the price is the expectation that, if a mother, she will have two full time jobs and will often feel that both of them represent a failure.
As a single mother myself, one would think that I might sometimes wish for the support of a partner, and perhaps if I had one my finances would be less of a worry, but the feeling I most often get looking at perfectly happy relationships is relief.
“The cost in human terms of feeding him, grooming him, humouring him and financing his recreation is way out of proportion to the contribution he makes in return, even if he is a sensitive and attentive lover.”
– Germaine Greer, The Whole Woman
Equal pay for equal work? How about just getting paid? Yes, now I am being facetious, but if anything is to change in the experience of work for women, there needs to be a societal shift in the way all work is valued and it can’t be measured in cash. For all the achievements of feminism made in the last century - and they are enormous, and I am exceedingly grateful for them - we still live in a society of irrational hierarchies and I’m not sure that climbing the ranks is the solution.
Women should have choices. Affordable and accessible childcare should be a priority. Longer and paid parental leave should be a priority. And I am in favour of equity in the workplace and at home. I am all in favour of women having career goals and financial goals above and beyond the necessities of life, if that is what they want. I truly am. I simply can’t find in myself the feminist urge to march in the street for it.
