So What Do We Do?

One way to make a change for this issue is to start at the root of the problem: treat women as equals in everyday life. Respecting women outside of the workplace and learning how to treat every human with the same amount of respect can have a massive impact on the way people see their female coworkers. As Joan Eveline and Patricia Todd found, “dealing with the gender pay gap through a purely technical process of legislation, auditing, reviewing, monitoring and accountability measures will never be enough” (Eveline 553). There are more social aspects that have to be addressed by the individual before the entire group gets on board and starts making changes in their companies.


Changing something like this that has been apart of society for so long is not an easy task. Something as simple as seeing women in media can make a change at a young age. As St. Ridley Santos points out, if “there are fewer women means that for young women it's harder to find quality role models who share the experience of being a woman” (Ridley 8). This is a simple thought, but if young children grow up watching movies with no main female characters, this only adds to the idea that women are the weaker sex and cannot do as much as men, leading to them holding onto this idea as they grow up, and continuing into adulthood.

Starting at young ages, teaching children at young ages how to respect both genders equally can make a huge difference for the way people treat others at work in their adult life. Someone who was taught traditional male/female roles might not respect their female coworker as much as someone who was taught to respect everyone. It seems like a simple task, but it could make great changes for the future of this world.


As for now, speaking up for the women who are treated unfairly at the workplace can make a difference in the way some companies treat and pay their female employees. Showing support to politicians who try to pass bills to combat this inequality can also make a difference in this issue, but that might not be as effective at starting at a more personal level. This is a big inequality in our society that has been happening for many years, so it will not go away overnight. Finding small ways in your personal life to create change can be a great way to combat this inequality to create a better life and a better future.

Cultural Belief: Shaping Our Society

           

This has been an issue in our society for a long time because it has been built into the way our society runs. As Tricia Dawson found in her research study of institutions with clear unequal pay, men made up the company’s union that discussed various issues within the company, and “even where women convinced their male colleagues to include equality issues on the agenda, employers insinuated that it was not serious and persisted in trivializing them” (Dawson 392). This shows how inequality was built into this company so much where women do not eve have credibility with their male coworkers when they bring the issue to a group that is supposed to fix it.





Finding solutions within a company is one way to combat gender pay inequality, but the unequal treatment of women is so engrained into our society, their opinions are sometimes shot down at the place they work because they are not as involved in the company’s issues as the men are. This shows how making a change with the way women are treated outside of a company setting can affect the way women are treated inside of work settings. Everyone knows to treat their coworkers with respect, but women are still seen as the weaker workers and are not taken as seriously as the men are.

Community Impacted: Single Mothers

The communities that are impact by this issue are women and families everywhere. Especially single mothers, who usually are the one source of income for their families. If the women are being paid less, how can they be expected to give their families the same quality of life as they would if it was a single father working? Single mothers are statistically some of the poorest communities of people because of their mediocre pay at work. Even those who are technically more qualified than some of their coworkers can sometimes be overlooked for a promotion or a new job opportunity, simply because they are women.

Traditionally, women are seen as the lesser gender, the weaker of the two. Men believe it is their
job to care and provide for the women because women are supposed to be at home taking care of the children and the household chores. This is a very sexist and outdated point of view, but it is one that is still held onto by many people across the world. Statistically, there is “nowhere in the world where women can expect their gender to be irrelevant to their income” (Cholensky 2.” Even when women enter typically male-dominated fields of work, the gender pay gap narrows, but still exists. Women of the same level of expertise get paid less than their male coworkers simply because of their gender.

BACKGROUND

The gender pay gap has been an issue discussed for many years. Women started speaking up about the unequal payment they experience compared to males in their same field. This is an issue of inequality because women are not paid as much as men in their same profession simply because they are women. Discriminating someone like this because of a factor out of their control – gender, race, or ethnicity – is wrong. Choosing not to pay someone the same amount of money as another human who has the same level of profession and experience just is not logical. We should care about this social inequality because our society talks so much about equality, that we should strive to reach absolute equality for everyone.




As stated by Schwalbe, “inequality is perhaps the most consequential feature of our society” (Schwalbe 1). What he means by this is that when someone is affected by inequality – such as unequal pay – it affects their entire life. Social status, family, finances, and emotions are all affected by inequality. This is why it is important to discuss these issues to instill change of some sorts and call the readers to action. It takes everyone in the community and society to make a change that has been apart of the structure for so long, which is why this paper will discuss the inequality is unequal pay for women and the actions people can take to combat that.