Equal Pay Day

Scrolling through my Instagram feed I came across a post, in big bold letters it said, "Celebrate Equal Pay Day!" This was posted by the account "UNWOMEN", I highly suggest you give them a follow. However, when I saw this post and read the caption I was kind of upset. When I read, "equal pay" I thought it meant that we had finally gained equality. We had finally made the extra 21 cents and were finally considered equal. I was wrong.

Equal Pay Day signifies the day that marks how far into the year women had to work to make the same amount of money that men had made the previous year. So essentially, if I was part of a full time workforce, I would have to work sixteen months and twelve days instead of twelve months for me to make the same amount of money as my male counterpart.

Equal pay is such a large step towards equality that would not only benefit women, but everyone. What's wrong with women being paid the same? Absolutely nothing. If you can stand in front of me, look me straight in the eyes and tell me why women who do the exact same job should get paid less than their male counterparts, solely because they have two X chromosomes and not an X and a Y, I'll give you a round of applause. Because I firmly believe you can't.

There has been a little step up towards equality. The wage gap was previously 78 cents for every one dollar earned and it has jumped to 79. It's not a big step, but hopefully it leads to strides. This is only the average for all women though. Women of different races make far less, and sometimes more than white women. Asian-American women make $0.84 for every dollar a man earns, while African-American women make $0.60 per every dollar. And women of Hispanic ethnicities make only $0.55 per every dollar. In Germany, women can only expect to make 49% less than men throughout their lifetime.

Women aren't the only population being harmed by this inequality. Families aren't able thrive as much as they should be. Children aren't provided for as best as they could be, especially in single-mother homes. By having equal pay between genders, we would only be increasing the standard of living for families all over the United States, and the world.

Some people like to dispute the wage gap, by saying that there is no wage gap, women make less because they take off family time and even that women make less because they are less educated.

1. There definitely is a wage gap and if you dispute if you're an ignorant coward. Some people claim that women just choose jobs that don't make as much as men. I call bullcrap. When you break down salaries inside certain industries, women still make less than men. Research released last month showed that in the tech industry, specifically dentistry, men earned roughly 28% more than the women in their fields.
2. Women don't earn less because they're having children. Companies and large corporations assume that women will prioritize their families over their work. The, "Motherhood Penalty" as it's known is proved by the fact that men's wages go up when they have children, while married women's wages go down when they children.
3. FALSE. There are actually more women graduation college and more women receiving masters, doctorates and other degrees. A higher education doesn't get rid of the wage gap, it still remains the same.

The wage gap is annoying. For everyone. If you deny it and still don't believe it's true, read through those facts again and again until you realize how dumb you sound. Hopefully next April, we're celebrating the closure of the wage gap, one can only dream.

facts taken from Cosmopolitan and UNWomen
stay peaceful (and close the gap)!!