Do Women Deserve Equal Pay?
Yes or No?
From the beginning of history and to this day women still get paid less than the average man, but why? Whoever said that women are incapable of good work performance? Whoever said that women do not have the same responsibilities to maintain? What really makes a women’s work inferior to men? The answer is nothing. Today, women are depended on just as much as men, and are capable of performing at their level. However, a full-time working woman earns only seventy-seven cents for every dollar a man makes. These days women make up half the workplace in our society; they work just as hard and for the same reasons. Women deserve to be paid at an equal rate as men because they are relied on to uphold the same responsibilities and are just as qualified to perform at a man’s level.
Women and their Families Rely on Women’s Salary
Many people do not realize how important the salary of a woman is, or how much one family may depend on it. Many may think that all men are head of all households. However that is not always the case. More than fifteen point one million family households are headed by women. Of these households, thirty-two percent or 4,826,159 families have an income that falls below the federal poverty line. That’s almost five million homes and families who are considered poor all because of the unfair gender pay gap we have today (National Partnerships).
The reduced earnings of women have an impact on 7.4 million households run by single working women. Over two point one million families consisting of working single mothers were considered poor. An added two point four million working single mothers were severely struggling to barely make ends meet. They were falling between 100 and 200 pe...
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...and go through the same schooling; they deserve to be paid equally for what they worked for, just like men do (Wage Project).
Women without a doubt do deserve equal pay. The gender pay gap may only last for a couple more years or maybe the wage gap may always exist. However that doesn’t make it right. Women go through their daily lives hearing the many excuses society throws at them. Men matter more, they need the money more, their more qualified, and so on. Nevertheless, none of that is true; women have proved to be independent hard working females who are depended on just as much as men. They have the same responsibilities to uphold and are just as qualified to perform at a man’s level. This wage gap has gone on for long enough and it is a women right as a citizen to be looked upon as an equal. Every women matters, every dollar matters, the wage gap matters.
On the contrary, women still get paid less than men. According to CNN Money, “men still make more than women in most professions -- considerably more in some occupations than others, according to a new study by the job search site Glassdoor”. Although we like to comfort ourselves with the idea that we have gotten our rightfully earned rights, we had not been given bathroom breaks until 1998. Furthermore, employees are still afraid to have a voice in the workforce. Employers establish rules that let laborers know that they are inferior.
Exhilarated screams and contagious laughter pierce the air. The squeaking and screeching of the rusty old gate travel throughout the playground, as I tower towards it. Sprinting down the crumbly old path, leading to the sand court. There are crowds and clusters of children everywhere. The wind twisting and gusting throughout the awkward side bangs and awful bob haircuts. Recess was by far the most exciting and adventurous part of my second-grade life. Spotting my best friend, Lydia, out of the mass of children, I frantically run up to her and ask her to play Newcomb with me. Newcomb was the best recess game to me, simply because it always had the cutest boys. Lydia immediately replies with complete agreement.
The reality of wage differences between men and women is that above all changes women continue to earn less than men. Countless arguments have promoted that wage inequality has changed and that everyone finally receives an equal amount of pay. “For women of color, the gap is largest of all: In 2006, black and Hispanic women earned 86 and 87 cents on the white man’s dollar, respectively,” (Mcswane 2). If a woman is lucky enough she will get an equal pay compared to a man doing the same job. But it is challenging for a woman of a minority background to achieve this. Not only are women paid less because of their sex, but also because of their race. There seems to be a mentality that because someone is a woman and a minority that they cannot do the same job as men or that women do not have the same education as the men, so employers do not have to pay them the same. “When the numbers are broken down by district, they 're pretty hard to ignore. Women in Texas are being utterly screwed financially, according to the data compiled by AAWU, with women earning anywhere from 66 percent of what men do in some districts, to the top end of things, which is about 89 percent,” (Leicht 4). The proof cannot be ignored. It i...
In the United States, more than one in three women live in poverty or on the brink of it (Patron, 2014). The current federal poverty level starts at $16,020 for a family of two, $20,160 for a family of 3, and so on at increments of slightly more than $4,000 for each additional family member (Buteau, 2007). There are 106 million people in the United States that have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or are low-income. About 42 million of these low-income individuals are women and 28 million are their children (Patron, 2014). This phenomenon of the disproportionate rate of the population’s poor being women is known as the feminization of poverty.
...women or men; black or white should get equal pay for equal work. These kinds of inequalities are unethical and possibly immoral.
Women are capable of doing the same jobs that men do. Many women do work in higher positioned jobs that are seen more as jobs for men, but just because they’re higher up doesn’t mean they get paid the same as the men doing their exact job. “High-achieving women are paid less than men even when they have similar levels of experience and are in the same fields,” (Bloomberg Businessweek). This means that women who have been doing the same job for the same amount of time as a man, earn less than him. Even a woman who was completely
When President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963 into law, he hoped that it would allow working women to finally earn the same amount of money as men; however, more than half a century later, men continue to out earn women in almost every field of work (Lipman para. 4). Male dominated fields tend to pay more than female dominated fields at similar skill levels. In 2012, women earned an average of $691 per week while men earned an average of $854 per week. Furthermore, the majority of women remain unaware that they are earning less than their male colleagues (Hegewisch para. 1). The gender wage gap not only harms a woman’s ability to provide for herself, it also harms many children and families. Women are now the primary caregivers
A huge problem in the working world is the issue of equal pay between men and women in the workplace. Once stance taken is that women are specifically targeted and that they are payed less than the average income of a man who has the same education and who works in the same profession while the other stance states that men and women are paid as close to equal as possible considering the careers taken. The issue of equal pay for women is considered an embarrassment. The term ¨embarrassment” is not an accurate term to describe the issue when so many factors go into how much women are paid. In 2014, a study showed that women earned 77 percent of what a man in the same position earned the same year. This looks bad, but
Someone has to do the work of rising children and reward for such important work should not be marginalization, suffer a loss of status, and be at an increase risk of poverty. It makes economic sense to equalize pay, especially since there are more women than men heading households and in the labor force. These women become the economic decision makers, if they receive their fair pay, it’s highly likely that those dollars will be going directly back into the
For many years in United States, equal salary pay for women has been a major issue that women have been fighting for decades. This began back in World War II, when the National Labor Board urged equalize the salary rates for women with the same rates that males were getting of the same professions. (Rowen) Although, traditionally most women do not work to provide for there family and there are not so many independent women during World War II. After World War II more women lost their jobs to veterans returning to the workforce. Women in the workforce after the war have been discriminated ever since. The idea of women as weak and cannot perform there jobs
In addition, women are paid less than men for the same type of work. According to Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg mentions that women were paid fifty-nine cents for every dollar men were paid in 1996, but women protested to raise the compensation to seventy-seven cents (6). This means that even though a woman and a man perform the same work such as an engineer does, both do the same assignments and have the same responsibilities in the technology place, men are paid twenty three cents more than women. Moreover, women suffer from “gender discount” which means women have to pay for being part of the workplace or society ...
In the workplace, women do not receive the same benefits that men do. Some women do the same job, for the same amount of hours, and still do not receive the same pay for their work. Is there a specific reason behind this? No, it is just one of the many inequalities that goes on on the job. As pointed out in the essay by Susan Faludi, Blame it on Feminism, women earn less. The average women’s paycheck is twenty percent less than their male counterparts. Men with only high school education’s make more than some women who have graduated college. Most women are still working the traditional “female” jobs: secretaries, teachers, and nurses for example. Construction work, engineering, and doctor’s, are considered “out of our reach” and men’s jobs. Women are very capable of doing these jobs, but most times when applying for a “man’s job” are not taken seriously. American women are more likely not to receive health insurance and twice as likely not to draw pension then American men. They face the biggest gender-biased pay gap in the world.
It is very important to be concerned about the issue because it is constantly increasing throughout the United States. It upsets me that women are paid less than men because women have the same ability and work ethic as men do, but they are looked at differently. According to AAUW, women make 77 percent of what men make. This rate hasn’t changed since 2002 (Hill, 2013). Statistics show that women will never make as much as men due to the thought of never being comparable to men (Williams, 2013).
For many decades, women have faced inequalities in the workforce. At one point, they were not allowed to work at all. Although women's rights have improved and are now able to work alongside men, they are still treated unfairly. According to the 2012 U.S. Census, women’s earnings were “76.5 percent of men’s” (1). In 2012, men, on average, earned $47,398 and women earned only $35,791.
In today’s society, Women perform similar jobs to men. Whether it’s blue or white collar jobs, women are always present and thriving for success balancing a life of business and family. In the job market, some are graduates of the best schools and have interned at the best firms, but are still not compensated as equally as men. Following the recent comments by the CEO of Microsoft concerning women asking for raises and how they should trust the system to install equality, the issue seems to be still present, and women’s work is not rewarded similarly to men’s.