Equal Pay For Equal Work

In today’s society, it is an understatement that women have come a long way from earlier generations in achieving gaining equal rights with men. Gender roles have evolved greatly throughout history; women can even be known as the breadwinners. However, discrepancies still exist when it comes to equal pay for equal work. This issue has the potential to have an impact on all women including myself, as I hope to one day join the workforce and become a financially independent businesswoman. While some argue that the issue is not relevant to today’s society there are still cases where women’s pay does not match up to men for doing the exact same work.
To understand how the pay gap still exists, it is important to understand the factors that have

This act holds that as long as a job that a woman and man are involved in a job that requires equal skill, effort and responsibility, there is a requirement for equal pay. Generally, there are differences in pay for people of seniority, merit, quality, or quantity of production. However, this does not give way to say that this is valid for difference in gender pay. (Encyclopedia of Gender and Society). The New York Times’, “Let’s Expose the Gender Pay Gap”, states that researchers have found that women, one year out of college, earn 6.6 percent less than men do. In addition, women earn about 4,600 dollars less than that of their male classmates on average. According to the article, exposing top companies who are not paying their female employees equally will help bring attention, and hopefully resolution, to the

One argument concludes that while there may be unequal pay in a said work place, the equal pay has nothing to do with gender. Kate O’Beirne, an author who addresses the feminist movement, says in her novel, “The claim that women face widespread wage discrimination is myth.” Instead, she argues that the idea is simply a tool used to boost the movement for feminists. She argues that since the Equal Pay Act of 1963, it is illegal for any businesses to not equally pay their women workers to their men workers if they are doing the same work. While this might be a valid point, it does not mean that businesses will not break the law to take the cheaper route. It was found in 2014 that women that were working full time were paid 79 percent of what men earned. The gender gap has progressed since the 1970s but has since slowed down. Progression does not mean resolution; the gap has not completely closed.