How to talk to a Gender Pay Gap denier this Equal Pay Day
Alas, that day we all love to hate is here again. That’s right, (Un)Equal Pay Day is back, and predictably, after another year dealing with the gendered impacts of an ongoing pandemic and the tail end of a government that was notoriously bad for women, things aren’t looking great.
This year, Equal Pay Day falls on August 29th, representing the additional 60 days women in Australia will have to work in the previous financial year to have earned the same as men. And while it would appear that we have managed to close the Gender Pay Gap by a measly 0.1% since this time last year from (from 14.2% to 14.1%), it’s worth noting the gap was actually sitting at 13.8% six months ago. So, this means the gap has actually widened. Again.
*Sighs in tired*
Every year, conversations around Equal Pay Day and the Gender Pay Gap bring forth an array of reports, statistics and recommended actions for how policy makers, employers and individuals can all do their part to tackle this entrenched and insidious blight on the financial stability and autonomy of women. Inevitably, these conversations also tend to elicit another kind of response from people who seem hell-bent on ensuring the gap remains. We’re talking, of course, about the dreaded Gender Pay Gap denier.
Often male, white and wealthy, steeped in privilege and brimming with enthusiasm to discredit ‘the facts’ to anyone within earshot. The ‘MO’ of a Gender Pay Gap denier can range from the seemingly innocuous ‘just playing devil’s advocate’ to the outright misogynistic ‘but women ARE equal and reverse sexism exists.’ The whole spectrum is tedious, and frankly, dangerous — a living, breathing example of just how far we still have to go.
Despite what the deniers will have you believe, there’s no getting around the fact that the Gender Pay Gap is well and truly alive, and continues to entrench the financial inequities of anyone who is not a wealthy white cis man. So, what to say to someone who doesn’t ‘believe’ it? In case you wanted to have some fact-driven arguments in your back pocket this Equal Pay Day, we’ve put together a list of the five most common plays in the Pay Gap denier’s playbook and how to take them down. Um, enjoy? 🙃
1. “The gender pay gap doesn’t exist.”
If only. In our experience, this misconception is normally the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Gender Pay Gap actually is, with people often confusing the concept with what is known as ‘unequal pay’. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) does a great job of explaining it, but to put it simply: the Gender Pay Gap is *not* the result of men and women being paid differently for comparable roles but rather, is a representation of women’s overall position in the economy and ‘the result of the social and economic factors that combine to reduce women’s earning capacity over their lifetime.’
However, the Gender Pay Gap is, unfortunately, only part of the story. As we, and many others have written previously, the Pay Gap experienced by women of colour, women from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds, women with disabilities, First Nations women, and gender diverse people would undoubtedly be higher than the 14.1% average.
If you come up against this one, remember: the Gender Pay Gap isn’t something for people to ‘believe in’ or not. It’s not the Easter bunny or some crazy conspiracy theory — it is data. It exists.
When someone says they ‘don’t believe’ in the Gender Pay Gap, what they’re actually saying is that they don’t believe it’s a problem. They think it's perfectly acceptable that half the population is making less money than they should be, based purely on their gender. Which is, quite honestly, the shittest take…
The WGEA has plenty of stats and explainers (highly recommended) on their website that you can direct people to if you don’t want to waste your breath.
2. “Women earn less because they choose lower paying careers.”
The real issue here is around the word ‘choice’, like anyone would just ‘choose’ less money. 🙄 The conversation we should be having instead is why industries that are overrepresented by women attract lower wages. Here’s what we know for sure: society doesn’t value work performed by women in the way that it should. Harmful gender stereotypes have labelled us as ‘biological’ nurturers and carers for generations, allowing the patriarchy to get off scot free and lump the burden of caring responsibilities squarely on us, often unpaid.
The result of a society and economy that has consistently devalued the work of women? The women that work in feminised industries face barriers to achieving wage parity, with the Gender Pay Gap in these industries above the national average, and a stark underrepresentation of women in promotions and key management positions. Similarly, when women start to enter a traditionally male-dominated industry in higher numbers, the average wage drops. And, you guessed it, vice versa.
On top of all of this, we know that shouldering the disproportionate burden of unpaid work responsibilities means that, for many women, casual or part-time work is often their only option. When rates of casual employment are factored in, the gap jumps to a staggering 29.7%.
And, let’s be real here. We can’t have a society full of corporate CEOs with no nurses to care for us when we’re sick, or no early childhood educators to teach and care for our children. What we do need is to start valuing this work for the essential role that it plays in a healthy functioning economy and society, and increase remuneration to reflect this.
If you want to add a final little jab while you’re dismantling this one, ponder out loud that it’d be really interesting to see how many corporate CEOs and men of all demographics could do what they do without the sacrifices and hard work of women at home and in so-called ‘caring professions’.
3. “It’s not discrimination, women choose to take time off to have/care for children.”
The assertion that taking time out of the workforce to be the primary caregiver for children contributes to a diminished earning capacity for women is, in fact, correct. But to overlook the fact that this ‘choice’ is heavily influenced by rigid gender norms, patriarchal systems and enormous financial pressures is naive at best and downright sexist at worst.
Putting to one side the heteronormativity of this argument, there are a myriad of factors that influence a person’s decision to ‘put their career on hold’ to have children, but what do we realistically expect when Australia’s exorbitant childcare costs make any other option, other than having a partner stay home, untenable? Add in some pervasive gender stereotyping, which conveniently labels women as the ‘natural born’ (unpaid) caregivers and again, the word choice is starting to look a bit misplaced here, right?
In reality, 1 in 2 women experience discrimination at work while pregnant, on parental leave or when they return to work. Plus, women end up spending double the amount of time as men on unpaid domestic work.
This brings us to the motherhood penalty. Stats show that when a woman takes time off to have children, her earning capacity and career progression opportunities are dramatically reduced when she returns to work. Do you know what happens to lots of new fathers? Their wages can increase in correlation with the birth of a child, often referred to as the ‘Fatherhood Bonus’.
Ultimately, there are career interruptions that all parents face, but not all parents get set back financially for the rest of their lives. That is an honour we reserve for women. And with the expected financial impact of the motherhood penalty to reach $876K over a lifetime, don’t even get us started on the opportunity cost of those lost earnings….
A big part of the solution here is greater workplace flexibility and improved parental leave policies that allow a more equal split of care responsibilities along with stronger incentives for both parents to take up this leave. Plus, policy change at a Government level to create a free and accessible childcare system would be a powerful step to a more equal future. Though again, we would argue that women aren’t necessarily making a ‘choice’ here — systemic disadvantage and discrimination are often robbing them of any other viable option.
4. “Women aren’t as educated or as experienced as men.”
Firstly, lol. This tedious little number is based on some seriously outdated, sexist thinking, and honestly if you hear this one, big yikes. 😬🚩
Let’s look at the stats: women currently represent 60.4 % of all completed undergraduate and postgraduate higher degree courses, which means women are actually more likely to have a tertiary education than men.
So, it’s not a lack of education or experience but a lack of opportunity (and also, unconscious bias) that’s getting in the way. Just 16.9% of board seats globally are held by women (according to recent research by Deloitte that surveyed over 8,600 companies worldwide). And when they do make it to the upper echelons of companies, the majority of women are in non-executive roles, meaning many don’t even get a seat at the decision-making table.
These discrepancies aren’t based on a lack of knowledge, education or skill. Instead, they’re based on harmful gender stereotypes (e.g. women are ‘bossy,’ men are the boss) and a culture of pay secrecy that allows gender inequality to persist. Who benefits from wage secrecy in companies? It certainly isn’t women.
5. “Women earn less because they don’t ask for more and are bad at negotiating.”
Here’s an inconvenient truth: contrary to the widely held belief that women don’t ask for pay increases as often as men, we now know that they do — they’re just getting told ‘no’ more often.
In a 2019 research poll, it was found that 37% of men and 36% of women said they had asked for a pay rise (so, pretty much on par), with 82% of men receiving the raise they asked for, compared to 74% of women. Hmmmm. And this doesn’t take into account when the ‘ask’ intersects with other harmful stereotypes around race, age, ability, and other identities.
“Black women found that revealing ambitious intentions and a healthy self-esteem caused them to be misinterpreted as angry, difficult, or aggressive. Many Asian cultures teach a reverence for authority that creates expectations with themselves and others that they should conform. Many Latinas are cautioned based on family experience not to rock the boat and are taught to keep their heads down.” — Negotiating as a Woman of Colour
This might sound insignificant to some (not us, for the record), but this gap adds up and compounds over our lifetime. And the more we hear ‘no’, the less likely we are to try again.
Women are told to ‘lean in,’ but our backs are breaking (also from our extra chores). And sure, we might have to overcome centuries of socialisation and not asking for what we want, but the argument that women are just ‘bad’ at negotiating simply does not get borne out in the data. In fact, researchers argue that if women do perform worse in real-world negotiations, it’s likely to be due to systemic biases. Not only that, but the research shows that women often ‘settle’ for less in a negotiation if they sense that the environment is hostile or unsafe for them. Great, love that for us.
Of course, we know these conversations alone aren’t going to close the Gender Pay Gap. But, we do know the power of bold, unapologetic and evidence-based conversations as we fight for the financial equity and autonomy of all women and gender-diverse people. Or, at the very least, the impact of not allowing misinformed opinions to spread any further. We also know that this isn’t a problem for us to solve and the onus shouldn't be on us to educate people who continue to deny facts (and our humanity).
So, perhaps our final piece of advice for chatting with a Gender Pay Gap denier this Equal Pay Day? Don’t.