Discussion»Questions»Life and Society» Why do Feminists argue the pay disparity between Men and them but totally dismiss the pay disparity between each other?
Do you mean the fact that some people, in the same job, of the same gender ... get paid different? I have not heard of that happening, other than when the people have different experience. I mean, OF COURSE someone new to a job is not going to be paid the same as someone who has worked at it for many years. Nobody would work at a company that did that.
The feminist argument on pay disparity is very specific. It asks for equal pay for equal work. This means that if two people with the same qualifications and experience are doing the same work, then they should be paid the same wage, irrespective of gender, age, race, or any other factor which is irrelevant to the work.
A recent example was the case of Lisa Wilkenson in Australia. She is one of Australia's foremost journalists and had been anchoring the Channel 9 (NBN) program, "A Current Affair" for over twenty years. She is immensely popular and played a massive role in the high ratings of the show. When her contract recently came up for renewal, she asked for a raise to the same rate as her male counterpart on the show. The bosses refused. She famously quit. The next day, the rival Channel 10 (GEM) offered her a place on its equivalent news program, "The Project," at a much higher rate of pay. Channel 9's popularity has since dropped by 7%.
In Australia, the average rate of pay for women is 17% less than for men doing the same work. This has a profound effect later in life. It means less money put away in superannuation, and more women so poor in retirement that they need to rely on a government pension. With the baby boomer generation at 25% of the population and now reaching retirement age, this is becoming a huge drain on tax resources.
They don't - if you believe otherwise then that's clearly a misunderstanding. I get paid way less than 3 out of the women I work with.. that's cos we do different jobs.. there's no way anyone would be silly enough to take that up as a cause... although at a stretch one could argue for socialist ideals that everyone gets paid the same - that isn't what feminists, or even, let's stop sensationalising it - just a basic inequality here - people doing the same job should be paid the same.. no question
