Question

(This one is a bit long XD)
Unequally Paying “Equal” Pay:
A View Into The Ways that the Wage Gap Is Being Propagated in Modern Days
The wage gap is a problem that has and continues to plague the United States’ occupational sphere. Despite much civil rights work, laws, and a general direction of separation from bigotry, the wage gap is still a major problem. Women, from the start of their lives all the way until they reach the pinnacle of their careers are being bombarded by people who believe they are overstepping their boundaries and entering occupations that they are unfit for. The people that believe women are inferior are not completely to blame in certain cases, however. Years of repetitive use and belief in the preconceptions that apply to women have caused society itself to be infected with ideas that have led to the current wage gap problem. The preconceptions related to gender, and which create the wage gap, can be found in many places and will take time to find and weed out. Pay equity continues to be a major issue for modern-day society that is deeply rooted, however, it is not impossible to remove, and with proper guidance in certain areas income equality could become a problem of the past.
Prior to the industrial revolution, the husband was the breadwinner and went out to work while the wife stayed home with the children. Both husband and wife did hard labor in their respective areas. The husband took care of a farm or chopped wood, while the wife did things like grinding grain and bringing water from the well. When the industrial revolution started, however, work was not directly related to the farm. People would go to factories and work there, leaving behind the non-working part of the family. While in the beginning, some families may have worked together, around “the mid-19th century . . . the role of the male as the “good provider” emerge[d]” (Kranzberg, Hannan par. 3). When the World Wars happened, women entered the manufacturing industry as laborers to take the place of the men currently fighting in the army. After the wars, they returned to their previous occupations as teachers or seamstresses and their low pay. Before World Wars I and II, the Women’s Rights movement had begun in 1848. This means that even though there were women fighting for their rights, and there was even the nineteenth amendment in 1919 that attempted to help the cause through legislation, their situation was not improving by much.

Answer 1

Even though there continued to be more and more female rights-oriented legislature passed, the problem never went away. It just continued to grow in every way it possibly could.
While the wage gap is present in the working sphere it does not start there: preconceptions are effective on people from even childhood. A study was done by Eleni Doni from the University of Ioannina to see how preschoolers’ opinions about stereotypes changed after being shown a video that had women in jobs that people would not usually think of as feminine. The study found that after viewing the short video the children’s opinion of which gender was more suited to being a pilot changed from children saying that it was a male-specific career to a career that is “suitable for both sexes”. (299). If a short video that the kids had seen only once had such a quick effect on their opinions, a childhood full of stereotyped movies and toys would be sure to shape the way they see occupations. There is only one flaw with this study, it was done in a single classroom and only with young children.
A larger study that looked at multiple media including books, conversations, and TV shows looked to see how certain words have associations that apply specifically to one gender or other. The study found that “72% of traits showed meaningful associations with gender” (Charlesworth et al. 237). This study was much larger than a single classroom. It looked at things that all different groups of people use and found that there is widespread use and belief in gender preconceptions which are propagated by the continued creation and consumption of media that is attuned with gender stereotypes.
An important part of being able to get a high-paying job is getting the required education to do it; however, if women are unable to comfortably take the required courses they are also going to be unable to take the career path that they had wanted to pursue. A study done by Kugler, Tinsley, and Ukhaneva from Georgetown University found that “when women students experience multiple signals suggesting their lack of fit in a field. . . they tend to switch out of the major more often than male students.” (Kugler, et al. 1) Additionally, the study found that men were no more likely to switch out of female-dominated majors than females. The root cause for this is because stem majors are viewed, no matter the gender composition of the individual courses or careers, as a male-dominated field. Since women already have in mind that their actions are not the norm, any other negative friction causes them to have a will to switch to a major where they will feel more accepted, and hopefully do better in.
Some people say that the wage gap is simply due to the fact that women are not working the same hours or that they do not have enough merit within the company or that they are not even working at the same level of said occupation. Since women have children at home to take care of, they are simply unable to work as long as a man could. According to W.E. Jacobs and Doctor of Sociology, Laura Finley people are ignoring that women “choose jobs (or turn down jobs) that might pay more, but also make caring for their family difficult if not impossible.” (Jacobs, Finley par. 12) Workers should get paid for the work they are doing. If the company chooses to reward an employee because they performed better than another employee that is their business and gender has nothing to do with it.
There are many problems with this argument, including the fact they are assuming that the only argument being made by wage gap protesters is that the employers are being actively sexist. This is wrong on many counts. In fact, the wage gap is not even entirely connected to the actions of any single person. The preconceptions regarding women in the labor force are to blame since they cause people to believe that women are simply not as good as men in a specific job and thereby not only causing people to be sexist but also causing women themselves to not feel as comfortable in careers that are not “meant” for them. Additionally, that article says that it is obvious that the wage gap would be apparent when the studies are looking for it without considering the fact that the two workers are of different occupational levels and hours. In direct opposition to this, a study that looked at how occupations with high female compositions are devalued due to their lack of “potency” found that “female dominated occupations exhibit. . . 68 percent lower income. This is despite the fact that workers in female-dominated occupations are five times as likely to hold a college degree compared to workers in male-dominated occupations” (Freeland, Harnois 139). This completely disproves what wage gap dismissers say. If it were simply because of quality, then women working in female-dominated careers, where there is a higher percentage of college degrees, should be paid more than men in male-dominated careers with a smaller degree of people carrying a college degree.
Additionally, there are others who say that the wage gap was present but that the situation for women in the occupational sphere has improved. A study by Hadas Mandel from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University found that the wage gap was decreasing due to the simple fact that more women are achieving the same career positions as men, thereby increasing the total income of women and decreasing the wage gap. (679) That same study then controlled for intervening variables, education in particular, and found that while the wage gap itself may be shrinking within a single occupation, women’s entry into the career causes that occupation to be devalued and thereby the women in that career are making less in comparison with males doing similar levels of work. (687-688) Additionally, the study found that the devaluation was applicable to the whole occupation and not just women, which further suggests that the career is being devalued on the basis of gender. The study also found that the negative correlational effect of the percentage of women on occupational pay is increasing. The effect of female entry into occupations on pay has gone “from no effect during the 1960s to –0.71 (Model 2) and –0.70 (Model 3) between 2010 and 2015.” (Mandel 685). This refutes the idea that the situation has been improving and shows that people are still viewing careers that women work in as not as important as male-led careers.
A common piece of discussion regarding the wage gap is the “glass ceiling.” The idea that women reach a point in their career arch that they cannot surpass. Over the recent years, many women have gotten into high leadership positions. Before people advocated for women's rights in occupations, this type of thing would be unheard of. While it seems like this suggests that the age of the “glass ceiling” is reaching an end, a study done by Madeline Heilman and Francesca Manzi from the departments of Psychology at New York University and the Social, Health, and Organisational Psychology at Utrecht University respectively, found that “exposure to a successful female leader did not boost the evaluations of a female leadership candidate” (262). What this means is that just because there are women in upper positions does not mean that they are actually helping women break the “glass ceiling”. That same study also found that when the women examples in the readings had failed, they had a greater negative effect on the perception of other candidates than the positive effect that women had when they were successful (Heilman, Manzi 271). What this means is that people are looking for the times when women are not doing well because it fits better with what they already know. When a woman does well in a position not “meant” for her, her success is considered out of the ordinary while the failure of a woman makes more sense and thereby has a greater effect since it is simply reconfirming their previous opinions. The results of this study show that society needs to do more than pat itself on the back and call the job done. In fact, it suggests that something much more drastic needs to be done.
It has been over 100 years since the 19th amendment passed and women began to vote. Despite the fact that the United States prides itself on being so socially forward, it is full of stereotypes that had supposedly been thrown away after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There was even the Equal Pay Act that hoped to directly deal with the wage gap. While the act was helpful for women to get into the working sphere, there was one mistake in the act that created a loophole with which the wage gap is being “legally” continued. Employers have abused the “other than sex” (“Equal Pay Act. .”) exception part of the act. They use the act to justify their use of prior salary to determine the salary of women at the new job. (Watkins 1057) While this seems partially fair since people usually get paid in equivalence to how much they work, it is revealed to be completely biased when the fact that women are being continually paid less than their male counterparts regardless of quality or quantity of work. A clear example of this is the Rizo v. Yovino case where Aileen Rizo, who had worked for a school for many years, realized that a new male worker, in the same job as her, was being paid more than she was. He was being paid the same amount that she would be making in her 9th year during his 1st year working for the school. The main reason for this was because his previous salary had been higher than Rizo’s (Watkins 1041-1043). This is why Congress should work to create a new act that fixes this problem.
Currently, the United States Senate has passed a new piece of legislature, the H. R. 5 of 2021. The act is attempting to reinforce all previous legislature related to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, or being female. The bill acknowledges that discrimination is found in regards to “sex,. . . pregnancy, childbirth,. . . [and] sex-based stereotypes” (“H.R. 5. . .”). The bill proposes that Congress should amend civil rights acts to be accommodating for a more specific, yet wider group. One such example of this is that they wish to add a definitions paragraph to the beginning of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which clearly states that “the term “sex” includes—(A) a sex stereotype; (B) pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition;. . .” (“H.R. 5. . .”). This would help prevent employers from taking advantage of vague wording. This bill would be a great help in fixing many of the problems that are not currently considered “illegal”. Additionally, it would also deconstruct the argument of women simply not being able to work the same hours as men and thereby earning less. The bill would do this through the addition of the abovementioned definition which would thereby make pregnancy, childbirth, and other related issues simply a required time off that the employer cannot use to lower the pay of a woman.
But legislature is not the final answer. It would be an important first step but what is really needed is for there to be a change in education and media production. The change required in education is for children to be taught that old preconceptions are no longer applicable and never were. If schools do not reinforce this sentiment children will continue to grow up believing in the stereotypes of the past. And this change does not have to be large. As a study done in a Grecian classroom found, all it takes is a short video showing people of genders that are not normally associated with certain careers to affect a child’s opinion of which gender is “best” for a certain occupation (Doni). What this means is that if schools simply demonstrate the fact that gender and career are two separate things, it would be another very important step in helping society to cease conflating the two. Children do not spend their whole day in school, however, and a short video is not necessarily going to change their future actions or beliefs. While at home they watch movies, read books, and listen to the news. Those outputs are chock full of stereotypical information. When children watch movies and the genders are always separated into the two clear roles of the hero and damsel in distress it leaves an impression on them. They want to be like the famous actors since they see that being an actor in said roles leads to positive results (e.g., money, publicity, and adoration of the public.). If there is reform in these two industries there can be a definite decrease in the generalization that is currently being reinforced in modern-day society.
To summarize, the wage gap is still present: its procreators (preconceptions, ambiguous legislature, continued creation of stereotypical media, and employers who believe that differential pay is well and good) are alive and well. Their effect on society is extremely profound and unless new legislation that fixes the previous problems is made, unless preconceptions are eradicated through education that frees young minds from old beliefs unless media decides to stop using stereotypes that society then accepts as normal due to desensitization, nothing will change. There will always be individuals willing to take advantage of the populace’s ignorance and naivety. As stated above, the only way to combat these abusers of workers is to reduce the amount of people who compose the classmates that make fun of girls for liking science or math, the TV shows that show women being happily forced into their roles as the “hearth protector”, and simply educating the general population about how women are not the “other” gender but rather a major contributor to society and the workforce.





















Works Cited
Charlesworth, Tessa E., et al. “Gender Stereotypes in Natural Language: Word Embeddings Show Robust Consistency Across Child and Adult Language Corpora of More Than 65 Million Words.” Psychological Science, vol. 32, no. 2, 2021, pp. 218–240., doi:10.1177/0956797620963619.
Doni, Eleni. “Exposing Preschool Children to Counterstereotypical Professional Role Models Using Audiovisual Means: A Small Study in a Preschool in Greece.” Early Childhood Education Journal, vol. 49, no. 2, 2020, pp. 295–302., doi:10.1007/s10643-020-01071-3.
Freeland, Robert E., and Catherine E. Harnois. “Bridging the Gender Wage Gap: Gendered Cultural Sentiments, Sex Segregation, and Occupation-Level Wages.” Social Psychology Quarterly, vol. 83, no. 2, 2020, pp. 129–151., doi:10.1177/0190272519875777.
Jacobs, W. E., and Laura Finley. “Counterpoint: Differences in Pay Rates Between Men and Women Do Not Prove the Existence of Gender Inequality.” Points of View: Gender Equality, Dec. 2018, p. 3. EBSCOhost,
Kranzburg, Melvin, and Michael T. Hannan. “Women in the Workforce.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 26 May 2017, www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-work-organization-648000/Women-in-the-workforce.
Kugler, Adriana D., et al. “Choice of Majors: Are Women Really Different from Men?” Economics of Education Review, vol. 81, 2021, p. 102079., doi:10.1016/j.econedurev.2021.102079.
Mandel, Hadas. “A Second Look at the Process of Occupational Feminization and Pay Reduction in Occupations.” Demography, vol. 55, no. 2, 2018, pp. 669–690., doi:10.1007/s13524-018-0657-8.
Manzi, Francesca. “Breaking the Glass Ceiling: For One and All?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 120, no. 2, 2021, pp. 257–277., doi:10.1037/pspa0000260.
United States, Congress, House, H.R. 5: Equality Act. Congress.gov, Library of Congress, 17 March 2021 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5/text.
United States, Congress, House, The Equal Pay Act of 1963. Eeoc.gov, Library of Congress, The Equal Pay Act of 1963 | U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (eeoc.gov)
Watkins, Torie Abbott. “The Ghost of Salary Past: Why Salary History Inquiries Perpetuate the Gender Pay Gap and Should be Ousted as a Factor Other than Sex.” Minnesota Law Review, vol. 103, no. 2, Dec. 2018, pp. 1041–1088., web.b.ebscohost.com.

Answer 2

really good, did you write all of this?

Answer 3

Thanks! Other than the quotes I did write all of it! @ilightnight64

Answer 4

np, and that was a lot of stuff to write lol

Answer 5

XD Yeah. It was my last paper for Honor College Comp II. Had an 8-10 page requirement.

Answer 6

You certainly cover a lot of bases and situations in this essay. What a wonderful read! I love that you pull situations from the past and present, and also talked about how a lot of these views that impact equality are implemented into our systems when we are children. It is interesting on how easily we can change all of this by simply changing how we educate America's children. This was beautifully written :)

Answer 7

Thanks for the detailed feedback! :D