By Vishesh Garg
Let me re-phrase this as, ‘Is there a discrimination that exists between genders at a workplace?’ I should first begin with the notion that these two things are totally different, but is often presumed to be the same. Many tech-giants, conglomerate or multi-national companies have acquired policies to disregard this discrimination between men and women. Hillary Clinton and Anne-Marie discuss the cultural norms at the center of the world-wide gender pay gap, including the “Motherhood Penalty”. Let’s find out what makes these women point out the discrimination faced by their female counterparts.
For quite a long period of time, due to lower female education rates, women being considered less intelligent, the classification of “Feminine Jobs” and a prevaleny patriarchal mindset, women were subsequently underpaid and thus discrimination was pretty distinct. That however does not translate into modern times. Many theories, statistics and surveys conducted by countries stated that there are many other reasons and not this because of which gender pay disparity occurs.
One set of assumed differences is marshalled to explain women’s failure to achieve parity with men: is that, women negotiate poorly, they have an inherent lack of confidence, are too-risk averse, or don’t put in requisite hours at work because they value family more. Simultaneously, other assumed differences – that women are more caring, cooperative or mission-driven – are used as a rationale for companies to invest in women’s success. But whether framed as a barrier or a benefit, these beliefs hold women back. We will not level the playing field as long as the bedrock on which it rests is our conviction about how the sexes are different.
The sole reason stated over the years was- women should raise children. Take the common belief that women are more committed to family than men are. In a study of Harvard Business School graduates, nearly everyone, regardless of gender, placed a higher value on their families than on their work. What does differ is the treatment of mothers and fathers receive when they start a family. Women are seen as needing support, whereas men are more likely to get the message that they need to “man up” and not voice stress and fatigue. They are rerouted into less taxing roles and given less ”demanding” clients. A common misconception is built among the recruiters while hiring employees. A young male would work full time after becoming a father while a female would look after her child after giving birth. This leads to gender disparity while assigning work, giving promotions, being more reliable to particular gender.
Less than 20% of people in the US, the UK and Scandinavian countries think that the mother of a child between 12 months to 7 years should work full time where as 70% Americans think a men under same circumstances should work full time. Most likely, a woman is forced to stay home looking after her child’s school and medical care. Whereas, the father of the child works full time during these years which concludes that he is the one who will get promotion and better salary than his female counterpart with kids. The pay gap is not about being a woman but being mother of a child, a study concluded showing the dip in women’s salary after the first child is born against a men and women without kids.
Now, what is the solution to eliminate this disparity. Countries like Iceland passed a law stating that male-parent are obliged to take the paternity leave or else they will loose it so did the rule applied for women to take maternity leave. Through this policy, it encouraged male-parents to stay home while the female parent can work and vice-versa. This created an equal job opportunity in the market as both the genders now have equal amount of work experience, hence they can get same type of promotions. From this, the pay gap between men and women in Iceland was 0.81 cents in 2004 which increased to 0.90cents to every dollar a men gets in 2015.
In a nutshell, now it is not about the patriarchal thinking that men are superior than women and only they should have a higher income, the differences arise between a male-parent working full time against the female-parent working full time. Countries can adapt the same policy which Iceland initiated to reduce the salary gap between men and women.
Regards,
Vishesh Garg.
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