Yesterday was Women’s Equal Pay Day.
I have mixed feelings about acknowledging “All” Women’s Equal Pay Day because it easily can become an erasure of the nuances of our lived experiences — equal payday for moms, immigrants, Black women, native people, queer and trans folx, Asian and Latinx folx are a lot later in the year because our annual wages for full-time work are even lower. Let’s be clear, it’s NOT because of our identities either — it’s because of compounding systems of oppression and prejudice on top of one another.
Even more telling is that when you dive deeper into the data of AAPI and Latinx immigrant folks, some nationalities/ethnicities and regions report lower median incomes in the US… so we should also center the most marginalized folks within communities. Anti-indigeneity is absolutely still an ongoing oppression.
Second, I’m very surprised to see that the gender wage gap “narrowed” by almost 2% last year — resulting in a March 24, 2021 equal pay day… after all this talk about a “she-cession” (which I’m not sure if/how non-binary folx fit in that gendered term regardless but that’s a whole other convo). Equal pay day for whom exactly? Women are over-represented in the fields that have seen the most lay-offs and loss of income. About three months ago we saw all over the news, that much of the return of women the return to the work force for women during the pandemic, unfortunately did not include jobs help by Black & Latina women.
There’s just so much to unpack. Not only do we need “equal pay” in the form of increased pay — all workers deserve a liveable wage that allows them to pay rent, access food, afford healthcare, etc.
Women and non binary folx don’t just need more pay. We all need: pay transparency, universal childcare, federal paid parental leave that is at least 14 weeks (let’s think bout the fee workplaces who even offer it right now), Medicaid expansion/healthcare, UBI, fair employee evaluations, and so much more.
The gender wage gap, regardless, is absolutely a systemic issue. BIPOC are most likely to be interrupted in meetings, most likely to be underrated in employee evaluations for “personality” than actual job performance despite high performance (which affects us advancing in careers and getting a raise), and are least likely to have mentorship in fields like STEM and Academia. The gender wage gap even exists *within* companies and organizations, between workers doing similar or identical roles.
The lack of substantial *paid* parental leave programs disrupts many birthgivers and caretakers’ employee history, making it harder for them to be hired or promoted.
There’s just so much more we can do… it’s bad enough that so much care work is undervalued. That needs to change too.
Note: I’ll come back and edit this post to add citations.