Photo by: Andrey Sukhanov
With many articles surfacing recently about the pay inequalities between men and women, I have been asking myself a few questions. Most of the people who are commenting on the article posted in Portfolio are saying that women should stop complaining about inequalities in salaries. They say that women have come a long way, and that it is time to focus on bigger issues in society. Now I have personally been on both sides of the fence, when it comes to the salary differences that are still being observed between men and women in the workforce. I do believe that how much money men and women earn should not be our main priority, when there are starving children, global warming and animal extinctions around the world. Yet at the same time, I can’t help but look at the numbers and realize that women are not equal in our society. This brings up the question of what equality means and what we should be striving for when it comes to an acceptable balance between the sexes.

Focusing on the important things in life

Before taking a look at the equations for equality between men and women at the workplace and at home, let us take a look at what is most important in life. Most people realize that life is short and that to truly enjoy it, we must do the things we love and focus on what is important to us as individuals, family members and members of a community. To some people this means expressing their creativity, teaching others, volunteering their time, raising a family, growing a garden or running a large farm, and starting a business. Everyone has different core values, and it is possible that a majority of women are raised to uphold certain values higher in their hearts than men do. For example, women tend to be raised with the ideals that having their own family is paramount. They are also raised to take care of others before themselves, to always play nice and to be a good girl. On the other hand, men tend to be raised to think that winning is crucial to success, that they need to achieve big things in order to make a difference and that they need to be strong and take care of their family in a protective measure.
As we can see, these two views of life are bound to have an impact on the types of work and the amount of energy put into certain jobs by men and women. As a more concrete example, a woman might decide to leave her job if her children need to be homeschooled, or if her husband needs to relocate. On the other hand, men might feel the need to take an assignment that is overseas to prove that he can handle the new challenges and that he is a winner. These scenarios are both acceptable, and there are certainly cases where men would be leaving their jobs to allow their wife to pursue her career, and some women who would uproot their families just as much as men do. These male-like females tend to have been raised with similar values as most men are, and vice versa for men who are happy to become house husbands and primary caretakers.

Equality at the workplace

From the perspective on an employer, seeing that your female employees are leaving the company or wanting to cut back on their hours to focus on their personal lives might seem like a negative. In addition, seeing men that are go-getters and willing to take on any challenge no matter the cost to their personal lives shows men in a more positive light. Managers might naturally select men as those worthy of a promotion in these cases. Of course not all cases are like this, and there are certainly women who have decided that the traditional family life is not for them, and chosen to focus on advancing their careers. Unfortunately, these widespread stereotypes do influence managers and when it comes down to the bottom line, the pay of women and men. Today most companies still operate under the paradigm that the more a person is present at work, producing value, interacting with others and “putting in the hours”, the more productive they are. However, after speaking to a few managers at some of the companies I have worked for, this trend might be changing. There are more people tele-commuting to work, or taking one day per week for their personal lives or taking care of their children. The firms who are embracing these new ways of treating employees will benefit from the work that employees can do without sacrificing their values. And as we all know, employees are happier in their personal lives tend to do better work.

Equality at home

Photo by: Anita Gould
The whole problem with pay inequality actually stems from inequalities at home. Single men and single women might measure similarly, when considering salaries. However when we add adults with families to take care of, we can see the balance tilting because most women tend to be the default caretaker at home. Why would this impact salaries? Mainly because women need to attend to more things outside of work, while men can focus all of their attention on their work. Traditionally men were the breadwinners and women stayed home with the children. Today women have entered the work force, but they have not necessarily been given leave from their primary job: taking care of the household and the children. Yes there are alternative arrangements: some families use babysitters, daycares or grandparents; some have house husbands, and others just don’t have children. But overall, the norm is still that women must be available for their children when they come home from school, they must prepare meals, drive children to their extracurricular activities, help with homework, do laundry, clean the house, and the list goes on. Modern society kind of sweeps all of these activities under the title of “Soccer mom”, but we don’t really analyze what this does to the earning power of women.

Is it good to complain about these inequalities?

For the most part I don’t think it is a good idea to complain about pay inequalities. One quote which is very a propos here is:

“What you resist persists.”

So if we continue to gripe and whine about the injustices of society and companies who are being sexist… well guess what? We will continue to create more of these problems. I think it is important to know that these issues are out there, to take the time to consider them and form opinions about them for ourselves. But at the same time, I don’t think it is fair to blame anyone, not the men in our lives, the men who are at the head of large companies or even the women who continue to live with this paradigm. We are all here to experience personal growth, and if pay inequalities are something that we are not willing to accept, then we can simply raise the issue with our own families, coworkers and bosses. But complaining never got anyone further in life. So let us focus on what is important to us: creating a beautiful loving and welcoming planet for everyone to live on.

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