Do you know that in 2009 the Equal Opportunities Commission has found women graduates are earning 15% less than men within five years of starting work? Worse than this, the pay gap facing older women is even bigger, with women graduates in their early 50s taking home 44% less than their male counterparts.
On average, women graduates get 37% less than men, exactly the same as the gap between male and female earnings when the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1970!
I do not believe that employers set out to cheat women or that there is some devious plot against women. I believe that it was woven into the fabric of business. It cannot be seen but it is there. I believe that it is a collective unconscious thought that women do not need to earn the same as men and that men are more equipped to run global corporations. It takes a long time to change beliefs that have been with us for centuries. My motto is “Don’t get mad – get justice!”
It is so sad when I hear women saying, “I am not very good at……….”, or “I do not have the confidence to………..” They have been programmed to believe this untruth by someone else. We all need encouragement. We need to help women tap into their strengths, not their weakness. If we say, “We can’t, we can’t”. If we say, “We can, we can”.
If we wait for others to do something about it, we will all be dead by the time that equality arrives! It is therefore up to women to take action to achieve what they deserve. We have a tendency to dismiss money as being secondary and so many women give their time for free. I often hear women say “It is more important for me to be happy in my work”. It is as if there is a choice between doing work we like or being paid well.
This is a limiting belief and lets women off the hook to strive for both. We know that money alone will not make us happy. However, a lack of it causes stress and anxiety. We therefore need to do something about it so that we are financially secure.
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