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My Seventy Cents Worth Essay By Valerie V. Peterson |
Why do women make only 70 cents for every dollar a man makes? And why has the proportion of women’s pay to men’s pay changed so little in the last few years? Feminists and others have been concerned with the fact that women, as a group, are not paid the same as men for the same quality and amount of work, and that women are not, as a group, being promoted as often as men, even when their resumes show similar qualifications. Why is this? Can women, as a class, ever achieve equal pay for equal work? If we take into consideration the current political system in the U.S., and our desire to have well cared-for kids, we’d have to say “No.”
Discrimination is a complex practice inspired by a variety of motives, not all of them bad (we discriminate against milk that is past its expiration date and against convicted child predators who apply to work at day-care centers). But discrimination can also be unfair. Instead of trying to explain the complexities of discrimination, I’ll go straight to the ways people try to fight what they see as unfair discrimination, and specifically unfair discrimination in the workplace.
In an attempt to overcome unfair workplace discrimination, “minority” groups must usually tackle a stereotype. Most often, they take one of two approaches: either the group will try to argue against the stereotype of their group (if they feel the stereotype is wrong), or the group will try to shift the definition of what is desirable in the culture (if the stereotype is correct and offers a better model of how people should be).
Most minority groups have pursued the first option. They may form “separate but equal” social realms less subject to the social forces of the majority and there they may transcend their group’s stereotype. Or, one or more individuals may “make progress” for “their people” by becoming “successful” within the majority culture. By these means, racial and ethnic minorities have sometimes gained the attention and acceptance of the majority (we call this “assimilation”). Over time, instances of contradictions between stereotype and reality pile up, and a group’s stereotype may be undermined. But this approach to discrimination does little to shift existing virtues or redefine what counts as “reason” or “leadership” or “success.” These minorities adapt to the dominant culture, but do little or nothing to change it.
The option described above works better for groups fighting against racial and ethnic discrimination than it does against sexism. This is because social realms are not as easily limited to one sex as they are to one race. The “separate but equal” approach to discrimination would require a separation of women and men into women’s and men’s cultures. This would mean single-sex families (mothers and daughters only, fathers and sons only), as well as separate all-male and all-female communities. And while individual women might be able to make individual “progress” for themselves within the majority culture, these individual “successes” do not eradicate the real and different biological potentialities of men’s and women’s bodies.
Even though not all women reproduce, women are that class of humans that can get pregnant, carry a child, and nurse a child. This is not a stereotype; it’s a significant physiological difference. It leads to (but does not mandate) certain other social roles, specifically “primary caregiver.”
Because the U.S. government does not contribute substantially to child care, and because we might not trust it to provide good child care even if it did, we, as citizens, have a choice. We can lean on mothers or parents to raise children, or we can increasingly leave childrearing to the State. If we stick to leaning on mothers or parents to raise children, we can demand equal pay for equal work for women if we are willing to accept, in theory and in practice, the logical extensions of these demands: equal child-care responsibilities for men and women, and equal breadwinning responsibilities for parents. Let’s be honest here. I’ve heard many a man say he’d love it if his woman made more money than he did, but I haven’t seen the reality of this play out so well in relationships. The breadwinner role actually may help balance out women’s larger physiological contribution to childrearing, and without it men some men may feel left out and less needed. I’ve also seen men say they’ll participate equally in child-care, yet their partners who work as much and make as much as they do often are still left with the lion’s share of duties, particularly the uglier and less enjoyable ones. This doesn’t mean change is impossible, but we should be honest about what this change would require.
We also can demand equal pay for equal work for women if we are willing to accept the likely consequences: a situation in which parenting will look comparatively less attractive than work outside the home for those with good jobs and good pay, a decrease in men’s salaries in proportion to the increase in women’s salaries (why pay a man to support an entire family when you can expect both parents – together – to make enough money to do so?), an increase in the number of families where one single parent or both married or divorced parents work (beyond what already exists), and a corresponding decrease in the amount of focus, time, and energy spent on parenting. These consequences can already be seen all around us, to some degree. Would we want them to go further?
Or, we can suggest that women should financially “take one for the team.” We can recognize that women in the U.S. are the ones who take leave for pregnancy and the ones who are largely (and often also legally) responsible for child-care, even if not all women have children or take care of them.
So what, exactly, does it mean for a woman to “take one for the team”?
- It means she would accept 70 cents of pay to a man’s dollar, not because she thinks her work is unworthy of the full dollar, but because she’s a member of the group of people most implicated in child-rearing (luck of the draw – and you got “female!,” but then there are some advantages, like being able to bring a new life into the world, and multiple orgasms, and free drinks at bars from sleazy men).
- It means she’s investing in child-rearing in a country that does not seriously invest in child-rearing – with a government that could do no better, at present, than a mother could.
- It means she would support spending on quality child-care and quality public education even if she doesn’t have a child and never plans to have one - because it would make life better for both women and men.
- If she is single, it means living a frugal life so that she needn’t resort to a man for financial survival or to baby-making as a trade (her security for his ego/immortality). If she also hopes to have children and work outside the home, financial independence enables the choosing of partners with good potential for sharing childrearing duties.
- If she is married, a primary caregiver, and not working outside the home it means appreciating the sacrifice of working women who are underpaid compared to men, and how that underpayment contributes to child-rearing (both her own and others).
- If she is a primary caregiver and employed, it means recognizing that her role as a mother probably takes a toll on her performance as a worker or professional, and that she should not try to paper over that fact. It means acknowledging that women who are primary caregivers are often compromised by their roles and duties as mothers and are not as able to excel in their jobs or careers as their colleagues. It means recognizing that things like morning sickness, breastfeeding, picking up kids on snow days, taking care of sick children, being sure there are meals for children to eat and clean clothes to wear, etc., often mitigate against the kind of excellence at work or in a career that gets a person big pay raises and promotions.
- It means being careful when assessing comparative gender statistics (e.g., why aren’t there as many female District Managers as there are male District Managers? Why are there more male tenured professors at this school than female tenured professors?) so as to distinguish between real instances of sexism and other legitimate factors of discrimination. This seems especially appropriate if she enjoys additional income from a male partner and so does not suffer as much from her 30 cent deflation as a single working mother.
- And finally, if she’s good at her work, and if she’s dedicated to her work, and if it can be made clear she’s a no-kidder for life, then maybe she should be paid a “full dollar” for her work and be considered for promotions and recognition, not in an effort to bring about “equity” with men, but because the quality of her work commands it.
Ok, that last one was just a suggestion – even she can probably do fine on 70 cents.
OR… is this argument all wrong? Is it the result of years of being brainwashed into believing that social transformation and visionary leadership are impossible and that weak domestic policymaking will always be the norm? Let’s see:
- At the end of the first paragraph, did I all too easily assume that “the current political system in the U.S. will remain unchanged”?
- In the fifth paragraph, did I too easily accept that there is no other way to fight sexism and assert the value of what women bring to the human “table” except to have women break off into separate cultures?
- In the sixth paragraph, did I too easily turn female biology into maternal and parental and primary caregiver destiny?
- In the seventh paragraph, did I too easily assume that there would be no way to create high-quality government supported child-care?
- In the ninth paragraph, was I too eager to make women pay the “cost” of childcare without considering how we might all better share in this responsibility.
Maybe the argument is flawed. But the argument won’t change unless the system and the culture changes, and some of those systemic and cultural changes must be inspired and instigated by leaders. Consider the positions of presidential candidates, corporate CEOs, businesses, employers, public opinion leaders, regional officials, and local officials take on the issues discussed here – child care funding, universal health care, domestic spending vs. the war machine, etc., and support those people whose vision of the future is most in line with your own?
