Women In Equal Pay In American History

As long as an American woman is putting in the same amount of hours with the same qualifications and experience in the same occupation as an American male, and yet taking home a wage that is any lower, she is not being treated fairly as an equal. Contrary to many arguments, it’s undeniable that a wage gap exists, and while there are various ideas as to the most probable cause, there is no reason why this gap should continue to go uncorrected or unchanged. Our government should take concrete steps to close the gender wage gap because it violates women’s rights and equality.

Since the 1920’s, women have been fighting for equal rights. Women’s groups spent decades working to pass laws that would ban gender discrimination. Finally, in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment was passed by Congress even though

Even though women had same jobs as men, they did not receive equal salaries in the 1940s’. In these times employed women have traditionally fought for higher wages and better working conditions without the support of the trade-union movement. The campaigns of female workers led to the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1970, which applied to the public and private sectors where men and women were engaged in the same or broadly similar work. As women have increased their participation in the labour market, their earnings have also increased. Median wage and salary income in 2010 dollars increased steadily for women in the U.S., from $7,352 in 1940 to $21,323 in 2008 (Appendix 1). In contrast, men's earnings peaked in 1970 at approximately $35.000;

The history of unequal pay between men and women in business started in February 1869, when a letter was sent to the editor of the New York Times questioning why female government employees were not paid the same as the male ones. “Very few persons deny the justice of the principle that equal work should command equal pay without regard to the sex of the laborer,” the author wrote. "But it is one thing to acknowledge the right of a principle and quite another to practice it." The author also noted that the U.S. Government employed 500 women in the Treasury department, but they made less than half of what the male colleges did. Throughout that year, a law passes the House of Representatives by almost 100 votes that included a resolution to ensure equal pay to government employees. This law, however was attenuated by the time it passes the Senate in 1870. The first public demand for fair pay for woman took place in 1883 when communications across the country came to a standstill when the majority of the workers for Western Union Telegraph Company went on strike. Their reasoning was partly to ensure “equal pay for equal work” for the male and female workers of the corporation. Although the strike wasn’t ultimately successful, it was the beginning of something larger. By 1911, New York teachers were finally granted equal pay to their male colleges after a long and vigorous battle with the Board of Education. As progress is still slow, women

“Imagine you 're a little girl. You 're growing up. You practice as hard as you can, with girls, with boys. You have a dream. You fight, you work, you sacrifice to get to this stage. You work as hard as anyone you know. And then you get to this stage, and you 're told you 're not the same as a boy. Almost as good, but not quite the same. Think how devastating and demoralizing that could be” Venus Williams. For years, women have worked as hard as men to get an education, get their dream job, or even get a promotion in a job they are currently at so they can earn less pay than a man and not even know it. They take on these important roles and titles as a manager or take on more jobs than they can handle to prove they are worthy as the next guy and to receive no raise or still underpaid to the guy who does not work as hard or have the same job title. However, women and men have begun to see this a problem and started to work together to make a change. Women makeup over half the workforce and are seen, if not equal, or are the breadwinner in four out of ten families (About Pay Equity & Discrimination 1). Women in the workforce should earn the same pay as men because they work hard to get an education, their race should not play into an effect, and they support a family.

What are possible reasons, according to the author, for why the issue of unequal pay among women of color in particular does not garner national media attention?

In today's society women are still discriminated like they were many years ago. It is not as bad and they have gained many more rights over the years, but there are still equality problems like how much they get paid. All over the states women are faced with unequal pay for working the same exact job that men are, as low as getting 66% of what men make. To solve this problem of unequal pay for women the Senate could pass the Paycheck Fairness Act that has been denied many times over the years. There are ideas that certain occupations are only meant to be for a certain gender, which limits both men and women from possibly achieving their dream job. Women face oppression in society all the time because they have a certain set of standards they

Lipman (2015) asserts that women have a pay gap and men are making more money than women in the same fields they work together in. Lipman argues that women are working as hard as men, but men get more money and comparing men’s salaries to women it is almost the double. Lipman shows that men are more acceptable to jobs than women and they get bounces more than women too. Lipman mentions many researches and statistics about men about how men earn more than women and get the opportunities to more jobs than women. I like Lipman’s approach for showing how women gets less money and women are discriminated

Women have been entering the workforce since the 1970’s at an increasing rate. Statistics show that 39% of the workforce during the 1970’s were women. In 2010 that percentage increased to 47% (Gender, Web). As more women enter the workforce, even with the possibility of increased fraternization and sexual harassment, there should be equality in pay and positions.

No matter your gender, profession or where you live, you are affected by the gender pay gap. Gender inequality refers to the unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their gender. (NYC Gender, 1). According to the report prepared by the Joint Economic Committee in April 2016, “The ratio of women’s to men’s median earnings – known as the “gender earnings ratio” is approximately 79 percent. That leaves a difference in earnings of 21 percent (or 21 cents on the dollar). This means that the typical woman earns less than $4 for every $5 earned by the typical man.” (Gender Pay, 2). The Equal Pay Act of 1963 made it illegal to pay a woman less that what a man would receive for the job. (Civil Rights, 1). However, we live in a world where women are still discriminated against and often paid less than men for performing the same job. As more and more women are taking on the role of “breadwinner”, the gender pay gap is an issue that needs to be resolved immediately.

The divide between genders has been fought over for many years, dating back to the 1800’s where families started to grow and an income increase was needed, as a result women began working alongside men in factories, but for much smaller pay. As the world started to modernize, social norms related to women started to change. Women were granted the right to vote through the nineteenth amendment and were provided access to health care and birth control. Women should be seen as equal to men and given equal opportunities.

Women have fought to have equal rights since the beginning of Americans history. We have fought for equal rights in Congress and still currently are. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was proposed to Congress by Alice Paul and the National Women’s Party. This amendment would discourage any legal distinctions “on account of sex”. Women wanted to be provided full access to employment, education, and all the other opportunities of citizens. The campaign was a failure and the only law from the Amendment that passed was the prohibition of child labor. However, in the 1970’s the concept of family values shifted to conservative politics impacted the fight for ERA. Resulting in, the ERA being approved started to be sent to states for ratification.

According to Kim (2015), there has been a great deal of change to the workforce ever since the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was enacted. Since this time, there has been a huge influx of women entering into the job market, where there had not been prior to the law. This meant that during the time of the laws creation there had not been near the women receiving pay for their services like there were in the years to follow. To help modernize this change amendments needed to be added and this included the Equal Pay Act of 1963. This Act made it mandatory for employers to offer equal pay to both men and women who perform equal work (Kim, 2015, p. 648). However, since this law has been created there has been an ongoing problem with making sure it is being followed and still today there is a gender pay gap.

As a future working woman, I have come to realize that the work I have done thus far for my career will simply not be adequate. I will not at any given point deem myself less valuable than any of my future male co-workers, who are on the same standing as I am. Yet despite similar testimonies, many American women today still face pay discrimination which has grown to become a major dilemma that shortchanges these women as well as their families.

I believe that women should be treated and paid the same amount as men. Women have been treated unequally since the beginning of time. In some religions it is believed that the man is the master of the household and that women were made to be man's slaves. This simply isn't true; women have the strength and intelligence to do anything men can. Women have been fighting for equal rights but after all this time women are still not treated fairly. Women now have the right to vote and obtain property in the united states, this is unfortunately not true for other civilizations. Women in america continue to struggle with equal pay.