Yesterday, men, women and cities alike recognized Equal Pay Day across the nation. The day acts as a reminder that the salary gap between men and women still exists and affects women in almost every profession. Equal Pay Day was celebrated on April 4 in 2017, and it changes each year depending on how long it takes an average woman to make the same one-year salary of a man. Since last year’s Equal Pay Day, it would’ve taken a woman 15 and a half months to make what a man made in one year. Three and a half months after January, women have symbolically caught up.
For the second year in a row, Mayor Martin Walsh declared this entire week to be Equal Pay Awareness Week for the entire city of Boston to show its support to end the wage gap. The city is also sponsoring an entire week of free classes for women to learn how to negotiate with their bosses to earn a higher salary. These classes, created by the American Association of University Women, encourage female empowerment year-round, at no cost to the women who choose to take advantage of their resources.
Walsh certainly had the intention to support equal pay. Along with Boston, other cities across the country have been recognizing Equal Pay Day with the nationwide campaign, #20PercentCounts. Over 300 businesses in 25 cities will offer 20 percent discounts or special offers to men and women to acknowledge women’s lower pay. Going above and beyond, New York City is reportedly voting on a bill that will ban employers from asking about a potential worker’s salary history. And Boston is offering workshops that already exist, for free, on every other day of the year. While Walsh’s strategy to support women’s pay comes from a pure purpose, it leaves us wanting more.
Solely promoting these workshops, without promising to create and advocate for legislation, creates assumptions about equal pay that aren’t true. The problem with the wage gap isn’t that women are weak negotiators or don’t know how to speak with their employers, as the campaign for these workshops promotes. The problem is that women aren’t being given higher paying positions to begin with. Women shouldn’t even have to ask in the first place.
Many people also aren’t informed on the concept of the wage gap. While equal pay for equal work should be instated, a main aspect of the wage gap is that women aren’t given the opportunity to have higher paying jobs. This issue is not only salary-based, but based on job distribution. Our first assumption is to believe that women make 79 cents to a man’s dollar, but it is so much more multi-faceted. Many matters are working against females in the workplace, along with the bottom line of not earning an equal salary.
While these workshops do no harm to female employees, the city should be investing their efforts into ending the wage gap and ushering in equality. While these workshops have value, it is wrong to tie them into Equal Pay Awareness Week. Women will now be seen as passive and not fighting for their rights to equal pay. But women are fighting. Women are storming the streets to find and upkeep their rights, but they shouldn’t have to. Boston should instead work toward guaranteeing equal pay. Workshops won’t do anything nationwide and might not even make an affect citywide. Institutional changes will have a much bigger impact on gender equality than sending the wrong message about a woman’s capacity to negotiate. But since the city is promoting these workshops, they should also offer equivalent workshops for the other side. Rather than encouraging women to stand up for their rights, the city should encourage employers to understand the fundamentals of equality. That would be worth a lot more to women than this consolation prize.
It’s good for women to know these workshops are being offered, not only during this week but for the entire length of the year. However, you can’t learn how to be confident, how to negotiate or how to be assertive in a workshop. You can be taught what language to use, yes, but most women will not be able to fully recognize their strength without real world experience. A workshop is perfectly alright and some will probably benefit from attending. But confidence cannot be taught at a later age, for both women and men. Confidence must be found within oneself and enforced through constant experience.
