Equality In The Workplace Essay

We as a society have deluded ourselves into believing we have achieved equality. Of course we have. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 declared any form of racial segregation illegal, yet it seems that we can not wait to separate people with picket fences and barbed wire. In 1928 under the Representation of the People act, women finally gained the right to vote, but they are still stuck with 77 cents on the dollar. These issues originated many years ago, but they have evolved and embedded themselves into our society and they have proved very difficult to shake off. Of course there have been vast improvements over the years – we would never be silent about it otherwise – but as long as there are stereotypes, the media and a crude lack of information, the job is by no means done.
And yes; it does exist. It may seem quite startling but there are people out there who endlessly deny the existence of the pay gap. Their defence usually consists of some feeble argument stating that women are too busy popping out children and staying at home, backed up by statistics claiming that only 56% of women work full time. Aside from obvious sexism, these accusations fail to account for the fact that there is an average of 15% a wage difference when a man and a woman do exactly the same job. Even the industry a woman works in can influence how unfair her pay is, with a woman working in an industry with a larger male workforce earning 32% more than a woman working in an industry with a larger female workforce. Clearly women’s work is undervalued with high valued work classed as ‘men’s work’ and other jobs as ‘women’s work’. Of course more should be done to abolish the gap, but with those with the power to change the gap not being affected by it and others constantly denying its very existence, people will need to be made more aware of these issues if we are to overcome