By Jeanne Sutton
09th Aug 2014
09th Aug 2014
Lean in to the anger…
Yesterday the Labour party in the UK warned it will be 60 years before women earn the same as men, if the pace of change remains at the current almost stagnant level. Yes, this is the 21st century you’re residing in. The pay gap has been getting wider since 2013, according to the figures, which found women earn just 80p for every pound a man does.
Gloria De Piero, shadow women’s minister in the UK,?told the Daily Mail the Conservative/Liberal Democrats government is ?turning the clock back? on women in the workplace. Last year in the UK men earned €12.86 per hour while women earned nearly €2 less, getting €10.33 an hour. That’s an earning gulf of 19.7%. In 2012 women earned €10.05 an hour while men took home €12.50. Labour did the maths and it seems that equal pay will arrive in about six decades, which is definitely too little too late considering the Equal Pay Act was introduced in Britain in 1970. A century is a quite the wait for what should be a basic right.
According to the National Women’s Council of Ireland, the pay gap here was 13.9% in 2013. While obviously better than the UK, that this statistic even exists is an affront to every woman at work in this country. The fact that females in this country do better than men in school and university just further confounds the issue.
While waiting those 60 years for your fair due, have a bitter laugh at this fantasically clever video where Christina Hendricks skewers the American statistics relating to women in the workplace. Her Mad Men character, Joan, insists on 1960s behaviour in a modern office until her pay cheque stops perpetuating 1960s sexism.
Lunchtime martinis until the men on top pay up sounds like a pretty good protest idea.
Jeanne Sutton @jeannedesutun
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