To be upset that the gender pay gap didn't get much attention this year

[nickiredcar]

Women have been working for free for the last couple of weeks and will be until the end of the year.

However this year it seems to have gone by without much attention :(

What? Who has been working for free? I haven't.

Nothing that matters is getting the attention it deserves because of Brexit.

Uh, I think your boss is pulling a fast one on you op if he got you working for free for the rest of the year.

Women have been working for free since November as they are underpaid!

I never think it helps to be so reductionist as 'women have been working for free'.

I'm paid above average for both a woman and someone in my role. Telling me I haven't triggers a WTF response, not 'this is awful' response.

It got loads of attention when the statistics were published earlier in the year. Much time spent trying to explain to people that the massive gender pay gap in some airlines was not because they paid male pilots more than female ones but because they employed almost all male pilots and almost all female cabin crew. Lots of discussions about it in our workplace- they showed all the data that men and women are paid equally for work in the same department at the same job grade. Then more discussions about what they are doing to encourage women into higher paid technical roles and to ensure they are promoted etc.
What there hasn’t been is the use of this idea that the last x% of the year women are ‘working for free’ which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing as it just causes confusion - as shown by the first poster to respond to you.

What general sway? Women are paid significantly more than men until they start having children in which case they are paid less on average because they work less hours on average. That's not fortune, that's lifestyle choice.

Because it’s a load of flawed statistics that does more harm than good to women in the workplace.

I honestly wonder if some people truly understand what ‘gender pay gap’ really means or whether it’s just deliberately taken out of context. Op, you are being silly.

Dr Why has an approach I can agree with.

The original op is the type of hype that makes me roll my eyes. So op YABU, in my opinion.

Some women maybe. Not in my organisation though, we have a transparent pay scheme and everyone on the same grade is paid the same.

That said (sorry) yes its a problem. Ive heard a bit about it in the radio this week -
this morning there was a piece on R4 about unequal pay by race in UK universities which also touched on it (women of colour fare especially badly pay wise).

Yes silently happy 👏👏👏

I'm paid the same as my male colleagues with the same amount of experience.

But, that doesn't mean that:

1. I don't appreciate that feminists fought for me to have the opportunity to become educated enough to do my job.
2. I don't appreciate that the sex pay gap exists.

Pay at the BBC is out of control. Old news.

Anyway, people who are not high earners may also have eyes and ears and draw different conclusions to yours Silently happy.

It's not a pay gap, it's an earnings gap if anything. If you don't compare job for job, hours for hours, experience for experience, and need for need, it's meaningless, which it is.

So because you are one of the fortunate ones you couldn't care less about the general sway of pay for women? hmm

She didn't say that. I think she was more querying the way OP was worded. Why not just point out the disgraceful gender pay gap rather than make sweeping statements about women not having been paid for the last couple of weeks.

I think a minority of high earner's, both male and female, like to think that the gender pay gap doesn't actually exist because it validates their place at the top of the pile.

I am female and have been a high earner for many years, although I am studying this year. I also know very well that the gender pay gap exists because there is plenty of evidence of it.

How would my pretending there was not a gender pay gap "validate" my earnings?

It’s ridiculous to state that women are working for free, and this sort of hyperbole does more harm to women than good.

The "gender pay gap" only exists in areas where salary is negotiable.

It's just business. It's up to each candadite to negotiate a salary they are happy to work for. If female BBC presenters willingly take a 500k p/a job, and subsequently find out that a man in a similar role is paid more, well that's just business. Sorry, but if you can't negiotate, you shouldn't work in areas where it's expected of you to agree your own salary.

Conflating gender pay gaps with equal pay issues may allow you to put a few sound bites out but it obscures the real issues.

"Much time spent trying to explain to people that the massive gender pay gap in some airlines was not because they paid male pilots more than female ones but because they employed almost all male pilots and almost all female cabin crew."

DrWhy it's more complicated than that. We debated it considerably on our pilot work forum, and as a result of the debate some huge changes in opinion among the men have happened. We have a very simple pay system that pays you purely by length of service rather than by performance indicators, however in most airlines shorthaul pilots are paid less than long haul pilots, and first officers are paid less than captains. Women pilots actively choose to remain in a position where either their seniority allows them the flexibility to choose their roster - to remain senior on long haul one has to generally be a first officer. Or they choose a shorthaul fleet where they will either be in a relatively more senior position as a captain or have the ability to go home more evenings. They are choosing the lower paid long haul and short haul positions because it means they can control their home lives a little more, and the main reason for needing to control their home lives is because they have family. Some male pilots do make similar decisions but they are in the minority, whereas the majority of female pilots put home-work balance above career progression.

The debate on our forum was extensive, and part way through the old 'but maternity leave is basically a paid holiday' was trotted out. I, and a few other pilots (both male and female) corrected this opinion and explained in detail how we took a huge financial hit as we are only paid SMP when on maternity leave, which just adds to the male/female imbalance further. There was outrage among many male pilots then who assumed that our employer had been paying maternity leave pilots a living income when they had not. Our union, with backing from it's members who are 95% male, are now campaigning to improve maternity pay for female pilots as a result of the gender pay gap discussions.

While the majority of my colleagues are men, they are not ignorant and are for the most part as outraged about any pay gap that arises as a result of gender. The problem is that often it just takes a bit of pointing out before they see it.