When it comes to the pay gap and sex pests, we need more men to stand up and be counted
IN RECENT years November has become ‘gender pay gap month’ because, as you may be aware, the pay gap between men and women essentially means that women are working for free from November 10 to the end of the year. A truly depressing fact.
Of course, paying a woman less than a man for the same work is illegal, but how many of us women know if we are being paid less than a male colleague?
I recently took part in a panel discussion on this topic where I was asked if I ever had personal experience of the gender pay gap? I realised that I didn’t know. Because all the companies I have worked in down through the years had no transparency around salaries whatsoever.
More than that, wages weren’t even discussed among the staff. It was a topic that was completely unmentionable. Each of these companies professed to pay on the basis of performance and so salary was only ever discussed between you and your manager, once a year when it was reviewed.
I began my working life in
1979 when the idea of the ‘family wage’ was still in the ether and so I am fairly sure I wasn’t paid on a par with my male colleagues, especially ones that were married with kids. But the lack of transparency meant even if I had suspected I was on the wrong side of the gender pay gap, I had no evidence of that fact. Had I had the courage to have a chat with my manager, I would likely have been given a load of old waffle about how great I was and sent off back to my desk. Proposed legislation that will force companies with more than 50 employees to publish salary statistics is a very welcome step forward in equality. But it is only a first step. The second step is to get men involved in the push to banish the pay gap, something which may be counter intuitive for them.
Sonya Lennon, fashion designer, entrepreneur and broadcaster, spoke recently of how her now business partner Brendan Courtney split the difference in their pay when they both co-presented RTÉ’s ‘Off the Rails’. A magnanimous gesture for sure, but also one that shows that Courtney understood that he had a role to play in addressing this pay imbalance too.
If men spoke up, along with women, on issues such as the pay gap, change would be far more rapid than it is at the moment. It’s not only on gender pay that we need their input. We need them to be far more active in the care of their children and in taking responsibility for the running of their homes. All the research points to the fact it is women who are still pulling the double shift of working outside the home and doing most of the work in the home. We need men to champion more women in politics, in the board room and on the air. And more women will mean less men. I am not sure who first said it, but the fact that ‘when you are privileged, equality can feel like oppression’ is key to understanding men’s reluctance to challenge the status quo.
We are currently experiencing another issue that has deeply disturbed women for decades – the issue of sexism.
From the socalled ‘casual’ right up to rape, women are finding their voices and shedding light on their experiences at the hands of misogynistic, bullying and powerful men. Women are taking the first steps to change the culture that has allowed some men’s errant behaviour towards them to go unhindered for decades.
It is very interesting that the constant in most of the stories now coming to light is that fact that in many cases, for example Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, their behaviour was suspected by many who worked with them. But it was unspoken and so it went unchecked until some brave men and woman had the huge courage to call it out.
We need more Brendan Courtneys – men who are going to stand with women and take the pay cut that will enable female colleagues to be paid the same, men who will refuse to participate in all-male panels on TV and radio and at conferences until more women are included.
We need men to do this simply because it is the right and fair thing to do. But most of all we need men who are going to call out the bully or the sexual pest in the workplace. And men who will take claims of rape or sexual assault seriously and support the women who have the courage to speak out.
Had I had the courage to have a chat with my manager, I would likely have been given a load of old waffle about how great I was and sent off back to my desk