Women; A cheaper version of men
Women have been undermined, pushed around, and underpaid for years. It's time to make a crucial change.
To the next president,
Imagine struggling day in and day out with paying for child care as a single mother. You soon come to realize you are extremely underpaid compared to your male coworkers when one points out the huge difference in their salary compared to yours. That wage including a loss of one million dollars. This is a true story for engineer Cheryl Hughes and many other women across the United States and the entire world.
The wage gap has always been prominent in our society, ever since women started working back when their husbands were at war, to present day. There is also a wage gap in nearly every profession, scaling from gas station employees to major surgeons.
There isn't just a large wage gap for women, there is a even more considerable gap for women of color, and especially women of Latina and Hispanic ethnicity. In fact, Hispanic women earn 54% of what white men earn according to AAUW. Imagine coping with a low salary and paying for other necessities such as child care, mortgage, and food bills.
The gap becomes even more massive the older women get. When they first begin they have about 90% of what men earn but, slowly (especially when they are 55-65 years old) the gap becomes larger. It can go down to as much as 76%.
The gap is a massive problem in our society and it needs to close. Some ways we can help would be to spread awareness to women about asking their co workers about how much they get paid. We also need to encourage them to self advocate and ask their boss for a raise. Another way is to get all major CEO's and companies to encourage equal pay. The last thing we need to do is update our laws, especially the equal pay act, and get our congressmen to support this issue entirely.
These are some major issues we need to improve on especially, the wage gap in women of color and Hispanic background as well as older women.
There is a solution to this problem, and with everyone on board, even the president, we can close the gender pay gap, once and for all.
Sincerely, Regan
Miller, Kevin The Simple Truth About Gender Pay Gap, AAUW, Nov. 1, http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
Miller, Kevin The simple Truth About Gender Pay Gap, AAUW, Nov. 1, http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
No author, Who is Affected by the Wage Gap, The Wage Project INC., Nov. 1, http://www.wageproject.org/files/who.php