Dear Mister/Madam President,

   Our constitution was written based on the five ideals- opportunity, democracy, liberty, rights and equality. It is 229 years later and there still isn’t equality for everyone. In discussion of equality, one controversial issue has been equal pay between men and women. On one hand, people like Diana Furchtgott-Roth argue that women already have equal pay. On the other hand, women, such as the women's national soccer team, argue that women are still often paid less than men.

    This battle has been fought since this country was formed and no one has made a significant change.  According to iwpr.org, Women are still earning $726 compared to $895 for men on a weekly bases. As a woman, I don’t want to go to school for 16 years of my life just to earn less money than a man would doing the same job, not because he is more qualified or better at the job but because he is a man. For example, look at the women’s national soccer team. Every time they win a game, they make $1,300, but every time they lose, they do not get paid. Every time the men win a game they get paid $17,000 and every time they lose a game, they get paid $5,000. You might be thinking this is just because the men have a better team than the women, but you’d be wrong. The men have made it to round 16 of the World Cup but they women have won 3 World Cups. The men are ranked 30th in the world but the women are ranked 1st. The women brought in $17 million in profit for the federation while the men lost $2 million. This shows that these women do not deserve to be payed less than the men since they bring in more money for the federation and win more games. I do not think it would be fair to pay them more, just due to the fact that this whole letter is about equality, but how is it fair to pay the women less? It isn’t.

    When it comes to the topic of equal pay, most of us will readily agree that women are typically paid less than men. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of part-time employment. Diana Furchtgott-Roth argues that women who work part-time earn more than men who work part-time. She argues that women earn “$1.03 for every $1.00 a comparable man earns.” I will admit that this shows that women are paid slightly more. However, this is just one average from one study. I previously mentioned a study that found women are paid $726 compared to $895 for men weekly. In a different, smaller study used by Furchtgott-Roth, it was found that women are paid $.93 for every dollar earned by a man. The article goes on to conclude “when all the factors behind divergent pay numbers are accounted for, men and women earn roughly the same.” Based on the studies used in this article there is still a lager difference in the full time, $.07, than in the part time study, $.03. If you find the average of the two studies, women still earn $.04 less on the dollar than men. Even though this is a small gap, it still exists. Also, this article could’ve picked studies that are swayed to prove their point, such as using extreme cases of wage difference in the part-time work force and eliminated the extreme cases in the full-time work force. If the article did try to do this, there is still proof of women being paid less, even if it isn’t all the time. To conclude, then, as I suggested earlier, defenders of equal pay can’t have it both ways. Their assertion that women are paid more than men is contradicted by their claim that the two genders are paid “roughly” the same.

    In conclusion, women and men with equal qualifications should be payed the same amount if they are doing the same job. “Roughly” equal pay does not mean “Completely” equal pay.

Sincerely,

Katelyn Garvin