So I just had this interesting facebook exchange regarding women in the workplace. The original post came during the State of the Union address right after the POTUS made a statement regarding equal pay for women. One of my FB friends commented:
"What a joke. This is 2014, I'm sorry but putting women (and anyone who isn't rich) in a victim class doesn't work anymore. This isn't a county of victims, we're Americans! Stand up and have some pride!"
My reply: "Not sure what you are refering too...but the fact that it is 2014 and women are still having to fight for equal pay and equal rights is pretty lame...maybe by the time your daughter and my niece are my age, she will get paid the same wage for the same work and not have to fight for her right to make her own health care and economic choices. We've made some good progress but still a long ways to go..."
So then another person chimes in and claims it is a fact that it costs more to hire a woman. This person is a small business owner and here were his posts which I found equally fascinating and appalling:
"Fact: it costs more to hire women. Insurance, maternity leave, hiring a temp to pick up the workload while a worker is on maternity leave. If I hire a man, I do not have these higher costs. So if i had two employees, one man and one women, and they were paid equally, it would cost the employer more to employ the women. If you push for equal work for equal pay, it will discourage employers from hiring women. It's about economics."
Another person chimed in and posted this article from Harvard Business Review. It was written in January 1989. It is startling and sad that we have not evolved much since 1989...
Here is an excerpt:
"The cost of employing women in management is greater than the cost of employing men. This is a jarring statement, partly because it is true, but mostly because it is something people are reluctant to talk about. A new study by one multinational corporation shows that the rate of turnover in management positions is 21/2 times higher among top-performing women than it is among men. A large producer of consumer goods reports that one half of the women who take maternity leave return to their jobs late or not at all. And we know that women also have a greater tendency to plateau or to interrupt their careers in ways that limit their growth and development. But we have become so sensitive to charges of sexism and so afraid of confrontation, even litigation, that we rarely say what we know to be true. Unfortunately, our bottled-up awareness leaks out in misleading metaphors (“glass ceiling” is one notable example), veiled hostility, lowered expectations, distrust, and reluctant adherence to Equal Employment Opportunity requirements.
Career interruptions, plateauing, and turnover are expensive. The money corporations invest in recruitment, training, and development is less likely to produce top executives among women than among men, and the invaluable company experience that developing executives acquire at every level as they move up through management ranks is more often lost.
The studies just mentioned are only the first of many, I’m quite sure. Demographic realities are going to force corporations all across the country to analyze the cost of employing women in managerial positions, and what they will discover is that women cost more.
But here is another startling truth: The greater cost of employing women is not a function of inescapable gender differences. Women are different from men, but what increases their cost to the corporation is principally the clash of their perceptions, attitudes, and behavior with those of men, which is to say, with the policies and practices of male-led corporations.
It is terribly important that employers draw the right conclusions from the studies now being done. The studies will be useless—or worse, harmful—if all they teach us is that women are expensive to employ. What we need to learn is how to reduce that expense, how to stop throwing away the investments we make in talented women, how to become more responsive to the needs of the women that corporations must employ if they are to have the best and the brightest of all those now entering the work force."
I highlighted the last part in bold because it appears business did NOT draw the right conclusions form studies being done the workplace. Women are STILL not being paid equally for equal work. It is a widely known and accepted fact that women STILL ONLY make 77% on the dollar of what men make.
Tonight the president said:
"Today, women make up
about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man
earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. A woman deserves
equal pay for equal work. She deserves to have a baby without sacrificing her
job. A mother deserves a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent
without running into hardship – and you know what, a father does, too. It’s
time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a “Mad Men” episode.
This year, let’s all come together – Congress, the White House, and businesses
from Wall Street to Main Street – to give every woman the opportunity she deserves.
Because I firmly believe when women succeed, America succeeds."
Bold and
Underline added by me.
I couldn't agree more! The thinly vailed excuses and justifications that women are more expensive because they have the ability to reproduce is complete bullshit!
Just think about it...suppose you choose NOT to reproduce and NOT take maternity leave...does your company turn around and give you back pay for the years of NOT paying you equally??? HELL NO! They put that money they saved in their pockets and in the pockets of their shareholders.
Suppose you DO take maternity leave...does your company ALWAYS hire a temp to take over your role while you are out?? HELL NO! I can speak personally to this...I have covered for people on maternity leave 4 times in my 12 years in corporate america. NEVER ONCE was a temp hired. NEVER ONCE was I given double pay. NEVER ONCE was I given extra time off. So...not only did they pay my female collegue LESS because they were budgeting for her to take maternity leave later, they put the money for a temp in their back pocket too because they could get some other sucker (me) to do twice the work with less pay.
Now don't get me wrong...I am a HUGE advocate of maternity leave. I believe women should get a year and at full pay. I also believe men should get longer paternity leave and it should be mandatory. In fact...I think they should re-brand paternity leave to "MAN-ternity leave" so more men would take it! I just think companies should provide proper coverage while people who choose to have children are out on leave...afterall, they are budgeting for it by paying women 30% less than their male counterparts.
The rest of the facebook thread included many men (including the author of the original post) who chimed in that they definitely believed women ARE equal to them and that is how they treat their spouses, female co-workers, etc....
And I believe them...I really do! Most men in the modern day DO consider women their equals but believing something in your heart and mind vs actually executing those beliefs in a for profit workplace are two entirely different things.
Then there was this huge debate on the thread about being women (and the poor) being "victims" vs "being proud" and then the whole conversation devolved into Obama ruined the world and then we somehow landed on the Holocaust. I'm not even kidding...below is a screenshot. Pretty typical debate on social media I suppose....
As tempting as it is to continue on ridiculousness of the comments in the pic above...let's stay focused on some real solutions regarding income inequality between men and women.
So...what to do? What is the most most obvious solution to this problem?
Let's just walk thru it again....
- Companies pay women less because their health care is more expensive
- If women did not have such expensive health care, there would be no need to pay them less
- Afterall...most of us do actually believe women are in fact equals
So what is the most logical conclusion??? Duh!
Take the burdens of health care off of the backs of business.
Have you every wondered why (before Affordable Care Act), you had to get your health care insurance from your employer and if you didn't have a job, you didn't have health insurance? Whereas, you can just call any local insurance agent and buy care or life or home insurance and those companies actually compete for your business??
Ever wonder why our insurance policies do not reward healthy behaviors that help keep overall costs down?
Or what about a system based on outcomes?
Or what about a system where doctors and hospitals weren't bogged down by having to deal with bloated insurance administration?
Drum roll please.....what about single payer system?!!?!?
What if businesses no longer had to deal with the expense of providing health insurance? What if that was handled by private sector, highly competitive and highly regulated by government to protect consumers?
Just think how many jobs would be created...
Just think about the increase in innovation and productivity...
Just imagine a world where instead of your company requiring you to do more with less and paying women less than men, they could now hire more people and pay them a competitive wage because they didn't have the burden of paying for Health Care
Just imagine a world where big business and small business could invest in their employees intead of investing in Health Insurance Companies.
