Gender Inequality In The Workforce

For decades, women have faced the sole issue of having to compete and struggle to meet expectations and rise to the level of their male co-workers, solely because of their gender. Today, this issue remains a huge argument in the work industry and has been affecting 55 million women solely in the US and millions of women worldwide.

Since the 1860s, long before the Equal Paying Act in 1963, when national action was taken, women have struggled to fight for their voice against predominantly men in the workforce. The rally during the late 1800s called the “Equal Pay for Equal Work” raised awareness and concern for this issue. Women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton rose and released publications such as The Renaissance to raise awareness. The conditions during this period were very deplorable. According to the Time Newsletter, “In February 1869, a letter to the editor of the New York Times questioned why female government employees were not paid the same as male ones” as “‘Many of these women [that were] performing the same grade of work at $900 per annum for which men receive[d] $1800. Most of them, too, [had] families to support; being nearly all either widows or orphans made by the war.” The crude and unfortunate conditions that the women were faced with had huge impacts on their lives. For some women, being widowed and having to raise a family with no source of stable income from a husband was already a demanding task. Adding on the pay gap caused a series of issues to arise for women all around. The price ranges show double the amount of income for a man than a woman which shows just how much of a disparity was going through the workforce during that time.  

As the decades passed, changes started to be seen through the government as they were bound to take action. The Equal Pay Act was passed in Congress in June of 1963 by John F. Kennedy, ruling over all businesses and prohibiting differences in wages between men and women for, “jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions.” This national act caused a significant change in the fight for women that had been going on for centuries. As stated in the Time Newsletter  John F. Kennedy remarked that this was a “significant step forward” and that “It affirms our determination that when women enter the labor force they will find equality in their pay envelopes.” Future women would have a legal act supporting them through their time in the workforce. Later on in the 60s, the Civil Rights Act also addressed this issue, focusing on colored women and broadening the guidelines to race sex, origin, and religion. 

Equal Pay Day was established in 1966 and it was created to highlight the difference in a woman's and man's wage and how much more work a woman needs to put in to earn the same wage. Slowly as years went by, this number started to reduce. On Equal Pay Day 2023,  the Biden administration announced that they would work to further promote equality in the workforce as well as provide more jobs for women. However, though legally a law was passed and other forms of action have been taken, the gender pay gap still exists in many workplaces. According to Investopedia, “women still earn about 84 cents for every dollar that men earn.” Though this number is widely reduced from decades before, it should be the responsibility of the community to take action and cause change. 

As the years go on, the numbers continue to reduce, showing the world that change is overcoming and that equality for women is working to achieve its goal. Moving forward, it is vital that everyone, the entire world joins in on this fight so that women get their rightful equality sooner rather than later.