Equal pay day April 4:-
Equal pay day is a day dedicated to show the discrimination of pay between men and women. April 4th is chosen because it shows how far into the year a woman has to work to earn what a man earns in the previous year. And it’s always celebrated on a Tuesday to show how far into a week a woman has to work to earn what a man earns in the previous week. The Equal Pay Legislation, signed by John F Kennedy 1963 made it illegal to pay unequal sums of money as salary to men and women. During his time, women earned 59% of men’s wage. By 2000, they earned 74% of men’s wage. In 2009, Ex-president Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which prohibits gender based inequality and allows the women to retort or fight back when they go through discrimination in the workplace in the salary arena.
Equal pay day was first observed in 1996 by a group of people. Equal pay day is also observed in various other countries in addition to United States of America. The Gender bias in the pay for the work is more rampant in Germany than in the States. But these days are observed on different dates in various countries as the formula used to observe this day is also different.
On this day, women have to pay 20% less on their purchases as a discount. This reflects that men earn 20% more than the woman, therefore woman should pay less on their expenses in comparison to men. Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Facebook said “We have to understand that pay gap is happening to women and men with similar jobs that require similar skills and similar education levels –and that has a real impact.” The gender pay gap is wider when it comes to black and foreign women. It is believed that Asian women earned comparatively more than the women of other race. The progress was rapid during the 1980’s-1990’s though progress has slowed down now.
Some professionals like teaching, counsellors, sewing machine operator, were dominated by the women where they earned more than men. However, some critics argue that this gap exists because of a woman’s lesser expectation, their career selection, and the fact that men are more open to negotiations and try to negotiate to get a higher salary compared to women. But this cannot be used against a woman. It is necessary for both, men and women to be treated equally in all walks of life.
