In today’s society young girls fret about the fact that when they enter the workforce they will not earn as much as a man, who has the same qualifications as she does, does. It is frightening that in this modern society women only make 78.3 cents for every dollar a man in the same position makes, according to Status of Women in the States as of 2013. It is disheartening for a young girl to look to her future and hear that the gap is not expected to close in the US until 2058, but some states like Wyoming, where it is not expected to close until 2101. For me this is upsetting because I am a college freshman getting ready to take on the world. What if I cannot make it on my own because I do not make enough because I am a girl? Do you know what it feels like to hear that you throw “like a girl”, and know that they do not mean it as a good thing? I do not need anyone telling me this. I know I throw like a girl, but that is because I AM A GIRL!
The wage gap is just an extension of the “like a girl” mentality. Women are paid less because they are expected to be less reliable than men. That is because women are expected to have children and will need time off for that. It is not fair for society to put pressure on women to have children and then pay them less because of it. There is a stigma surrounding women that their purpose is to create families. It is no longer the 1950s people. Women are not going to just sit at home taking care of their families. A woman should be able to run a household by herself and not worry about if she is going to make enough money, when a man in the same job is sitting at home comfortably not worrying.
One of the main problems is that, on average, predominantly male jobs pay better than predominantly female jobs. The wage gap gets hidden because of people blaming unequal qualifications for the differences in pay, but I do not believe this. Women are able to have the same qualifications as men, but are not treated as such. I believe that the best way to close the gap is to spread awareness. I bet there are lots of women around the country that do not know to ask for a higher wage. We need to make it an omnipresent force that makes it an unavoidable fact.
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