Being a woman in America has too many disadvantages that are only further exacerbated by being born black. At eighteen, I experienced the wage gap for the first time at my first job. Being young and naive, I had never experienced this phenomenon but upon entering the workforce, I knew right away something was wrong. As I watched my male coworkers advance pay wise, I was stuck in the same pay bracket even though I had worked harder than them. Male merit was more likely to be rewarded and in every place I have worked since, there is a legit pay difference from myself and my male counterpart equivalent.
“…That means it takes the typical Black woman 19 months to be paid what the average white man takes home in 12 months…”
This quote comes from the AAUW website which stands for the American Association of University W
omen. Their mission is for women’s equality in all aspects of life in America. I felt that these two pictures encompass the disadvantages that many women are facing. These show that latina and black women overpopulate low-paying jobs so unfortunately, they ritually get paid less. These infographics also show that women in these jobs are underpaid normally due to bias, not choice which means that their underpayment is unconscious on the part of the payer.
The main reason this is such an issue is because women, especially those that are racially diverse, are treated as an “other” when It comes to talking about the wage gap. Many people who have not experienced the wage gap choose not to believe it is real, and these people are majorly men who dominate the job market. These men would normally choose not to believe that such a thing could exist and in that, they treat women who try to speak out as an “Other”. The wage gap has been ignored for too long and even though progress has been made, we cannot accept it until things are truly equal.
Because I am not black, I feel that I should say that although I cannot write directly on their experiences, but I can assume how someone may feel to be discriminated against through my own experiences without creating an environment when I am overshadowing their experiences. My only intention is to open the conversation about the wage gap so we can overcome it going forward.
If you would like more information about the infographics used and the AAUW, please visit
https://www.aauw.org/resources/article/black-women-and-the-pay-gap/
Works Cited
Black Women & the Pay Gap – AAUW : Empowering Women Since 1881. (2020). Retrieved 24 October 2020, from https://www.aauw.org/resources/article/black-women-and-the-pay-gap/
Thank you for writing this post and bringing awareness to this issue! I think the points you brought up also demonstrate the importance of recognizing the intersectionality of different forms of injustice. For a black woman, the biases due to being a woman compound with biases due to their race. This is so important to acknowledge so that we can address both issues rather than one or the other!
Thanks for writing you post about this topic. The points you bring up are very important and just tell us that we need to recognize what is really happening in the work place, not just among the gender you are but also what race you are. Both of the issues are topics which need to be addressed sooner rather than later. To know that this issue is still a problem today is unacceptable and something in which we all or most of us know, but unfortunately can’t physically solve by tomorrow.