Mavenology.

Equal Pay Day and Why You Need to Know About It

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Equal Pay Day was April 12th this year. Do you know what that is? Do you know why it matters?

Let me tell you.

This is the day that is recognized every year that shows how far into 2016 women in the US (on average) would’ve had to work in order to earn the same amount as their male counterparts earned in 2015. This year it was April 12th. That is more than three months. That’s almost one third of the year. To give it to you straight, it’s just outright absurd.

These past couple of months there has been a lot of buzz around the Gender Pay Gap. How did it start? Great question. Remember that Sony hack that happened? Well, it turns out that Sony had major pay discrepancies between men and women holding comparable positions. This spurred a media frenzy around equal pay, and most specifically, the lack thereof.

Even though yes, two big tech giants (Microsoft and Facebook) recently released their salary statistics and happily reported that they found no pay gaps between genders, and yes, that is a step in the right direction, it still doesn’t mean that we are “there” yet. There is still a lot of progress that needs to be achieved, negotiations that need to be made, and conversations that need to be had. Because let’s be real, the female population as a whole is still only making about 79 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Let Sheryl Sandberg remind you: “It’s indisputable that there’s a real pay gap. People can argue about how big, but that’s almost beside the point. The point is that every woman, every girl, deserves to get paid what they’re worth.” Remember, you needed almost four extra months to make what men in your field made in 2015 alone. Don’t forget. We have to keep talking about this. We need to ask for what we deserve.

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Written by: Julia Francis