Women are being denied their civil rights because they are payed less than men. Women and children make up 70% of Americans who live at or below the poverty line which is a result of unequal pay. Women also represent nearly ⅔ of minimum wage workers. The Gender Pay Act has been a part of the law for more than 50 years and is being ignored today, resulting in a wage gap. This wage gap is causing women to make some of the hardest decisions of their lives and they shouldn't have to make this decision at all. Many times women have to decide between paying for child care or their jobs, which also means if they decide to start a family they are going to face financial struggle. While many people agree this is an issue, this is still an ongoing issue today.
The White House has started a pledge called The White House Equal Pay Pledge. Big companies like Amazon and American Airlines have signed and joined the pledge. This pledge is a small commitment and by joining this pledge employees are understanding and acknowledging the role businesses have to play in reducing the national pay gap, committing to making an annual company-wide gender pay structure throughout different jobs, reviewing hiring and promotion processes and procedures to reduce giving people certain jobs for their gender, putting equal pay efforts into bigger finance initiatives and pledging to take these steps and working to do as much as possible to close the national gender pay gap. These efforts are very effective and are important in working to eliminate the wage gap but there are still some remaining weaknesses. The Gender Pay Act has been ignored and hasn't made an impact even though it's been in place for more than 50 years. The White House equal pay pledge does not force companies to join it, although it's good for companies that already have no wage gap and they sign and it and support it, companies with a wage gap will not join it because they don't need to because it's not affecting them. There has been multiple attempts to closing the wage gap, but there are still many steps we need to take in order to end unequal pay for good.
It's time to end the wage gap, and we need to act now because legislation has proposed and acknowledged these issues. One way to try to close the wage gap is to really push 21st century policies that will acknowledge women are playing multiple roles between their family life and the business life. When creating new policies we need to really push that these are strong laws and they are laws that will be obeyed because there is no reason women should be paid less than a man just because they're female. If we push stronger laws there needs to be stronger stricter consequences so businesses will follow the law and there will be no more wage gap. Another way, which would seriously help, is to give women more opportunities by lifting up the salaries of the women in low wage jobs so it would make it easier for them to get high paying careers and they won't run into financial trouble for deciding to start a family. We also need to realize that women do not get the opportunities some men get and that needs to end because the women deserve those opportunities and with them come higher paying jobs. Women do not receive equal pay and we must come together to realize the unfairness of that, and once we realize that we can come together and close the wage gap.
Citations
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/20/opinion/harris-women-jobs-shriver-report/
Website Title: CNN
Publisher: Cable News Network
Date Accessed: January 22, 2017
http://nwlc.org/issue/equal-pay-laws/
Website Title: NWLC
Article Title: Equal Pay Laws Archives
Date Accessed: January 22, 2017
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/12/07/fact-sheet-white-house-announces-new-commitments-equal-pay-pledge
Website Title: The White House
Article Title: FACT SHEET: White House Announces New Commitments to the Equ[…]
Publisher: The United States Government
Electronically Published: December 07, 2016
Date Accessed: January 22, 2017
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/06/14/businesses-taking-equal-pay-pledge
Website Title: The White House
Article Title: These Businesses Are Taking The Equal Pay Pledge
Publisher: The United States Government
Electronically Published: June 14, 2016
Date Accessed: January 22, 2017
Picture citations
http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/08/23/black-women-s-equal-pay-day-media-highlight-plight-women-color-workplace/212606
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/fan-influx-hasn-t-bridged-soccer-s-alleged-gender-wage-n548496