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Women, Work, and the Facade of Choice
Women can’t “choose” to earn less than men if they aren’t given the same options
I’ve been told recently that the wage gap doesn’t exist.
Since I am capable of doing simple math, I looked it up, and yes, $41,554 (the average woman’s salary in the U.S.) divided by $51,640 (the average man’s salary in the U.S.) results in a ratio of 80:100 or 80 percent.
What that means is, on average, women earn 20 percent less than men. (This discrepancy increases as we factor in race, with black women earning 37 percent less and Latina women earning 46 percent less than white men.)
What it doesn’t mean, necessarily, is that women earn 20+ percent less than men for working the exact same job.
Yes, there are plenty of fields where women are paid less than men for performing the same job. But even if that isn’t the case across the board, women are still paid less than men on average. Why?
There are several ways the choices women make might not be as free as we think.
The most common explanation for the 20-percent wage gap, and the reason many people feel comfortable claiming it doesn’t exist, is that women occupy lower-paying fields of work than men. With this in mind, it would make sense for the average woman’s salary to be less than the average man’s.
Problem solved, right?
What this explanation fails to examine, however, is why women occupy lower-paying fields of work to begin with.
I’ve heard the justifications for this too. Most often, they involve the idea of choice: women choosing to prioritize family over work, choosing to major in the humanities instead of the sciences, choosing to be nice at work instead of playing hardball.
It only makes sense that personal choice plays a factor in the gender wage gap. No one is holding women at gunpoint and forcing them to study cosmetology instead of welding. But there are several ways the choices women make might not be as free as we think.
