Pay Gap Problems
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #125 ❤️
This weeks tech news has brought up an unfortunately ever-present issue in the workplace, the gender pay gap, which extends to all minorities in the workplace, be it people of colour, members of the LGBTQ community, and even parents.
Is being a minority in the workplace better or worse since Covid changed the way we work? Will the gap ever close? And what do hackers have to do with it?
Let’s get into it.
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#1 - Silicon Ceiling
Retired hacker Kate Moussouris is featuring in a new Vice documentary about the “Silicon Ceiling” – i.e. the pitfalls of being a woman in tech.
Kate is the one who recently hacked into Clubhouse, proving just how easy it is seeing as she hasn’t been a pro hacker since 2007. Coincidentally, or not, that was also when she started working for Microsoft.
Despite single-handedly starting Microsoft Security Vulnerability Research back in 2008, which then progressed to the creation of their bug bounty programmes, a system offering rewards to independent researchers who report vulnerabilities to the company, a feature which is now standard across many tech companies – she saw her career stall.
She started seeing gender-based discrepancies in her treatment vs. male colleagues – who were getting promoted for way less. Not to mention the gendered feedback she was getting, too pushy, not pushy enough, etc. etc.
She brough a class action lawsuit to Microsoft in 2015 for gender discrimination, and when that fell through, she felt she had no other choice but to start her own business to finally get paid what her work was worth.
It’s also why she founded the “Pay Equity Now Foundation”. The foundation works to close the gender and racial pay gaps. The first donation the organization made was a $1 million gift to establish a law clinic at Penn State University named after Moussouris’s late mother.
Let’s leave with these strong words from Kate about the venture capitalists who suggested her male COO should be CEO instead of her because it looked better, and her advice to all women starting business in Tech to do as much as they can without outside capital – “Let those VC hounds starve on the bones of the patriarchy”.
Say It Again Louder
#2 - Parenting Problems
If we thought women in general were getting the short end of the stick, mothers have got it worse, making only 58 cents to the dollar in comparison not only to men, but to fathers.
As if another kick in the face was needed for mothers, while they are penalised at hiring with a 7.9% lower starting salary than childless women, for men the trend is actually reversed(!). Fathers are offered a significantly higher starting salary than childless men, on average over $10,000 yearly.
The same goes for treatment in the workplace. While childless women get more leeway than mothers on how often they can be late before no longer being recommended for hire, fathers get, once again, the opposite treatment.
As if being EIGHT times less likely to get promoted than childless women wasn’t bad enough, men are getting special treatment for continuing the human race rather than being penalised as a woman for the same thing.
This information was taken from the Harvard Gender Action Portal, which is full of studies on gender discrepancies in the workplace. Have a browse and allow your mind to be blown.
It’s Just Rude
#3 - Is Pay Transparency the Answer?
Pay transparency laws are coming into effect across the globe, touted as the answer to pay discrepancies in the workplace, but is it actually that simple?
While pay transparency laws are effective in closing the gap between men and women’s wages, for example, in the workplace, the way it does this is not by increasing women’s wages but by decreasing the men’s wages.
This makes sense, of course. Companies don’t put the extra money they don’t pay women into a little savings pot – this money is being used, and they can’t pull more money out of smoke.
It raises a deeper question of why men’s work is seen as more valuable as women’s, and are men ready to accept a pay cut to share the resources equally?
While studies have shown that pay transparency laws have a positive impact on women, outside of the obvious fact of them having more money, there can also be a productivity drop from men who are aware that they could have been earning more.
In terms of the wider context of the business however the positives certainly seem to outweigh the negatives. Without wage transparency employees are more likely to leave the company, especially younger employees, poor pay transparency can damage a company’s reputation, and further research has shown that pay transparency has positive effects on women’s mental health inside the company.
Are You Ready?
#4 - Is Remote Working Better For Minority Workers?
According to a 2021 survey from the Future Forum only 3% of black knowledge workers want to return to the office full time, vs. 21% of white knowledge workers.
Minorities say that because of their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or other factors, they're treated like outsiders in the workplace, regularly suffering slights, small and large
For example, a trans woman who was interviewed stated that after coming out in her previous job and facing misgendering in the office, coming back from remote work after the pandemic she had to relive those experiences all over again. Now, working remotely, she can leave her camera off on meetings when she feels anxious about gender presentation.
There are other testimonies of many people of all different ethnicities and genders and sexual orientations who've left their workplaces because of the onslaught of microaggressions in the workplace.
When asked if working remotely rather than tackling these issues head on was letting the companies off the hook, the idea that until companies step up and do better, maybe minorities protecting themselves rather than continuing to feel abused in the workplace isn’t such a bad thing.
You’ve Gotta Put You First
#5 - What About Tik Tok?
Obviously, as it is 2022, Tik Tok has a part to play in this question, as with all questions now and for the foreseeable future.
And as we found out last week, Corporate Tik Tok is blowing up.
Unsurprisingly, no nonsense careers advisors on Tik Tok say you need to be discussing salary with your co-workers. And although the professionalism or politeness of that may remain debated, it’s a protected right under the US National Relations Act.
These Tik Tok personalities say that there’s no way around pay transparency, largely due to their target audience – the younger working generation. When asked in a survey if they discussed their salary with friends, 37% of Gen Zers said "yes" while only 15% of Gen Xers answered the same.
Gen Z, shaking things up as usual.
Hi What’s Your Salary?
Bonus
BREAKING NEWS
Patagonia CEO has officially donated the company to Planet Earth.
What?
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