Today is Equal Pay Day, yet one thing remains clear: Far too often, women are paid less for doing the same jobs.
We all (or at least most of us) know that this is true, and it certainly doesn’t just apply to the ad industry. But one should note some troubling trends, like the increase in Dentsu’s U.K. gender pay gap over the past year.
In honor of the day, though, Phenomenon in Los Angeles created a video in which its top female employees “Womansplain” some of the underlying issues.
These are important questions that need to be addressed directly.
Same work, same pay. Simple, right? If only.
Women face different expectations both inside and outside the office. This is undeniably true, and it will continue to be true for the foreseeable future for all the reasons outlined in the video above. And don’t even get us started on working parents in this country, because that’s a whole different level of fucked up.
This isn’t to say people aren’t trying to make important changes. For example, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Paycheck Fairness Act last week in an attempt to address pay disparity on the federal level.
Will it succeed? Well, it almost certainly won’t pass the (majority male) Senate, which gets back to the heart of the problem. We like the brief moment in the Phenomenon video where the man wisely lets his colleagues talk, because sometimes when you don’t really know you just have to STFU.