Women work more and get paid less, it's time to launch #paymetoo

As of today, November 6, 2018 at 3:35 p.m., women's time is no longer worth anything: due to wage inequalities, women work as much as men but for free until the end of the year. From corporate leadership to Hollywood to sports, women are underrepresented and have to prove it all.

Being a business leader: going to school, taking care of domestic work and mental workload, being paid less

In France, wage inequalities between women and men are rising at 18.5%, 2.2 percentage points above the European average (where women earn 16.3% less than men).

A graduate of Sciences-Po, I feed the statistics: women are generally more educated than men (33% have the level of higher education against 29% of men). In my approach, a better education was the sign of greater professional success. In the field, I was able to observe that, with equal training and skills, we are paid less than a man. Worse: the wage gap is essentially played out in the social behavior imposed on women. Meritocracy does not bring women to the height of their academic success. Behind the figures for part-time work, the occupation of positions of responsibility, and unemployment, we must see the sacrifices of women's careers for the benefit of their homes¹ .

As a business manager, I am not exempt from domestic work, estimated in 2010 at 60 billion hours, i.e. a value between 33 and 71% of GDP².

As unpaid domestic work is largely done by women (3h26 per day compared to 2h), compared to a male business manager, the differences in our salaries are much greater still. And that is without counting the estimate of the mental load or the emotional load, mainly suffered by women, theorized by the sociologist Monique Haicault³ in 1984 and popularized in 2017 only by blogger Emma⁴: the entrepreneur ensures the well-being of his company; the entrepreneur must, in addition, think about buying and having everyone sign an employee's birthday card.

If we included domestic work in the calculation of the standard of living of households, as suggested by the Stiglitz Commission – of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics of the same name for its work on development economics –, I gain, as a woman, a lot in terms of quality of life.

The newsletter Les Glorieuses created, in 2016, a movement to denounce wage inequalities. It is the fruit of the work of a classmate from Sciences-Po who also thought that going to higher education would guarantee her, among other things, equal pay. This year, and because of wage inequalities, French women will work for free from November 6 at 3:35 p.m. In 2 years, we have lost a day of equal pay: the first movement was on November 7 at 4:34 p.m. At this rate, equal pay will be achieved in 2168.

And if we take into account the pay gaps on the management levels, such as the responsibility of a company for example, the gaps are even greater.

Entrepreneurs in Hollywood, they are game changers: real roles and real salaries. #PayMeToo

On the side of the American gender pay gap⁵, discrimination between women and men is even greater: there are 5 .4% women among the 500 wealthiest CEOs, but 62.8% among minimum wage earners⁶.

So is it better to be a business owner in France? Not so sure: Hollywood women in industry — who started a global movement to free women's voices on sexual and gender-based violence — are creating high-potential production companies that practice equal pay.

It is a question, thanks to the women involved in the cinema industry, of not seeing any more recurrence of situations as scandalous as that observed at Netflix: Matt Smith, the actor incarnating the Prince in the series The Crown ( Netflix) was better paid than Claire Foy, who played the role of Queen Elizabeth II, emblem of the conquest of power by women.

Since the irony pushed to its climax is intruding on our screens to present us with a main character, the Queen, whose actress is paid less than her second role of husband, the Prince, the production has apologized : "We are responsible for budgets and wages. (...) We understand and appreciate the debate that is currently taking place in our society, and we are absolutely united in the fight for equal pay, without gender bias and for a rebalancing of women in society, both on camera and behind the scenes."

Women are finally demanding fair treatment, notably through the voices of actresses such as Meryl Streep, Patricia Arquette (during her speech for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, 2015), Reese Witherspoon (creation of her production company for women, Pacific Standard Films, and of the Big Little Lies series), Jennifer Lawrence (claims that she was paid less than her male American Hustle co-stars), Melissa McCarthy (chooses her roles based on pay equity practiced), and so many more.

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— Carlos Osegueda Fri May 24 07:59:34 +0000 2019

From #metoo to #paymetoo, the movement of this generation of post-Weinstein women is seeing the rise of female role models who, even in the glamor industry, are demanding equal pay and roles worthy of their talent.

"Women don't like sports"? No, women's sport is not broadcast

Sport is an influential channel for the dissemination of social norms and values: wanted to be popular and accessible, it should federate common codes, across cultures. If, when you are a woman, you nevertheless find it difficult to take an interest in sport (televised or not), look no further why: in the Top 50 L'Equipe of the highest paid international sportsmen, this year again, no woman is not present. In 15 years, only 9 women have appeared.

Representation of women in sports is almost zero on the general channels and, if women are present, they only take a second place. The French painted themselves, rightly, in blue white red in the summer of 2018 during the Football World Cup. Who will, in 2019, when France hosts the Women's World Cup?

Some progress is to be welcomed: the English football club Lewes launched, in the summer of 2017, the "Equality FC" campaign and announced that the players of its women's team would receive a salary equivalent to that of the men. It should however be noted that the club is now only in the 7^th division.

The battles on the ground for equal treatment between athletes make The Battle of the Sexes – transcribed on the screen by Emma Stone (Billie Jean King) and Steve Carrell (Bobby Riggs) (2017) – a subject unfortunately still relevant, especially in tennis: the summer 2018 grand slams were marked by behavioral warnings reserved for Serena Williams' superhero outfit at Roland Garros and the change of t-shirt in the background court of Alizé Cornet in the US Open.

However, no one was shocked by the eccentric – and ostensibly provocative – outfits of Yannick Noah or André Agassi at the time of their presence on the courts, in the 1990s... almost 30 years ago years.

As in the rest of the labor market, high-level sportswomen also face a dual social requirement to prove their abilities and their legitimacy. And this translates into salaries, audiences, and therefore inevitably the interest of sponsors⁷.

But in September 2018, the World Surf League announced matching bonuses between women and men, starting in 2019. Six-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore comments: "The bonuses are fantastic, but the message is even more so". It should be noted, however, the importance of sponsors, including in the surfing world, for women who more easily obtain advertising contracts in swimsuits, strong in their bodies as high-level athletes, with a lot of photos on Instagram.

And if I had a child, could I still be a business leader?

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was accompanied by her husband and her new born at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2018. We applauded the publication of the photos of Neve in the hemicycle. But this raises the following question: do we still think that working women, since they would be the main parent here, should bring their children to work if they wish to continue to exercise their profession at a high level? In this specific situation, Ms. Hardern is breastfeeding, which shifts the debate. But the question arises for many companies.

Goldman Sachs, for example, boasted in the summer of 2018 of paying for the express mailing of bottles of breast milk pumped by its breastfeeding employees, who returned to work. This announcement, which seeks to prove that "Goldman Sachs is very good to women now", in fact hides a failing federal public policy which does not allow women to take sufficient maternity leave.

However, maternity leave that is too long has an impact on the level of remuneration of women, who are less easily promoted to management positions for fear that they will be away from work for too long during a pregnancy.

As a young entrepreneur, social codes lead me to question the famous reconciliation between private life (meaning "mom's life") and professional life. In addition to managing my business, I must therefore ask myself about my ability to continue to manage it if I decided to participate in the perpetuation of Humanity.

This issue is not a question of women, but of society: if those with whom we raise children are partners, we reconcile private and professional life together; if the society we live in is grateful for the role of motherhood in building a common future, appropriate policies are put in place to enable all workers, and even business leaders, to ensure their parenting role on equal terms.

The wage gap is therefore the direct result of the classic archaic binomial "the woman must stay at home to take care of the children" and "the man must work to bring in the money". Women suffer a double penalty: they pay for being a woman by being paid less. In line with #MeToo, let's demand a #PayMeToo for equal pay far from gender stereotypes.

_______________________________

¹ In the European Union, in 2016, 32% of women work part-time compared to only 9% of men; only a third (33%) of senior managers are women; and the employment rate is much lower for women (61%) than for men (72%), a difference accentuated with the number of children.

² At least 33% of GDP (on an intermediate valuation), and up to 71% (with a valuation of the costs of specialized substitutes).

³Ordinary Life Management in two

⁴ Had to ask, 2017

⁵ Across the Atlantic, women earn 82% of men's wages. Although the differences are less significant among 25-34 year olds, where women earn 89 cents for every dollar earned by a man, it still takes Americans 47 extra days of work to earn similar amounts to men in 2017.

⁶ The banking sector further crystallizes these gender stereotypes about the type of jobs women or men should do: in the five largest U.S. banks, men hold between 82% (Morgan Stanley) and 69% (Bank of America) of the upper echelons, in 2016. Major differences are also observed among the richest 1% (women represent 14-22%) or in the industry (men are always better paid, all industries combined: management, construction, finance and insurance, health and social assistance, manufacturing, sales).

⁷ "Access to a career as a footballer or high-level boxer implies a double "work" of the incorporated schemes, allowing both the mastery of sports techniques " and the appropriation (or reactivation) of female "genderisms", Christine Menesson, Being a woman in a male sport, Cairn.fr, 2004

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