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Iceland’s first full-day women’s strike in 48 years aims to close pay gap
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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In most of Europe, it is illegal to pay differently for equal work, so a female cashier would be paid the same as a male cashier.
The gap arises where men are able to take more hours, obtain more qualifications, develop more experience, enter more lucrative industries, get more promotions & they are far less likely to leave paid employment to raise children.
Some of that is due to personal choice, which is fine, but most of it is down to societal hurdles outside of work which determine how women approach the workplace.
Men are able to, or they are practically forced to? Because when I took paternity leave, I heard managers describe it as a "vacation", which is a term I've never seen used to describe maternity leave. And when I left my job to take care of my second child, my co-workers described it as "career suicide", which again I've never seen used to describe a woman's decision to raise her child.
So I have to wonder: how many fathers out there would rather be raising their kids but don't get a real chance to do so because they know their careers would suffer disproportionately to their female coworkers?
Ironically the same could and arguably should be said about a woman choosing to raise her children. Because this is what makes up the vast majority of the gender pay gap, after accounting for the profession. And it makes total sense because raising kids for two, four, six years leaves you with much less experience compared to your peers who did not have children.
Taking time off from work to raise your children is particularly detrimental to your career when you are a father, and I suspect it is one of the biggest reasons why we don't see it more often.
Still amounts to more time in the workplace, forced or otherwise.
It isn't a comment on whether that is what men want or are ok with. Ditto employees generally.
Certainly a major strand of reducing the gender pay gap will be about fixing rights, practices & attitudes surrounding paternity leave.
But it is worthwhile to rephrase the issue in this way.
Do we want women to work more, or do we want men to take on more house and care work? These are two different things. Both are "enforced" by society, to the detriment of people who want to go against the social norm. The former focuses on the issues faced by women, while ignoring the suffering of men. And vice versa for the second phrasing. But both are faces of the same coin!
Neither!
The idea is to remove these societal distortions, or grain if you will, so that everyone is free to structure their lives as best suits their needs, abilities and preferences.
There can be no ignoring of the suffering of men in examining the pay gap, because it is inextricably linked to the pay gap, which in itself is just one tiny aspect of the many things which are awry with the workplace and how everyone accesses it.
It's nice that you see it that way, but the article ignored it the whole way through, never mentioning it once.