Originally published on the CGS blog on May 23, 2014.
At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this year, President Obama really showed what he was made of. With jokes on everything from his healthcare.gov rollout to the Chris Christie bridge closure debacle, he showed that he can take criticism and laugh about it. Obama also took a stab at the gender pay gap and the prospect of Hilary Clinton becoming president, saying that, “as the first female president, we could pay her 30 percent less. That’s a savings this country could use.” While a funny remark that elicits laughs, what people need to realize is that it is actually not far from the truth.
In a recent study it was found that women earn on average 77 cents to every dollar that men earn in the same profession. In a supposed democratic and equal-opportunity country, this is absurd. To try and fight this President Obama recently issued two executive orders that allow employees to discuss their pay and require employers to report pay data based on gender and race, hoping to increase transparency in the workplace and close the ridiculous pay gaps that exists.
Even more recently, the gender pay gap issue has been raised with the firing of Jill Abramson as executive editor of The New York Times. While it has been clarified that she was let go for reasons regarding management and not a salary issue as speculated, it still brings this important topic to the table. It raised another issue connected with the pay gap, which is that fewer women are willing to negotiate their salary, according to a study done in Boston. The study found that if women try to negotiate an offer, that deters people from wanting to work with them, and the offer disappears. This is a stigma that must be stopped; not only from employers, but also from women.
From that study, Jena Abernathy suggests that the best advice for women is to find the “right moment” to sit down in a “non-threatening” way to discuss how to close the gap. But is that really an effective solution? There is a double-standard that should be changed, not played into.
But what else can be done? Well, there’s a treaty for that. The Women’s Equality Treaty (officially called CEDAW) aims to promote the economic and political equality of women along with protection from violence and equal access to education. But the US hasn’t ratified this treaty. Why not? Doesn’t it seem obvious that the US should promote women’s rights?
Unfortunately, there are many treaty opposition groups that block ratification of any and all treaties, claiming violations of US sovereignty. This is an unreasonable statement and ultimately very misleading. While the Women’s Equality Treaty and others lay out guidelines, by no means do they become law once ratified. Each country may decide how to enforce them. If we want to move forward on equal rights in every sector, not just in the workplace, then ratifying the Women’s Equality Treaty is a critical place to start.
