During President Obama’s State of the Union Speech, he stated that “a woman deserves equal pay for equal work”, vowing to support policies that “level the playing field” for men and women. He even threw in a little “Mad Men” reference for good measure. A commonly-cited number is that women who work full time make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns working full time. On the surface, that sounds terribly unfair, but I’m not sure that’s necessarily true.
My high school English teacher often said, “Write what you know”, so I intend to do just that. In my experience, the only pay gaps I’ve ever encountered have been self-inflicted, and even those have been few and far between. I’ve never worked a job alongside a man doing the same job and found him to be making more money than I was. Ever.
Upside of my waitressing jobs: I can still carry a heavy tray with one hand, like a boss.
Back in high school, my first job was as a waitress at a truck stop diner. We were paid minimum wage –the real minimum wage, not “waitress minimum wage”–which was at the time around $4.50 as memory serves. Because we were paid the minimum wage, everyone made the same amount, male or female. If anything, given it was a truck stop diner attached to a hotel where many truckers and construction workers stayed for days or weeks on end, the female waitresses often got more tips than the male servers. In subsequent jobs during college, I worked as a gas station attendant (fun and we got free pop while we worked which was a bonus for a broke college kid), a server at more upscale restaurant , and a teacher at a child care center. In every case I made the same as my male counterparts. The only thing that stands out at all is that at the upscale restaurant, we got that horrid servers’ minimum wage which was around $2.49. Still, that was the same wage for both genders.
Perhaps these aren’t the kind of jobs people worry about when they talk wage gap. Perhaps they mean professional jobs/careers after college, although I’d argue many men and women don’t go to college so it doesn’t apply to everyone. In my case, I graduated from college with a degree in education. I’ve taught school in five states (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Idaho) and in every case, our salary was set by the district. There has always been a predetermined salary schedule with rows and columns based on years of teaching experience and level of continued education (Bachelor’s, Master’s, etc.) so that men and women with the same level of education and experience were always paid the same salary. There was never any negotiation because the salary schedule was set and approved by the school board; no wage gap there. When I wasn’t teaching school I worked as a Director of Education at two different Sylvan Learning Centers in two different states. Both franchises had only female Directors at their various franchisee locations, so there was no way to know if a man would be paid more. The only discrepancy I ever saw was that women who took time off for maternity leave or other family leave didn’t earn the same type of quarterly bonus as the rest of us. However, that seemed quite fair to me because bonuses were calculated based on sales and enrollment numbers hit during each quarter by each director, and if a director was out for six-twelve weeks, they weren’t likely to hit the same numbers within their centers. Maybe some would point to the fact that education tends to be a female-dominated career field, which is why I haven’t experienced the discrepancy. Some would argue that men don’t go into education because there isn’t any money in it, and that women “settle” for these lower-paying careers. I disagree.
Kids are my business–literally.
I went into teaching with eyes wide open. I was a National Merit Scholar in high school; three different colleges offered me full ride scholarships to study whatever I wanted. Because I spoke another language (Spanish) and expressed an interest in linguistics/intelligence, I met with representatives from the Air Force Academy, the FBI and the CIA. All told me I had options and could ‘go places’ with them. While the thought of being a superspy traveling the globe held definite appeal, in my gut I knew I wanted to be a wife and a mother, and those things didn’t jibe with being called upon to travel to a foreign locale for any amount of time with little advance notice. So, I turned away from those offers and went to a small college majoring in education and minoring in Spanish. Looking back, I have no regrets. I was a wife for many years and enjoyed it, and definitely want to be married again. Being a mother has been the best job of my life by far; as a teacher I have the same schedule as my children and I am always home for holidays, weekends and summers. I don’t miss anything, which for me makes up for the low salaries teachers earn. Nobody forced me into a female-heavy career field. I chose it for myself and it has been the perfect fit for me, even more so now that I’m a single mom and need to be more available for my kids.
Speaking of being a mom, there have been years where I did not work outside the home at all, where I chose to be a full-time mom. The salary is terrible–as in, nonexistent–but the benefits are amazing. When I lived in Southern California I had ten glorious months with my then two-year-old son where we could go to the park, the arboretum, Disneyland…anywhere we wanted whenever we wanted. Or we could stay home and snuggle and play with his train set. When my daughter was born we lived in Kansas City and I took another eighteen months to stay home. Playing with the kids, walking in our pasture and the timber behind our house, and helping my husband with our small herd of show cattle was a joy and I am ever thankful for that time. Again, many question why it is so often the mom who stays home with the kids, sacrificing her career while the man ‘gets’ to go to work. That wasn’t my experience at all. My ex-husband and I relocated eight times during our marriage; each time was for a promotion or job change that moved him up the ladder and allowed me the privilege of being a full-time mom for both of our kids. Many view that as me giving up my dreams and aspirations so he could pursue his. In reality it was almost the reverse; he got up and went to work every single day so that I could have my dream of being home with my children. We may not be together anymore but I am still grateful to him for that.
Again, looking back through my life I have never experienced a pay gap, let alone one that was gender-based. Any lack of income on my part was by choice. I selected a lower-paying career field because it allowed me time with my family; I chose to make no money as a full-time mom because that is what I wanted to do. If I had it to do over again I would, and have never felt my income was determined by my gender, but rather by my choice.
4 comments
Bobbi:
Your article is clear and well-written, but there is a slight error (and then again–maybe not). My experience and observations tell me the gender split between male and female teachers is just about equal in classrooms. It is true that the elementary grades are predominantly taught by women, but the high school grades are predominately taught by males. And for many years I was the ONLY male Language Arts teacher while my “brothers” taught PE, science, math and social studies. The trend has changed,though, and women are seen much more frequently in those areas while the gender gap still favors women at the elementary level. It’s not about the pay; it’s the gender. Just as more and more women are needed at the high school level in subject areas traditionally held by men, there needs to be more and men at the elementary level to provide a positive male image and role models. And you should tell your readers that your writing teacher who gave you such sage advice was male.
Mike, thanks for commenting. Something I want to explore is why men and women are sometimes drawn to different professions. Sure, some of it might be “wiring,” but I suspect that a great deal is socialization. Several professions such as law and medicine are evening out, but it would be great to see more balance in education, engineering, social work and many other fields.
Thanks for commenting, Mike. Yes, my English teacher was a male and he gave me a wealth of knowledge regarding the art of writing. That foundation is what prepared me for this unexpected vocation, which in hindsight I suppose I should have known I would eventually undertake. You make a solid point regarding the gender differences between elementary and secondary education. My “world” is populated primarily with PreK-5th grade teachers, and in my area those teachers are mostly women. However as I look at the upper grades, there are many more male teachers at that level. It would be really nice to see more men teaching at lower grade levels.