Equal Pay and Why We SHOULD Be Ashamed

It started as a joke on Facebook. “Shaming” was something funny that involved pet owners sharing a photo of their naughty dog wearing a confession sign like. “I ate a whole bar of soap when mommy was gone. Now when I fart, I blow bubbles.” “Dog shaming” was funny as heck and soon led to pet shaming as everything from cats to jackalopes were caught on film confessing their dastardly deeds. But within a year the whole online world was popping with people looking at the flipside of, and taking stands against all sort of, shaming.

Soon the fun and light-hearted dog shaming became quasi-angry “fat shaming” or “mom shaming.” I believe the whole “mom shaming” thing stemmed from other women giving other moms the side eye and making them feel "not enough” because little Raindrop wasn’t wearing her Baltic Moon Stone necklace properly or hadn’t yet become a yoga master by age 4. The underlying message was/is somewhat clear and something along the lines of, “Stop making us feel bad for being who we are”…and I totally get that.

So what will people get up in arms about next? Hairy Armpit shaming? Crossing Against the Light shaming? Compulsive-Selfie-Taking shaming?

The bottom line is (I believe) that certain-somebodies-in-the general-populous-of –the-world decided to give this movement a catchy title (hence;shaming) in hopes that moms/humans/jackalopes would stop getting the side-eye, dogs may possibly stop eating bars of soap and the Neanderthals in the world who think it’s OK to give someone flak about their size would STOP.

Some of this “shaming” is necessary, some is silly and some it downright ridiculous. But there are several things in life that do indeed deserve some good ol’ fashioned “*Shame on you*!” (I think I just heard my mom’s voice in that moment) because these occurrences are, well….kinda whack.

When it comes to shaming, it truly does have time and place and here’s an example of one of those times and places. During my online travels this past week it came to my attention that April 12th was Equal Pay Day.

While women are not YET paid on average what their male counterparts make -the day itself is in fact the actual day on which a woman finally equals her counterpart in pay. In other words, if a man earned 100,000 dollars for a year, a woman doing that same job would have to work a year PLUS continue working until April 12th before she received the same 100K, even though she was doing the exact same thing. Basically, according to today’s pay gap, men work 12 months to earn 100k, while women (doing the same job) would have to work 16 months and 12 days to get that same 100K. Yeah, that’s fair (insert snarky tone HERE).

A report on CNN happily chirped that, “The good news is that the gender pay gap is getting smaller. In 1964, women on average were paid 59% of what men were paid. In 2014, that number had jumped to 79%!” This comment in itself makes me send out a stream of bleep-able words, stomp my feet, fluff my skirt indignantly and pop a brain bleed in frustration; all in one fell swoop. It truly blows my mind that we can check to see if we left the garage door open on our Smartphone or track the neighborhood ice cream truck on GPS, but we can’t seem to figure out equal pay between men and women.

This whole topic is unjust no matter what the reasons or how you slice it. Ultimately this glaring issue is a problem that we as parents don’t want to affect our daughters when they enter the workplace.

My daughter is ten and is already ready to rule the world like she rules our household. Heaven help the employer who tells her she will make less than the guy who sits next to her at work. She can’t even deal when her big bro gets to stay up thirty minutes later than her.

If current trends continue, women won’t earn equal pay until 2059, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. In 2059 my daughter will be 53. I really don’t want to wait that long for her to experience a good example of fairness in pay, but you better believe I will always encourage her to demand her worth. I think some “shaming” pointed in the direction of the employers who allow pay discrepancy to continue needs to get some momentum. Maybe it’s time to call B.S. on the, “But that’s the way it’s always been” excuse when it comes to equal pay between genders.

That type of shaming should never cease because as Americans, we SHOULD be ashamed.

Rebecca is a freelance writer and blogger living in Northern Minnesota. She is the dedicated mom to two beautiful kids, a veteran blogger at FranticMommy and someone who loves to laugh about the trials and tribulations of parenthood. If another mom reads her corny stories and thinks, “Thank gawd it’s not just me!”….mission accomplished. You can also follow Rebecca on Pinterest