As a fellow “vagina owner,”—as Sarah Silverman referred to herself in a recent skit—the idea of a gender-based wage gap puzzles me. Silverman discussed the wage gap issue in a comical video, which sources, such as The Guardian, have deemed “provocative.” Although Silverman has received a great deal of criticism regarding the accuracy of her statistics and figures, as well as her use of profanity, I believe her profane skit is a perfect tactic to increase awareness about the Equal Payment Project. All of the money raised is donated to the National Women’s Law Center, a non-profit group fighting for equal pay through legislation, education, and advocacy. The wage gap is an economical issue that needs to be changed.
Silverman’s skit consisted of her attending a faux appointment in which she discussed gender reassignment with a female surgeon. Silverman wanted to “become a dude” in order to avoid the yearly wage gap of $11,000 and what she coined as the “$500,000 vagina tax,” which accumulates over a lifetime of work, reported PolitiFact. This is due to the fact that women are making a mere 78 cents to every man’s dollar for the same work, which is a miniscule improvement from the 77 cents women made the past few years, reported CNN.
Silverman attempted to bring attention to her fake sex change, which she felt would combat the wage gap, by playing with prosthetic penises, drawing cartoons of penises and saying goodbye to her breasts before her “sex change,” which she didn’t actually receive. While I can see where some may think her humor is vulgar, gender reassignment is actually a huge social and psychological matter. Connecting it to a serious issue such as the wage gap is clever, considering it will grasp the attention of a broader audience.
Kaitlyn Wilson, a junior nursing major, did not see a problem with the skit whatsoever. “I thought it was funny. I thought that she brought humor to a very real issue that happens in society,” Wilson said. It is very important that the wage gap be bridged. It simply doesn’t make any sense that your gender can determine how much you make at your job. The idea that women are receiving this institutionalized form of discrimination this day in age is disturbing. Women work just as hard as men—if not harder—to obtain credibility and respect within the workplace. Aside from receiving far less money, women are subjected to sexual harassment as well as gender harassment in the workplace on a much more regular basis than men, according to The Journal of Applied Psychology. The question remains: why are women being dealt such a crappy hand?
Wilson thought that Silverman made some very valid points. “She basically said: ‘you know what? Fine, if you guys aren’t going to pay me the correct amount, I’m going to put a penis on me so I can get paid,’ because apparently that’s what it takes, is to be a dude,” Wilson said. Amount of hours worked and career choice are two factors that PolitiFact utilized to shift the focus from gender discrimination as the reason for the wage gap. In 2013 men worked 8.34 hours per day as opposed to women who worked 7.73 hours per day, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Silverman looked to the 2013 Census income and poverty data as opposed to the BLS, reported PolitiFact.
The Census however, does not take hours worked into consideration. Instead, the Census measured the median earnings of full-time and year-round workers ages 15 and older. Although some economists would rather break down the wage gap by hours worked, I feel as though the Census depicts a wide range of incomes for both males and females of all age ranges who work about 40 hours per week, making it just as reliable as the BLS reports. I don’t see how it is necessary to break work hours down by day with the BLS, when the Census takes weekly hours into account. Regardless of which set of statistics you choose to refer to, there is still a clear wage gap between the genders, so what is the point of criticizing how Silverman calculated her statistics?
Women tend to populate jobs that pay less. Receptionists, teachers, and nurses are examples of these lower-wage jobs. Men commonly take on jobs such as truck driving, managerial positions and computer software engineering, as reported by PolitiFact. Interestingly enough, the jobs that are more highly populated by men are jobs that fit in with the socially accepted gender roles of men. Women are not encouraged to work in these fields, and when they do they are often faced with a much higher level of sexual harassment and/or gender harassment than if they were to pursue a career in a female-dominated field, as reported by The Journal of Applied Psychology.
Women are most likely aware of the differences between work environments that are considered “traditional” for a female, and traditionally male-dominated careers. Knowing that working in a male-dominated field would increase my risk of being harassed would definitely be reason enough for me to avoid such a field, regardless of how much more I would be paid.
I don’t feel, however, that Silverman was attempting to shed light on the wage gap in terms of completely different careers, which one might expect to have different salaries. Silverman seemed to be making a case for wage equality in fields such as medical doctors and lawyers. At the beginning of the skit Silverman described how women are paid less when they work in the same field as men. “I think it is sexist because women put just as much work in as men do… I don’t see why having a vagina is a good enough reason to be paid less,” Wilson said. If women are receiving the same education credentials and professional certification as men, they should certainly receive the same pay.
Liz Rockett can be reached a elizabeth.rockett@spartans.ut.edu