Dragging yourself into work mid-week is hard enough – it’s when your weekend hangover wears off and the devastating, crushing inevitability of actually having to be in the office for a WHOLE week sets in – so it doesn't help to know that you’re breaking your balls for less money than that bloke sitting next to you. Just because he has a penis.
Yes, despite the fact women still outperform men in nearly every academic stage, the gender pay gap is still very much alive and kicking. Where stats earlier this year showed that it had all but closed for women in their 20s that was only taking into account full-time workers. Shadow minister for equality and women, Gloria De Piero, released new figures to Grazia magazine this week, which show that when you add in the pay for part-time workers in their 20s, the pay gap between men and women has doubled since 2010 – going from 2.6 per cent to 5.3 per cent. Depressing, much?
As De Piero puts it: 'It's now been 46 years since the machinist walked out of Dagenham in protest over the pay divide, which prompted the Equal Pay Act two years later. We can't wait another 44 years for change. Women deserve equal treatement and equal pay.' Which sounds all too sensible to us.
In reponse, our sister folk at Grazia have launched a petition calling for a piece of Labour legislation – Section 78 of the Equality Act 2010 – to be enforced. The legislation requires employers, with staff of more than 250 people to annually publish details about the hourly pay of men and women they employ. The legislation would mean total transparency about wages and how they’re affected by gender, which would hopefully be enough of an encouragement for companies to bridge the gender pay gap once and for all. And for women to feel empowered enough to stand up to their bosses.
So we're adding our names to Grazia’s petition here. Are you?
Share your experiences of the gender pay gap on Twitter, too, which the hashtag #whatimworth.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophiecullinane
Picture: Marc Davies
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.