Women are facing a bigger problem than a thigh gap

Fighting the pay gap between men and women has been an issue for centuries, but has recently become an ever-increasingly-discussed topic now that women have started to even out the qualifications playing field. Women now are no less educated nor have less experience when compared to men, yet they are still facing the struggle of equal pay.

There is evidence for this phenomenon even in the UC System. The Sacramento Bee provides a relatively (I say relatively since they don’t have the information for 2015 up yet) updated interactive salary database that allowed me to explore the UC’s salary system.

It amazed me how immediately the difference in pay can be seen—not only between genders but between departments are well. (Fun fact: the highest paid faculty member in the UC system is the executive head coach of UCLA, who makes over 3 million dollars annually. He is, unsurprisingly, a man.)

Back to the topic: looking at the top five employees of each UC, it is appalling to see how the men outnumber the women. UC Davis is one of the few UC that has a better male to female ratio, with 3 of the top 5 being female. This can be compared to UCLA where there isn’t even a woman in the top ten paid faculty members. Berkeley did slightly better, with having, at least, one woman in the top five list, but still didn’t hold a candle to Davis. (Aggies, represent!)

Despite this, there is still examples of a significant difference between male and female pay.  According to the University itself, 37% of the faculty members are female, yet there are many instances where men make a significant amount more than their female counterparts.

For instance, in the administrative aspect of the school, men are making an average of around 40% more than women (comparing an average of $135,000 to $78,000).

It seems to matter not the job (whether it be blue-collar lower paying jobs or white-collar careers) nor the industry (computer tech, entertainment, education, corporate, etc.), the trend across the board is that women are paid less than their male counterparts. I took this opportunity to ask a couple of my fellow students what they thought about this trend:

Sanjil Sheth, a second-year NPB major, points out: “Yes, the wages should be based on the job being done, not who’s doing the job. Obviously I care, but I’m a very big realist, I know that I cannot make that change happen. You need a large support group to make change happen, and it’s really hard for just an individual to have his or her way.”

Sanjil smiling for the camera

The problem with this line of thinking is that nothing will ever be done if individuals don’t think they can make a difference. This problem affects both our individual lives as well as society as a whole, so we as individuals must join together and think that we as people can combine forces to make the change we need to see.

Ajia Sugahara, a second-year Global Disease and Biology major, agrees. “We can definitely fix the wage gap. I mean, we should because women always end up doing more work than men anyways.”

Ajia hard at work in the library

Starting out, I was prepared to find some basic comparison that exemplifies this struggle that female workers have been facing in the work field, but I soon realized that this was an issue that was far from simple. Looking at all the different figures in all the different locations around the state made it almost impossible to compare. I had to look at the figures as a whole rather than as separate entities. This complexity only adds another frustrating layer to this already blatant issue, and issue so deeply and yet so subtly woven into society that it’s taken decades for women to even get a voice to be heard about it.

Fighting this still prevalent sexism is a work in progress, but if the younger generations are kept well aware of this issue and continue to fight this inequality, we might eventually get to a point where the worst gap we have to worry about is the thigh gap – or maybe, if we’re lucky, maybe only the gap between the couch cushions.