Pittsburgh Woman Creates Gender Pay Gap Awareness By Asking Men To Pay More
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At first sight, Elana Schlenker's pop-up store, Less Than 100, which was open in Pittsburgh during the month of April appeared just like any other gift store. However, when shoppers went to pay, they were in for a surprise. That's because while men paid full price, women received a 24% discount.
Though that may appear to be blatant discrimination, Elana was merely abiding by the store's slogan "pay what you are paid". And since women in Pennsylvania get paid an average of 76 cents for every dollar men earn for the same job, it is only fair that they pay less.
As if the store's pricing policy was not enough to get the message across, Elana also distributed pamphlets. Entitled "What Are Women Worth?", it explained the status of the wage gap both in Pennsylvania and across the country, and also gave women tips on how to better negotiate salaries. A 2015 study conducted by the Institute for Women's Policy Research found that although the rate of women's income has been rising, men still earn more in every state in the country.
But though paying women lower wages is a shame, forking out the full price at Less Than 100 wasn't necessarily a bad thing. That's because the proceeds of all sales went directly to the local artists that had created the beautiful wares. During its month-long tenure, the shop was visited by hundreds of women who wanted to support her mission and the local artists whose work was being showcased. Some even brought in their kids and grandkids to educate them about the importance of keeping the gender wage debate alive. Elana says that while she received some grief about the "discrimination," most men were extremely gracious and happy to pay the full price.
Not surprisingly, the unusual venture has drawn worldwide attention. This November, Elana will partner with photographer Tammy Mercure and open a Less than 100 pop-up store in New Orleans.She believes starting the debate in Louisiana is important given that the state boasts the nation's widest gender wage disparity. Here, women earn a whopping 34 cents less than their male counterparts. While she has received several requests from California, it may be close to the bottom of her list. That's because the "Golden State" is one of the most progressive when it comes to wage equality and, therefore, does not need much help.
Though the Less than 100 project will not resolve the wage disparity, it is a thought-provoking way to bring to the forefront an issue that is increasingly causing a lot of angst among women. Fortunately, Elana is not the only one trying to change the unfair system. Patricia Arquette made an impassioned plea for gender wage equality in her acceptance speech at the Oscars this February. Ellen Pao the interim CEO of Reddit recently announced that new employees will be forbidden from negotiating salaries. She believes that men are better negotiators than women, and, therefore, tend to receive higher wages!
What's encouraging is that male CEOs are also joining the fight! Earlier this month, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff launched a company-wide program to address the issue. Called "Women Surge" it aims to eliminate all gender-based pay disparities, hire and promote more women and ensure that they are better included in meetings! With all these visionaries taking the lead, it will not be long before gender pay inequality is something we will only read about in history books!
Resources: huffingtonpost.com,lessthan100.org,msnbc.com,abc.go.com
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- matthew perezover 9 years@matthew perez Women do all that and more!
- matthew perezover 9 yearsi disagree because guys risk their life to work guy get mostly injured just to get money they have to do risky things for their family and they have to climb high places or fix the electricity or do even worse!!!
yenayraover 9 yearssorry but EXCUSE YOU!!! girls do that work 2 as dangerous as it is. let me tell u that there women who are pioneers [i got that from my social studies class] so yea i think that u rwrong
felicisowlover 9 yearsGuys, you both have to research more. "matthew perez", some women do very dangerous things too. And "yenayra," yes, girls do dangerous work.. Both guys and girls do dangerous work, and if they do the same work, a guy doesn't always get more injured. How does "women were pioneers" fit into this situation?
snowyclawover 9 yearsYour Being Sexist Because There Are WOMEN who do those jobs,GET Smart. THE IS SEXIST AND WRONG SO PLEASE APOLOGIZE
- matthew perezover 9 yearsi think this is wrong to treat women like that
- Hello...over 9 yearsGood job so far. And I agree with you, cocollete, it's so unfair (sad face)!
strog11over 9 yearsI understand where she got this from- Dedeover 9 yearsTrue
- koalasruleover 9 yearsThis thing needs to stop, women work twice as hard as men, women should get paid the same wage as men and if not more.
babybobover 9 yearsThat would not be equality though!
- Anneover 9 yearsRedheadperson22, I know sexism isn't just towards women, but it's most commonly directed to women because most people make them out to be the "weaker" gender. How do you
redheadperson22over 9 yearsUm, did you mean to say more than that? If so, you might want to consider retyping and reporting want you wanted to say. I'd really like to hear your response :).
- redheadperson22over 9 yearsAnne, I assure you, I read your entire comment. Multiple times. Sexism isn't just towards women. That's what people (our society) wants us to think. But men definitely exspreince it just as much as women. it's possible that they experience it more because, sadly, sexism towards men many times isn't even recognized as sexism. I'm asking how angry men have brainwashed our society. Give me an example of something that is the result of angry men brainwashing our society. I can give you example when it comes to feminist brainwashing our society. Just look at TV these days. The majority of TV dads are portrayed as lazy, childish, or grumpy. Often all three. TV moms, on the other hand, are rarely portrayed as any of those things (unless she's a criminal or something). Our society tells girls they're perfectly fine, and should NEVER change themselves for a guy. On the other hand, it tells boys they need to bend over backwards to make sure their girlfriends are happy with ever single aspect of them. If your girlfriend doesn't like video games, stop play them. If she hates comics, stop reading them. And the reason I'm using those as examples is because I have known many women to not like both of those things. And I'm not being sexist, and saying that all women don't like video games or comic books. I'm a girl, and I love both of those things. And not to mention existence of terrible, sexist games like "Boyfriend trainer" and movies like "Zapped" and "How to build a better boy". Boy friend trainer is literally an app where you "train" your virtual boy friend by slapping him, beating him, electrocuting him, etc. That's what you call domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is regarded as a horrible crime when it's against women (which it is), but when it comes to men they have, they have an app for it. That's so utterly disgusting, that I can even find the words to describe it. And it's not just an app. In real life, male victims of domestic abuse are often not taken seriously, and are even arrested it they report the abuse. The men gets arrested for getting abused. That doesn't even make a tiny bit of sense. Then there's the movies. Zapped and How to Build a Better Boy are both Disney channel movies. That means they're aimed towards kids. Zapped is basically about a girl who gets this app on her phone that controls dogs, but then the app magically starts controlling men instead. So then she decides that it's her humble duty to "fix" all the men she comes across because she pretty much finds every single guy she meets annoying (mainly because they're all portrayed doing sexist things. But frankly not all of them are actually being annoying. Some of them are just minding their own business yet she still finds them annoying because SHE doesn't see the relevance THEIR activities. Only one guy is actually rude to her.) So then she starts taking all the guys and making them "better". Not only does this movie portray men as in an EXTEREMLY sexist way (with the exception of one, who's the love interest of course.), but it's targeted towards young children who will absorb this information into their very impressionable brains. That really disturbs me. As for How to Build a Better Boy, the title speaks for itself. It's basically goes back to what I was saying earlier. Society says that women are perfect just the way they are. But it says that men aren't. We're told that in order to have the perfect man, we have to create him. Because according to society, there is no guy that just fine the way he is, and he's always going to need work. That's not even slightly true, yet that's what we're told. I could go on and on about sexism towards men, but I actually have more points to cover. I wasn't expecting to find anything about men's rights in the definition. It's feminism. It isn't about men's rights. You said that men already have (and so do women, I say), but equality isn't just about "rights". I think you might have taken the thing I said to which you replied. "not all feminist have brainwashed our society", out of context... Also, I didn't say you that "those people are either angry men or influenced by them". That's why I asked about it. Sorry if my mistaken lack of a question mark confused you. I have then tendency of doing that sometimes :). My bottom line is that, in America, I don't think women are worse off than men. What other rights (and the reason I say other is because I've already heard you opinion on the pay gap) do we (as American women) have to fight for? I'm much more interested in fighting sexism towards men because not many people are. It seems like a lot of people tend to get work up over women's problems and ignore the fact that men have just as many problems. They need to defend themselves, and I feel the need to defend them. But again, a lot of people don't. And I think that's sad. And one more thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you basically said that the people who don't agree with you are either uninformed or misinformed. Not to be rude or anything, but no one person knows everything. I'm not even an adult, so I definitely don't know everything. Just because a person doesn't believe in something, doesn't mean they're any less informed then the person who does believe in it. It just means they have a different opinion. I'm going to keep standing up for what I believe and you'll probably keep standing up for what you believe. And that's completely fine :). Thanks for taking the time to read this (I know it was very long).
- felicisowlover 9 yearsI was being stubborn and didn't see the other side's arguments.. but they're TRUE. Really.
- babybobover 9 yearsthat was the most right comment on this i have seen yet
gso44over 9 yearsamen to that sister
cocolletteover 9 yearsthat is so unfair... and i agree with you anne. i love this store, it gives us a lot to think about.
