We are all human beings:

I never noticed sexism, racism, or anything that happened around the world until COVID-19 hit, I was completely blind to it. So I never noticed that at my church it was only the mothers and women who made food, served food, brought it there, and worked in the kitchen. I’ve only seen about two men, who weren’t fixing some appliances but were serving, making, and bringing food. The history of Equality, how men and women are treated differently in the workplace, the difference between men's and women's pay gap, and the solutions that can hopefully make the gap better.  

For years women have been working on getting the world to see that they are women, not an object to keep in the kitchen or take care of their children. In 1765, women established the Daughters of Liberty. Who were the first working women and went on to protest against the Stamp and Townshend Acts. They were mostly created as a response to unfair British taxation in the Colonies. According to the History of Massachusetts in the article, ‘The Daughters of Liberty: Who Were They and What Did They Do?’ written by Rebecca Beatrice Brooks on December 15, 2015, “The Daughters of Liberty didn’t join in on the public protests and riots incited by the Sons of Liberty in 1765. Instead, they organized and participated in boycotts and helped manufacture goods when non-importation agreements caused shortages,” The Daughters of Liberty did so many things, including when there was a shortage in the colony of specific goods like textiles in 1768, they organized spinning bees to spin yarn and wool into the fabric, along with many other amazing things. In 1776, a woman named Abigail Adams promoted gender equality. “She brought many issues on gender equality to the White House in 1797. She also emphasized the importance of educating girls and appealed for equal rights for women and men,” according to Stacker in the article ‘History of women in workplaces’ written by Joni Sweet on December 15, 2015. Abigail Adams always supported independence and argued that it should be applied to women as well as men. On March 31, 1776, when her husband was president she wrote to him telling him, “And, by the way, in the New Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors … Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice or Representation.” From 1809 to 1899, women evolved largely. In 1809, a woman earned their first patent in silky braiding for hats. In 1825, some workers from the first all-women union went to 1831. In 1847, Maria Mitchell opened doors for women in STEM, she helped pave the way for women to go into engineering, science, technology, and math careers. In 1867, the cigar makers union welcomed women workers. In 1873, a ruling allowed the state to exclude women from practicing law, saying that practicing law could disrupt her duties as a mother and wife. In 1992, the American Federation of Labor appointed the first women organizer. In 1898, Charlotte Perkins Gilman pushed for women's financial independence; publishing “Women and Economics” while arguing that women must become economically independent from men. In 1920, women got the vote, and in 1963 JFK signed the Equal Pay Act. And now, the government removed the deadline on the Equal Rights Amendment in 2020. And the big question is: Will women have achieved equal pay to men by 2059?

The gender wage gap is the difference in the earnings between men and women. Women consistently earn less than men, and the wage gap is quite larger for most women of color. According to American Progress in an article written on March 24, 2020, “For every $1 earned by white, non-Hispanic men, Filipino women earned 83 cents, Tongan women earned 75 cents, and Nepali women earned 50 cents.” Transgender women and immigrant women also experience the ‘compounding negative effects of multiple biases on their earnings’. The cause of the wage gap isn’t just in one place but all over the world and reflects on the earnings for women and men across all industries. The differences in the industries or jobs worked at can be the cause of the wage gap. Society brings women and men into different types of jobs based on gender norms and expectations, which are jobs that had mostly women workers and jobs with mostly men workers, creating the gender norms. The difference in the experience can also be the cause. Women are driven out of the workforce because of those gender norms and into caregiving, motherhood, and taking care of the husband because he says he can’t. Making women have less experience than men. The difference between the hours worked is also causing it. Women tend to have shorter hours or work fewer hours because of caregiving or other unpaid obligations, or they work part-time. Making men sweep in and take full-time jobs and get more experience. And Discrimination has a large part, which has been illegal since 1963 but is still frequently happening. Industries pay based on your gender making the salary less or more. Like, most companies pay women less and men more. It follows women from job to job. Those are just some of the examples that cause wage gaps. Even if we get away from the wage gap, we can never truly get away from the gender norms because some people will always think that men and women shouldn't be equal in the workforce. 

"You can believe men and women have truly different natural tendencies and skills, that women are better nurturers and caretakers, and still believe women should have equal rights in the labor force," said Barbara Risman, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an author of the paper along with William Scarborough, a sociology doctoral candidate there and Ray Sin, a behavioral scientist at Morningstar in the article ‘Equality valued at work, not necessarily at home’ by Claire Cain Miller with New York Times on Dec. 5th, 2018. When a woman is in a workplace full of men, it can be extremely intimidating because at a young age women feel like they have to bow down to a man if he says so. Fox News is a large example of what can happen in a workplace as a woman. You’re surrounded by men and their cologne, always watching their back because they know there could be at least one of those men in the workplace. If it wasn’t all like this, we as women wouldn’t need to hold our keys like we’re ready to attack, or not have decorative decorations in our car because that’s how human trafficking happens to figure out that it's a teenager's car, or not be able to wear a tightly fitted outfit because we don’t want to be catcalled or harassed because of what we’re comfortable in. As a woman, we can be overlooked. When women have the position as their male colleagues; they have an idea. They present the idea at a meeting but instead the men or a man take it as their own, and now we get nothing. But if we confront them, then they would just say that they did us a favor. That woman shouldn’t work that hard, we have to take care of our family even if we have one. It isn’t just about taking your idea, sexual harassment, or intimidation but the little sexist things. Many women can be mistaken for the secretary or coffee lady. Women are called ‘good girl’, and when confronting the person or calling them ‘good boy’ to get the point across, they say ‘I didn’t mean it like that. When you’re voicing a firm opinion, you’re called out if you're menstruating at that time, or being asked if a man is available instead. You get asked about childcare plans or maternity risk. When you're a mother, it’s also just as hard, harder actually. When a woman has children and/or a family to keep afloat but doesn't have a minimum wage that can keep up the rent. It will do a lot of damage. Maybe the kids won’t have food, money, or supplies to bring to school. Or they only have enough money to buy one meal a day. They get kicked out of their house because the rent is late. Now, she is homeless with however many kids. Then they get fired because she can’t keep up with their job. Those are just some of the things that can happen when you're a mother with lower pay. The pay gap isn’t just about a few cents. A few cents can do barely anything, right? No, they do so much. According to American Progress written on March 24, 2020, “A woman working full time, year-round earned $10,194 less than her male counterpart, on average, in 2018. If this wage gap were to remain unchanged, she would earn about $407,760 less than a man throughout a 40-year career. Again, these earnings gaps are larger for most women of color.” But one of the big mistakes a lot of people make is that they think it's all men. It’s some men but not all men. Some men are against this. 

The wage gap isn’t just complex and nuanced but it’s also extremely stubborn. The wage gap has only been closed by 4 cents in more than a decade, making the wage of men and women equal by 2059. One of the solutions would be to stop gender roles and cultural biases that continue to harm. Women being able to have children and a family or not; being able to work and be a mother or not. Men can be a caretaker and be working, or a stay at home dads as the mother works. Whatever the person wants but shouldn’t be excluded from because one gender seems weak and the other is strong. To close the wage gap, women would have more education than men. And not only about the wages but the conditions. Having a breastfeeding station for mothers, breaks for breastfeeding, and more. Unionization can help to close the wage gap. According to American progress written on March 24, 2020, “Workers collectively often have greater leverage to push workplace changes, combat discriminatory practices targeting specific groups of workers, bargain for better working conditions and wages, and more. However, the cumulative effects of factors such as these are not large enough to close the gap entirely. It is important to note that many of these factors can be directly and indirectly influenced by discrimination based on gender and race, or ethnicity.” 

What I’m saying is that the wage gap is a large problem around the world for all. Trying to fix the wage gap is difficult unless you have a large group that can move people and helps them understand what the wage gap is and how it affects others. And trying to teach others about the history of the wage gap, what exactly the wage gap is, what can happen to women in the workplace when treated differently, and the solutions we can try hard to get. But why does it matter that women should have the same pay as men? There’s no full reasoning behind why women deserve to have the same wage except that we’re still human beings and deserve to be treated equally in this world along with men.