Letter to the Editor
Daily Mining Gazette, Houghton, Michigan, 7April 2018


http://www.mininggazette.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/2018/04/gender-biases-create-pay-gap/

To the Editor:

Data show that women earn less than men (AAUW, 2017). This gender wage gap is 20 percent on average, across all workers.

The gap is even larger for women of color. The gap remains 7 percent, even when all the reasonable explanations (college major, occupation, GPA, economic sector, etc.) are accounted for.

The gap appears right away: one year from graduation, women engineers’ salaries are only 88 percent of men engineers (see “Graduating to a Pay Gap, by the AAUW; online).

What is the cause of the gap? Research shows that we hold ideas about male and female performance that affects how we rate the work of men and women. These ideas, or non-conscious biases, tilt ever so slightly towards men and away from women, on average, and make a difference in how women are evaluated and paid. This disadvantage accumulates over hundreds of interactions every day and millions of interactions in a lifetime — mountains are made from molehills.

What can we do about the gender wage gap and other effects of our non-conscious biases? Research shows that we can interrupt our non-conscious biases by slowing down, and examining the judgements we are making and using our “slow brain” rather than our “fast brain” (Thinking Fast and Slow, by Nobel Prize winner D. Kahneman). Our “fast” judgements make us jump to conclusions rather than following our “slow” and thoughtful thinking that better represents our values.

Please support the observance of Equal Pay Day, which the Copper Country League of Women Voters is sponsoring on Tuesday April 10 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Husky statue on campus near the library. There will be cookies and literature and the opportunity to be more knowledgeable about the circumstances that perpetuate the gender wage gap.

Solving this problem is good for everyone, since everyone has women in their lives.

Faith Morrison
Hancock

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