Lies, Damn Lies and Gender Pay Gap Stastics

You may have noticed over the past few months a lot of press on the issue of the Gender Pay Gap - the percentage difference between average incomes for men and women. The UK national figure at present according to the Equal Opportunities Commission is 17.1% - which means that the average hourly rate of pay for women working full time is 17.1% less than the average hourly rate of pay for men - and that figure has not changed much over the past five years. However as you will see shortly - the difference is actually a lot worse than this

One of the reasons for the attention to this inequality was that at the end of March most local authorities failed to meet the deadline set 10 years ago to eliminate unequal pay for male and female employees. The gender pay gap in the public sector is now 13.8% - better than the national average indicating that private sector discrimination is still rife - but this hides the fact that the health sector generally has a gender pay gap of over 32%.

Bearing in mind that 80% of employees in health and social work are female it's pretty clear that men have a seriously disproportionate hold on higher paid jobs in the sector. What alarmed me recently was to discover that my local Primary Care Trust's draft Gender Equality Scheme (it's plan to meet the new Gender Equality Duty to eliminate discrimination and promote equality) didn't even mention this, let alone set our any plans to fix the problem.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 has been around now for 37 years - The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 for 32 years and we are told that this legislation has helped to reduce the gender pay gap from 28% to 17% - or has it?

Here is how the truth can be buried by statistics - the actual percentage as you will see depends on whether you look at it from the perspective of a man (how much less do women earn) or the perspective of a woman (how much more do women need to earn to catch up.)

The official gender pay gap figure means that women earn 17.1% less than men. But look at it from the perspective of women and the problem is bigger. The average hourly rate of pay for women will need to rise by 20.7% to catch up with men, assuming men don't get a pay rise.

But this still would not fix the problem because when we look a little deeper we discover that the average weekly income for women is £393 - that is 27% less than the £537 men earn - this is because even working full time, women tend to work shorter hours and work less overtime. So looked at from the position of a woman again, this means she needs an increase of 37% to catch up with men.

But - that still would not fix the problem because a disproportionate number of women work part time - often because they have caring and family responsibilities, but also because often the only work available is part time. Furthermore, because of career breaks women in retirement also receive substantially less then men.

So the average weekly income of all women is just £227 compared to £408 for men - a Gender Pay Gap of 44% - which is pretty alarming - but when we look at this from a woman's perspective is it close to criminal - In order to catch up with men, women would need on average an increase of 80%. Lets look at that again:

Men earn on average 80% more than women.

It's hardly surprising is it that women are now taking legal action over unequal pay - unfortunately those who really need the help because they are mothers trying to support a family on part time minimum wages from a retail or health organisation will probably not be able to take legal action because the entire sector is low paid employing almost entirely women.

If you would like to see all the EOC 2006 Facts about Men and Women in Britain you can download them here

Rikki Arundel
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Out of The Shadows - Transgender Children

In February a research report entitled Engendered Penalties: Transgender and Transsexual People's Experiences of Inequality and Discrimination was published in conjunction with the governments Discrimination Law Review which shows that 60% of Trans men and 40% of trans women suffered bullying and harassment at school.

In the USA the problems of harassment of young gender atypical people is far more severe than in the UK we think. This report from GenderPac, called 50 under 30, catalogues 50 people under thirty years of age who have been murdered simply because they did not fit the social norms for gender. It is a very disturbing report. In the UK we do not record gender variance or atypical gender when recording violent crime, so we have no idea if it is an issue.

Just a few weeks ago I came across this brilliant video that I hope might, if we spread it around enough, start to have an impact on changing the negative treatment of gender atypical children. We are who we are - that is the way we are born and the sooner everyone, including religions and the medical and psychiatric professions, recognises it the better. They should all see this video - who knows if one or two of them have open enough minds - the message may start to be received. The video is only seven minutes - I am sure you sill be moved by it.

Out of The Shadows - Transgender Children (8 minutes)




Rikki Arundel
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TransGender 101 - an Excellent NewsNight Interview

I have not really dealt with trans issues on this blog yet - so I am going to provide an introduction now with a video that recently arrived on You Tube and is one of the best videos I have ever seen in helping people to understand the issues - (Actually the video is in two parts, a total of just over 10 minutes)

Increasingly I now spend my time as a speaker raising awareness of Trans issues and it is a difficult task because there is so much confusion and so many stereotypical views. First there are so many different terms and even in the trans community there is little agreement regarding identities. Transvestite, transsexual, transgender, trans, cross dresser - and I have not even started on the cultural differences like Hijra, Kathoey and Travesti. For more information on this please do visit my Squidoo Lens on Trans History

This video is a recent News Night interview by Jim Braude with Joanne Herman and Diego Sanchez, two very successful trans people, about what it means to be transgender. What has really impressed me about this is that Jim is a very sensitive interviewer and has focused on the acceptance and social attitudes which is so seldom done in the UK where the focus is all too often on surgery. If you have never really spoken to a trans person I am sure you fill find these interviews enlightening as well as entertaining.

TransGender 101 - Part 1 - Interview with Joanne Herman and Diego Sanchez




TransGender 101 - Part 2 - Interview with Joanne Herman and Diego Sanchez



If those videos have prompted questions - please do ask me - post a comment and I will respond as soon as I can.

Rikki Arundel
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Corporate Irresponsibility and the Abuse of Women in the Media

Following on from my thoughts on the Dove Advertising campaign I came across some video previews today that look in more detail at just how the media is negatively using images of women. The full DVDs are about $20 or a lot more if used for public presentation where they are targeted as educational packages for schools and colleges in the USA. However I think these two previews are in themselves pretty powerful.

Both these videos are short (5-6 minute) well illustrates talks by Jean Kilbourne - and if you would like to see more details of the videos and previews on other topics please visit the web site of the Media Education Foundation.


Slim Hopes: Advertising & the Obsession With Thinness

This first video provides some startling facts about the way the media undermines self esteem in young women. For example did you know that 80% of 10 year old girls on on a diet, that 20% of mostly young women have serious eating disorders, that the Tobacco industry needs to recruit 3000 children in the USA every day to replace the people who die or quit smoking, that 60% of smokers started before 14 (the largest proportion being women).

What is the connection between being slim and smoking - you got it - smoking helps you to keep slim. Virtually all cigarette advertising in the USA includes the word Slim or features slim women. Fortunately in Europe as in much of the rest of the world Cigarette advertising has been banned, but this also shows just how big a stranglehold US corporations have and the level or corporate irresponsibility that exists



Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Image of Women

This video introduces the general issue of how women are portrayed in the media and the impact that has on our lives. It's worth remembering that virtually all advertising involves women. About 80% of all consumer purchases are made by women so as a result most advertising is targeted at women buyers often presenting messages promising us the chance to look like the model (super slim, young and sexy) if we buy the product. Where women are not the target, they become the subject of the advertising in order to attract male attention. It's the "Buy this product and you could pull women like this" theme - which also continue to present images of unattainable beauty (see the Dove Evolution of Beauty video yesterday).



So What can we do about it

Showing a problem is of no value without a solution. We can campaign against these images - and the British government took action to stop fashion houses using models who were too slim last year taking the lead from the Milan Fashion Show. Dove is leading the way in using images of normal women and older women in place of the photoshop enhanced plastic women.

That gives us an indication of what we can do. Advertising and the media generally present images and views of normalcy - a normalcy that largely is a myth. In promoting our business we can choose to present more realistic images. We can stop using women as sex images to attract male custom; we can treat women with respect in advertising; we can break stereotypes in our advertising; we can present our products and services in the context of reality.

Rikki Arundel
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Is America's FCC stupid - or is Dove just Very Clever?

In February, Dove launched their new Pro-Age ad campaign featuring four 50+ women wearing... well nothing actually. Shocked by the appearance of... wait for it... "too much skin"!!! America's advertising watchdog, the FCC, banned the ad - while Britain Canada and the rest of the world continue to watch it ad without the slightest concern.

Now let's be clear, if you have not see the ad, these these are probably not images that are going to make it to "Page 3" or any other glamour magazine, they are not full frontal, in fact I have seen far more provocative images on MTV and in shower Gel ads. The images were tasteful, very much on the lines of Helen Mirren and Julie Walters in calender Girls - Hey why not see for yourself...

Dove - Banned Pro-Age Ad



Alternatively you could pop over to the Dove Campaign For Real Beauty web site where they are not just showing the ad, but encouraging a debate on the issues around the ban and showing short film of American women's attitudes to the ad. The ban has created an outcry of foul across the US and the rest of the world and Dove is using that outcry to leverage it's campaign - Clever?

I do not have a TV so have not seen the ads in the UK but I read blogs and 2 months on this story just will not go away. Could Dove have got that much publicity if the ad had not been banned? Unilever, who own the Dove Brand are very experienced marketers and Dove have never been afraid of being controversial in the past. I have not seen any reports of lawyers challenging the ban - which may simply be because I have not see the reports :) But is it possible that this ban is actually doing more to further the campaign than if it were shown? Did Dove already think that this would get banned when they released it? Or is Dove simply demonstrating how to take advantage of a situation? Or is the answer to all three questions "Yes"?

Have a look at another short Dove video...

The Evolution of Beauty (1:14 mins)




This Evolution of Beauty video clearly shows where Dove is positioning this campaign. They are out to change attitudes towards feminine beauty, not to push back the boundaries on US morals. In order to change attitudes what they need is - controversy - debate - discussion - and that is exactly what they got - The ban is a dominant topic in the Blogosphere, the ad is being viewed thousands of times daily on You Tube, Google Video and elsewhere - costing in advertising spend... absolutely nothing. And it has been discussed at length on TV shows including a huge endorsement from Oprah Winfry - you just can't buy this kind of PR.

All in all I would say a very successful ad campaign.

Rikki Arundel
Motivational Speaker
Speaking and Marketing Tips
Small Business Marketing Strategies Blog
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