Does equality mean equality?
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There has been a large amount of publicity around the gender pay gap over the last couple of weeks and for the most part, I am in agreement with what is being said. However, I do feel that there is an element of this that people are missing. I am one of four children, three girls and one boy. I remember my mother saying when we were small to my brother, "enjoy these years when you are young as you will spend the rest of your life working with no break". Of course, being from a long line of very strong women including my mother, I very much jumped on this statement with her. Why was she not saying this to her three daughters? The response she gave, was that we may be blessed with children and would spend a period of time out of the employed environment, which will never happen to my brother… because he is a man.
Now I have never had children so this gap has never happened to me, but I have seen it with my sisters, friends and clients. I have also seen the consequence this has had on their careers and their personal financial position. Part of this has been by choice, but some have no choice. A large number of women who have children are unable to work full time, they have no alternative other than to work part time, thereby finding men have advanced in their careers. So automatically they have larger incomes, which is only fair. If a man has continued to expand his experience and work hard for what he has achieved in his career, it is not fair to be paid the same as another man or women, who have not put the same years in as him.