We can never adequately pay women their worth, yet we MUST do FAR better in the attempt! by Debra L Morrison
Sadly, women are still woefully underrepresented in Fortune 500 Company C-Suites, and have not been adequately recognized as power brokers per se in typical corporate boardrooms. While women used to bristle at the word ‘power’ due to such a prolonged history of ‘power over’ regimes, we are now espousing ‘power WITH’ language, taking our stand with the ‘less powerful’, which often means other-than-white women. Women have indeed utilized their own life stories and experiences of bustin’ through barriers, leveraging their keen negotiating skills, and achievements for the benefit of all of society and the world. And make no mistake, corporations have happily continued to pad their profit margins on these women’s backs; i.e., from women NOT being paid on a par with their equally trained male counterparts. The pernicious gender wage gap has crippled decades of brilliant women who have contributed
groups-of-zeros worth of intellectual capital, empathy, resilience and team building skills that buttress corporate profits, only to receive a modicum of financial remuneration. The lower salaries, lower bonuses, lower Company 401(k) match, fewer weeks of paid vacation, and ultimately lessor Social Security, are all pegged to salary, so the annual deficits compound, amounting to the loss of nearly $1 MILLION, based upon a 20 year working career. Yet the ‘crippling’ extends beyond finances; the loss of self-esteem, the gnawing feeling of insignificance and the unrelenting stress levels wreaks havoc with higher cortisol production, and onset of high blood pressure and increased risk of heart disease for too many women.
Until either the systemic injustice of gender pay inequity is rectified OR money is no longer the principal measurement of a (business) person’s worth, women will be playing the unwinnable game of catch up, perhaps killing their health, or parts thereon, in the pursuit. How women juggle raising kids, dressing and making themselves up daily to be board-room ready, enduring commute delays, cooking meals & cobbling together kids’ homework assignments as well as their own zoom call slides, starting at 9pm, is still a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not to me. Page 124
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