Under normal circumstances, free publicity is good for business. However, in some cases, it can end up costing an organization dearly. As a woman who has had to overcome many obstacles to build a successful career while raising three children, all while shouldering most of the responsibilities at home, I was shocked and dismayed by a recent post on the Chamber of Commerce blog.
As many of you know, we celebrated the 90th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 18, which gave women the right to vote. In a stunningly controversial gesture, the Chamber of Commerce blog published an article, Equality, Suffrage and a Fetish for Money, implying that women are to blame for unequal pay in the workplace. Needless to say, there was an immediate and violent backlash across the blogosphere that has since gone viral.
In his blog post, Senior Director of Communications for the Chamber of Commerce, Brad Peck, suggested that the pay gap between men and women (women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns) is “the result of individual choice rather than discrimination”. Peck’s most egregious offense was his insinuation that women who insist on equal pay have a “fetish for money”. Peck went on to suggest that the most obvious solution is not equal pay legislation but for women to make sure they choose the right place to work and the right partner at home. I think it’s safe to say that the Chamber of Commerce is now enjoying an avalanche of free publicity as headlines like, “Chamber of Commerce hates women” fly across the internet.
Fortunately for the Chamber of Commerce, within 24 hours, the COO, David Chavern wrote an updated post titled, “A Wrong and Wrongheaded Look At The Wage Gap” where he stated that Peck’s piece was simplistic and misguided.
There is a very important lesson here for business owners. If you are going to take a public stance on any issue that has the slightest potential for controversy, you better make sure you have your facts straight. Notwithstanding Chavern’s retraction, there is evidence to suggest that the Chamber of Commerce is insensitive to the injustice women suffer when they perform equal work for less pay than men; if not guilty of waging all out war on the feminine gender.
The data abounds supporting the fact that even within the same occupations; women are paid less than men. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), “In 2009, women had median weekly earnings that were roughly 80 percent of the earnings of their male counterparts.” Although the wage gap was not as significant among younger workers, women aged 35 years and older earned approximately 75% as much as men.
And then there was the data collected by the Census Bureau in 2007 showing that female secretaries earn 83.4% as much as their male counterparts and female truck drivers earn 76.5% of their male counterparts. Another report by the University of Minnesota found that women earn $11,000 less than men with the same jobs.
A 2007 American Association of University Women report compared men and women with similar hours, occupation, parenthood, and other factors normally associated with pay. The results were that college-educated women still earn less than their male peers. The report concluded that workplace discrimination is the culprit in the wage gap.
The pay inequity between men and women is so pervasive that it shows up for people even after they’ve had a sex change. Kristen Schilt and Matthew Wiswall studied the wages of subjects both before and after sex change operations. Even when factors like education were controlled, men who became women earned an average of 32% less. Conversely, women who became men earned 1.5% more.
A scant 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. The “2009 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500 Women Board Directors,” revealed that women held only 15.2 percent of board of director seats at Fortune 500 companies in 2009. The “2009 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500 Women Executive Officers and Top Earners,” revealed that in 2009, women held 13.5% percent of executive officer positions and 6.3% of high income positions at Fortune 500 companies.
Apparently, the position the Chamber of Commerce took on equal pay is just the most recent in a long history of opposition to gender equality. Following Peck’s post, detractors came out in droves citing several instances where the Chamber of Commerce failed to support women’s right in America:
- 1977: Chamber of Commerce opposes an amendment to the Civil Rights Act that banned discrimination against pregnant women.
- 1978: Chamber of Commerce says pregnancy is a “voluntary” condition in its opposition to Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
- 1987: According to the Chamber of Commerce, Family Medical Leave Act “sets a dangerous precedent.”
- 1998: Chamber of Commerce opposes Equal Pay Act because “work experience does tend to create greater wage gaps.”
- 2007: Chamber of Commerce opposes Lilly Ledbetter’s court case for equal pay because of “tear-stained testimony” prejudices against a defendant. They also opposed the bill in Congress to right the wrongs against Ledbetter in 2008 and 2009 as well.
- 2007: Chamber of Commerce official pledges “all out war” against Family Medical Leave Act, and in 2010 made it a “priority” to fight it in Congress.
Now, I don’t believe for a minute that the Chamber of Commerce is out of touch. Nor do I believe they have been waging war on the feminine gender. I can only conclude that they are taking these actions in the best interest of their constituents. I just happen to believe that equal pay is an issue that transcends business. It is a moral, ethical, and social issue.
Quite frankly, I am surprised that the Chamber of Commerce feels it can afford the type of negative press they have received relative to gender equality issues considering how their membership numbers have been plummeting. It seems foolish that they would risk offending the 10 million women-owned businesses in the US today that employ over 13 million people and generate nearly $2 trillion in annual sales (see our previous article on this topic, Business Is Women’s Work ). But, what do I know?
Perhaps, the Chamber of Commerce is unaware of the signs of an emerging upward trend toward feminine power in the world. Hanna Rosin wrote at length about it in her article, The End Of Men published in the July/August edition of The Atlantic.
Rosin’s article indicated that the gap between women and men in terms of opportunity is changing quite rapidly around the world. It is fascinating to note that many aspiring parents prefer girls over boys when taking advantage of new scientific advances that allow them to choose the sex of their offspring.
Another indicator that women are destined to close the wage gap, in spite of the small number of female CEOs in America’s largest companies, is the fact that they earned 43% more than their male peers and enjoyed bigger raises last year. And, when women do make it to the top, it creates quite a stir. Names like Meg Whitman at eBay, Carly Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard, Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo and Ann Mulcahey at Xerox have received so much publicity that Whitman and Fiorina have decided to leverage their fame and go into politics.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women now hold 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs. This is an impressive increase over 1980 when it was just 26.1%. Women now represent 54% of all Accountants, nearly half of all banking and insurance professionals, 33.3% of all physicians and 45% of all lawyers in America.
According to Rosin, women are now flooding the halls of today’s colleges and professional schools. Three women receive a B.A. for every two men who receive one.
Some of the most important business skills required to succeed professionally today include communication, emotional intelligence, creativity and collaboration; areas in which women tend to be equally qualified, if not more so, than men. The only occupations women still lag behind men are related to engineering and science.
Rosin went on to cite research conducted at Columbia Business School and the University of Maryland that analyzed data on the top 1,500 U.S. companies from 1992 to 2006 to identify the relationship between company performance and female representation in senior management. The study showed that companies with women in senior management performed better, especially if innovation was a key strategy.
The study results could be an indication that women in senior positions have a positive impact on company performance. Or, maybe it’s just that top performing companies are more successful in attracting and retaining the most talented women. In either case, females tend to be promoted within successful and innovative companies.
While women are underrepresented among the ranks of senior executives and are “opting” out of corporate America in droves, they are not, as Peck would have us believe, going back to the kitchen and minding the kids. They are launching new enterprises at twice the rate of men. And, their growth rates of employment and revenue have outpaced the economy.
However, in spite of the indicators that women are finding their own way to close the pay gap, as of 2008, the average revenues for woman-owned businesses totaled only 27% of the average revenues for male-owned businesses. Personally, I believe it is in America’s best interest to correct this discrepancy. By writing this article, I am attempting to do my small part to ensure that my daughters and granddaughters have it easier than I did and to make sure they see a brighter horizon ahead for their gender.
Feel free to contact me by visiting my LinkedIn page or emailing me at susan.fronk@bestbizpractices.org.
*Illustration by Dale Hitchcox.
Posted by: Susan Fronk
