Here we go again, the date when we notice that the gender wage gap in the US is still hanging around. As we call it out this year on March 15, let’s ask why it’s so stubborn–and what the heck we can do about it.
I think about work a lot—as in, how human beings do labor with their minds and bodies. We’re pretty intriguing animals. We plant and harvest crops, construct bridges and roads, knit sweaters, write books, design games. How we use our time is the foundation not just of our economy, but our cultures, religions, societies.
I think about humans doing work for me, too, as I sit here at the computer. The people at the Trader Joe’s down the street, stocking the shelves and dealing with customers; the people in the processing plants, trimming the fat off chickens, freezing pizzas, making yogurt; and the people in the fields, picking blueberries and bananas and mangoes.
And I am stumped. How is it that our economic calculus so deeply undervalues and undercompensates all that work—jobs that are, I have to say, so much more fundamental to the running of our systems than is mine? All the bloggers could evaporate tomorrow, and I’d still have a refrigerator full of blueberries and yogurt.
Along with service at the local pub, care for my elderly mother at the facility where she lives, and customer service at the bank—all jobs that require a lot of effort for paltry wages.
And, jobs that are disproportionately done by women; and that pay less than “men’s work” jobs. Which...
NC said on the 7th that it filed a complaint with the Gangnam Police Station in Seoul against the operator of the YouTube channel "Yeongraeggi" on charges including spreading false information and...