Here's How Much Women Earn Compared To Men At These 10 Jobs
WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH IS STILL HAPPENING, OK?!
In honor of the final week of the one month a year that celebrates the strides made by women of all walks, let's talk about the pay gap!
Sadly, while women working as hardware engineers, internal medical residents or social workers earn as much as or more than their male co-workers, there are still occupations that fail to pay lady workers the same wages as the dudes.
Glassdoor compiled a list of 10 positions in which women are still waiting to earn the same pay as men, and the list is a doozy. Keep reading to the bottom, as I started with the smaller pay gaps and ended with the (more) ridiculous discrepancies.
1. Pilot
This is a career choice that terrifies most of us, so anyone willing to get up in the air and steer a massive heap of aluminum and titanium around the sky deserves fair compensation, rather than 84 cents for every dollar made by some dude pilot who, in all our imaginations, definitely has a mustache like the guy on a Red Baron Pizza box.
2. Optician
Keeping everyone's vision clear enough to drive a car or avoid reaching for cooking spray instead of dry shampoo is a serious duty. Unfortunately for the women who've committed their lives to improving our sight, they earn 83 cents for every dollar pocketed by male opticians.
3. Physician
Let's not even discuss the importance of all physicians as if it's not blindingly obvious. If anyone is going to prevent me from dying of pneumonia, she deserves more than 82 cents for every dollar made by the bros she eats lunch with every day.
4. CAD Designer
The fields of architecture, engineering and art all rely heavily on the technical illustrations of a CAD (aka, computer-aided design) designer. Instead of losing our minds over the redundant nature of the job's title, let's work to get women in the field more than 78 cents on a male designer's dollar.
5. Pharmacist
When an insane virus has you looking like those dead souls floating around the Underworld in the Disney version of “Hercules,” your pharmacist is there to provide you with the medicine you need to become a whole human again. The women working in the pharmaceutical world are board-certified employees who could use more than 78 cents for every dollar made by male pharmacists.
6. Psychologist
My psychologist helped me through years of breakups, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, bouts of anxiety and depression, ill-conceived haircuts and once, during a less stressful period in my life, even showed me the proper way to use free weights. If I could, I'd pay her 4.7 billion dollars for every dollar made by a man in her field. It is with a heavy heart I admit I cannot afford to pay her quite that much, but 73 cents on the dollar? I'm not doing that, either.
7. C-Suite
Ugh, people, please. Paying a CEO, COO or CFO 72 cents on the damn dollar based on gender? That's not very Sheryl Sandberg.
8. Dentist
Firstly: Their hands. Go in. Our gross. Mouths. Secondly: You cannot pay a woman 72 cents for every dollar made by her male peers and then expect her to fix 100 percent of your jacked-up teeth. That's just bad business.
9. Chef
Staunch traditionalists (read: misogynist assh*les) often suggest a woman's place is in the kitchen. If that's true, then why is she only being paid 72 cents for every dollar made by the guy tenderizing a pork chop at the station next to her? Think it over while you finish that delicious sammie.
10. Computer Programmer
Recent efforts to get young women involved, empowered and excited about science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers warm my heart like a trash-can fire on a cold winter's night. Hopefully, the more women we all help to feel confident about their brilliant contributions to the tech world, the fewer women will have to walk home at the end of a long work day with 72 cents for every dollar earned by male programmers.
The pay gap is shrinking for women working in many professions and, let's be honest, it's hardly the biggest threat facing women today. (I'm looking at you, rape culture and lawmakers who can't comprehend women's health issues.)
For those of us able to use our voices and demand fair compensation, let's end the struggle for equal pay one raise at a time.
Citations: 10 Jobs Where Women Earn Less, More and The Same (Glassdoor Blog)
