Lately, I have been thinking radical feminist thoughts. I have been wondering how much it really helped that our mothers and grandmothers burned their bras and fought for affirmative action and equality. I know I shouldn’t be bitching about this, I do have the right to vote, to wear what I wish, to drive, to walk down the street, to own property and do a plethora of other things women in some parts of the world do not have.

But, I don’t live in those other parts of the world. I live in the country that is supposedly based on equality and freedom. I live in a country where I am supposed to be equal to the men in the cube next to mine.

But, I’m not.

I get paid about 1/3 of what the men who do the same work as I (usually less) and have the same job description as I do. In all reality, I probably get paid less than 1/3 of what they get paid. One man I work with was bitching about how when he was looking for a job, all of the “Scientist” positions only paid 60k a year and that just wasn’t worth his time. That is almost double my salary.

The women in my Research and Development department are just as educated as the men, do the same work if not more and work the same hours, yet, we get paid so much less than them. I’m not talking a couple thousand a year less, I’m talking like significant amounts… 30 to 40 grand a year less.

I was looking around on salary dot com to see what the average salary is for a job description like mine in the area where I work. Now, I found a job that is similar to what I do, minus the project “coordination” (they won’t call it project management because only men can manage projects, we girls just do all the work for the manager). The mean salary for the job is about 49k a year. The bottom 95th percentile is about 40k a year. This would put me, and all of the women in my department in the bottom 1% of the pay scale, with me at the bottom for being the newest hire.

Let me get back to the whole issue with the Project Coordination. I am the project coordinator on two projects right now. This mean I put together the schedule and make sure tasks are accomplished on time as well as take care off all paperwork that needs to be filed. The Project Leader for the project, the one who actually gets the credit for completing the project does … well, if someone doesn’t want to do something, he basically goes and talks to them if I can’t get them to bend. So, basically, I do all of the work, get none of the credit and have no power to make anyone meet the schedule that I am responsible for keeping.

My company gets away with this by giving women different titles from the men. The job description is the same, just the title is different. I have to work twice as hard to get ½ the recognition. I have to make no mistakes, no foul ups, no errors. I have to be perfect just to hope to get my 3% raise (which is the max allowed).

Why? They say that men have to take care of the family. Well, you know what, so do I. I am the breadwinner in my house as are several other of the women in my department. We just hired a temp for the department. They started his pay at 17$ an hour. They started my pay at 15$ an hour when I was a temp.

I am a scientist. I work in an environment where the people should be able to see past the fact that I don’t have a penis. I work in a field where logic and reason should be forefront. I work in a field where people shouldn’t see me based on my gender. Scientists are supposed to be unbiased and “smart”.

But, you know what. I am not treated like an equal. I’m not getting paid for my brain, I’m getting paid for my gender.

If I was being treated like an equal, I would be getting paid the same as any man in my department. They say women get paid 15% less than men on average. I wonder what the % is in science. We’re always complaining that there aren’t enough women in math and science. Well, with the way we’re treated, who the fuck would want to remain here? You have to really love science to stay in the field as a woman.

I say, if you really want women to go into the field of science, start by paying them the same.

Posted by Utopia at January 23, 2007 11:00 AM

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