I just finished my latest tapestry from my Women’s Equity Series. That means it’s time to start coming up with a title for the work. I am thinking of calling it “Women Work” (not Women’s Work), because the equity issue is about work and being paid equally. The gender pay gap is REAL thing. Women are still paid roughly 80 cents for every $1 a man receives for the same work. And that’s the average, it’s much worse for African American and Hispanic women.
My tapestry uses a Leonardo sketch of a woman’s hands as the basis. I’ve added the indigo blue yarn between her fingers because I want to depict her working. She is warping a loom but this is something that women did in Leonardo’s day as well as today. It represents the lack of progress in the pay gap. It has taken 25 years for us to make 8 cents worth of progress. At that rate it will be in the 2080’s before we make the same wage for the same work. I don’t know about you but that is TOO LONG!
But fixing the problem isn’t easy. We could keep men from getting raises while women increase their pay, or we could lay off a few men so women can get their raises. Neither of those ideas seem appealing. How about shareholders take less of a payout, so management can give women bigger raises than their counterpart men? That will never happen. I think our big name Business Schools need to make this their number one priority to solve and make it happen now!
WOMEN WORK