A Tally of the Money I Didn’t Make Because of My Gender
Looking at the gender wage gap in action
Recently, feminist author Chidera Eggerue made waves by telling a woman to dump her broke medical student boyfriend and stop “splitting the bill.” She said,
In a world where for every dollar… [a man makes], I make 79 cents, it doesn’t make any sense for me to go and be pouring water into the ocean, going halves on bills.
I have mixed feelings about her argument, though her point about the wage gap is something I don’t take lightly. I’ve struggled with this my entire life.
People hear these statistics a lot (the 79 cents for every dollar a man makes) and there’s something about them that feels intangible. Like…what does that really mean? Sure, it means our overall salary is less than a man’s, but when we also see headlines like “More women are outearning their husbands than ever — but we aren’t willing to talk about it,” it creates a lot of confusion about an issue that already feels difficult to illustrate.
What does the gender pay gap really look like?
Gender Roles & Money
The wheels of gender equality move very slowly. Even as we see an increase in women out-earning male spouses, it doesn’t change the sexist gender dynamics at home. According to a 2018 study by the U.S. Census Bureau, women who earn more than their husbands often say they earned less than they did, while their male partners often say they earned more. There are studies that suggest that hetero marriages in which a woman earns more are more likely to end in divorce, and that men who earn less are more likely to have an affair.
The Actual Numbers
Shockingly, the “70 cents to the dollar” estimates might not even be fully accurate. In 2018, Forbes cited a study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research that suggested women only make 49 cents to every dollar a man makes. The research went on to reveal that women’s average earnings from 2001 to 2015 were just under $30,000, while men’s during that time were over $50,000.
The Gender Pay Gap Experience
As a woman, I have experienced the gender pay gap again and again, but not necessarily in ways, you might expect. It’s not always the number on a paycheck. I wanted to share my experiences to show people — men, in particular — how this pay gap affects us in real life. This is more than just a chart, graph, or numbers in a research paper.
The Diverted Paycheck (2008)
Straight out of grad school, I was hired for a short-term teaching job. There was only one problem: My license hadn’t yet been processed by the state and until it was, I could not collect certified wages nor could I be alone in a classroom with students without a district employee or a licensed teacher present. My new boss, a white man in his 60s, apologized that he’d have to give my wages to a substitute teacher while I worked for free, but that it would only be for a day or two — surely, by then my license would come through.
I agreed. The recession had just tanked my chances of getting a permanent contract with the district — teachers were being let go right and left. After completing the state-required six months of unpaid, full-time student teaching and getting the first bill for my $25,000 student loan, I was desperate for the work.
The substitute they hired happened to be a young man in his twenties who sat down at “my” new desk, pulled out a novel, and read. He sat there like that all day as I taught, and when he left, he smiled and said, “Damn, this is the easiest money I’ve ever made.”
I tried to be gracious, but I was fuming. That was my paycheck. Surely, though, my license would be processed by the next day…
A full week later, my license still hadn’t come through. I continued with my lessons and took papers home to grade while that young, male substitute sat in my chair and read all day long, then left with my paycheck.
I was in tears that Friday afternoon when Katie, the 62-year-old silver-haired head of the English Department came into the room and asked to speak to me privately.
“You’re going to go into the administration office right now and threaten to quit if they don’t pay you. Do you understand?” she said. “I can’t remain silent about this for one more second. They are taking advantage of you because you’re a…” She stopped short, but I knew she wanted to say “woman.”
“I know they can’t pay you certified wages until your license comes in, but they should be paying you classified wages. You are working your ass off and that little twit is taking home your money.”
I was grateful for her advice and I agreed to do what she suggested, but by the time I got into the office, I was shaking with fear and was so tired of the emotional burden of the past week that I just wanted to quit.
I told my boss I wouldn’t be returning on Monday and that the sub who had been with me all week could just take over.
My boss shot out of his chair. “No way. Doug picked you to do this job. He spent a week prepping you when you were here student teaching. No one else knows it like you do. What if I pay you classified wages until your license is processed?”
I was too relieved to be angered by his suggestion — too relieved to notice that he should have offered that from Day 1. And too relieved to demand back pay. I agreed, again assuming it would only be for one more day — surely my license would be processed any second.
As it turned out, it took another full week before my license came through. I worked approximately 112 hours and made $440. The young male substitute read at my desk for 80 hours and walked away with $1,760 — what would have been my wages if I had had my license. I never got paid for that first week and wouldn’t have gotten paid for the second week if Katie hadn’t encouraged me to push back.
The Unpaid Training (2011)
After years of working as a substitute in an economic downturn that was showing no signs of letting up, I finally gave up (substitute teaching is grueling, folks) and decided to take a 50% pay cut in order to work as a teaching assistant so I could have a predictable, steady job.
My boss, a white male who was my age, called me a week before my contract started and asked if I would come in for an unpaid two-hour training. The idea didn’t sit well with me — I was in my mid-30’s, had a teaching license and was already vastly overqualified for the position. I didn’t appreciate being asked to do a training for free.
On the other hand, I was aware of how many other teachers like me were taking assistant jobs — there were no other positions available in the local school districts. I didn’t want to lose the opportunity, so I agreed.
Two hours in, I discovered the training was actually four hours long. I was livid.
I couldn’t help myself. I turned to the young man who had just been hired in the same position who was going to be my reading group partner. He was ten years my junior and two degrees behind me — I had a master’s and he hadn’t even finished his bachelor’s yet.
“Can you believe they asked us to do an unpaid training?” I whispered to him. “I’ve never had a boss do that before. This is nuts.”
He looked at me as if I had a horn coming out of my head. “I’m on the clock. I would never come to work for any reason unless I was being paid. That’s bullshit. And illegal.”
I remember I stood up suddenly, my face burning. I was livid. They were paying him and not me?
I complained to my direct supervisor, but she didn’t seem to know anything about it. It was our boss who had called me in, after all, and apparently, he hadn’t talked to her about it. She told me to just go home and come back when my contract officially began — so I did.
But I never got paid for that time and to this day, I regret not threatening to file a grievance.
Sugar Daddy (2007–2014)
During most of the course of my relationship with my last partner, he made more than twice as much money as I did. Let me again emphasize that I had a master’s degree and nine years more experience in the workforce than he had. I was a teacher. He delivered and installed appliances. Both of our jobs were physically and mentally taxing and very stressful. He had never gone to college and that was only the third job he had ever had.
Nevertheless, over the course of our relationship, he made enough money to buy a flatscreen TV, a 3D printer, a new computer, a motorcycle, and a second car. (Yes, he had two cars.)
During that time, we split all our joint living expenses in half (he was actually not my sugar daddy), but I made so little, I had to file for a deferment with my student loan payments. I couldn’t afford anything but my share of the rent, food, and utilities.
An Unearned Step Up (2018)
During the last year at my former job, I was becoming severely burned out. It was a grueling job at a nonprofit and though I enjoyed it, I was beginning to see that I’d been pressed against the glass ceiling for a long time — and there was little chance of moving past it. I didn’t want to work in any other department and there was no position above mine except for the Executive Director.
I began the scary process of asking my boss, a woman five years my junior (yes, a woman), for more. I asked for a title that better reflected my seniority and expertise within the organization (from Coordinator to Manager) and asked for a $40,000 salary (up from $37,000, where I’d hovered for years). Again and again, she said no. It wasn’t in the budget and she didn’t want to create a new position title.
I quit in October 2018. I couldn’t go on at the same level for another four years.
A month later, she hired a 30-year-old man who had less than half my experience in that field and gave him the title Manager and a $40,000 salary.
I think it’s important to talk more openly about what the wage gap really looks like. I’m not sure it means much to people to hear that men typically make more than women. It becomes a meaningless concept that we learn to ignore.
But when you hear the stories and understand what’s going on — even today, in 2019 — it starts to make it real. When you understand how humiliating it feels to be overlooked and underappreciated… When you realize how maddening it is to watch men get promoted, earn better pay, and receive respect for no other reason than that they are male… It makes an impact that statistics just don’t make.
The wage gap is real and I’m here to say it is still going on right now. And yes, even women are perpetuating it.
So I don’t know if we shouldn’t be expected to go halfsies on a date (or anything else) in light of this information. In a way, I can see the logic of that stance.
But at the very least, we deserve better than this.
© Yael Wolfe 2019
