The Gender Pay Gap

0:04 Welcome everybody to Visionality's
0:07 Building Forward series my name is Emily
0:09 Baroney and i'm the ceo and founder of
0:12 Visionality and we have a guest star
0:15 today i'd like to introduce my friend
0:17 and colleague Angela Fentiman and she's
0:20 going to give a brief introduction of
0:22 herself and then we're going to launch

Guest introduction

0:24 right into our topic
0:26 all right great thanks Emily hi everyone
0:29 really excited to be here
0:31 so today we get to talk about
0:35 the gender pay gap which probably
0:37 shouldn't be so excited about but it's a
0:39 really important topic even though it's
0:41 aggravating and frustrating it's a
0:43 really important topic so
0:45 i am a phd student at Pepperdine in the
0:49 Global Leadership and Change program
0:51 i've been a professor for about 10 years
0:54 and also had a long career in corporate
0:57 communication
0:58 so now
0:59 my research is actually focused on women
1:02 in leadership and gender pay gap is one
1:04 of the areas that i've dug into recently
1:07 so when i was sharing that with Emily we
1:08 thought it would be a great conversation
1:10 so i'm looking forward to it i love it
1:13 all right my friend let's start our
1:15 timer our whole spiel here is digging in
1:18 in a sassy fashion
1:20 ... in
1:21 into a big topic and we do it all in 25
1:24 minutes so three two one go
1:27 all right
1:30 the jumping off point for today's
1:32 discussion is
1:33 that the gender pay gap is
1:36 a larger systemic issue ... it it isn't
1:40 just about
1:41 right dollar to dollar it's about
1:44 gender justice and gender equity so take
1:48 me through maybe discuss that a little
1:50 bit and then i want you to take me
1:51 through the myths of the gender pay gap
1:54 absolutely yeah so one of the things

Myths about the pay gap

1:57 that we i think we do a lot with
1:59 systemic societal issues is we try to
2:02 make them into
2:04 ... an individual problem
2:07 right so
2:08 Emily you don't get paid as much as the
2:10 man who does your job because you just
2:12 don't quite know how to negotiate as
2:14 well
2:15 or you made the decision to have a child
2:18 and that took you out of the workforce
2:20 and these are a lot of the myths that we
2:22 hear when people actually try to doubt
2:24 the issue of the gender pay gap or deny
2:28 its existence they blame it on some of
2:30 these other problems but quite frankly
2:33 and in reality the this pay gap is part
2:37 of a lot of these other problems right
2:38 because we work so if we take the issue
2:40 of negotiation
2:42 women don't know how to negotiate women
2:45 actually do know how to negotiate but a
2:47 lot of times right we get lowballed from
2:49 the start
2:50 so we're negotiating from a deficit
2:53 which has definitely happened to me a
2:54 couple of times in my career where i was
2:57 i was negotiating but i was negotiating
2:59 from a deficit and also we look at women
3:02 differently
3:03 when they portray those types of
3:06 behaviors that we consider
3:08 more masculine right so a man who
3:10 negotiates
3:12 savvy business person knows what he's
3:14 doing that's a great thing
3:16 when a woman negotiates we actually see
3:18 it in the research that we we think of
3:20 her differently who does she think she
3:22 is she's so demanding
3:24 all of these negative characteristics
3:26 are associated with women who ask for
3:28 more so
3:30 it's not just that women
3:32 it's
3:34 fundamentally unfair right to say that
3:36 women don't know how to negotiate
3:38 because in fact when we do we can
3:40 sometimes be penalized for it so that so
3:42 that's another issue and then when we
3:44 talk about this this idea of well women
3:47 leave the workforce

Why women leave the workforce

3:50 I... I actually i was hearing a talk from a
3:52 professor at George Mason in their um
3:55 gender and policy institute and she
3:58 pointed out a really great fact about
4:00 that is
4:01 why
4:02 is that time period when women
4:05 tend to have children also such a
4:07 crucial point in our careers
4:09 that's arbitrary someone decided that
4:12 and and likely
4:14 we know who that was right that was men
4:16 who held power who decided that this was
4:19 a prime time
4:21 for career growth but what happens is
4:23 that puts women at a disadvantage and
4:26 men are not
4:28 treated the same way when it comes to
4:31 raising families right a man in a lot of
4:34 and
4:35 especially back in
4:37 50s 60s
4:38 70s and even now a man would get a raise
4:41 for having a child because you have more
4:43 people to take care of versus a woman is
4:46 penalized
4:48 and her career is
4:50 is um
4:52 you know hurt
4:54 by that decision so it's just you know
4:57 and we we can go through many many
4:59 examples of this sort of inequality that
5:02 we see that's bigger than just the pay
5:04 gap but we try to point to these things
5:06 that are really just kind of false
5:08 ... false places to put the blame without
5:12 really looking at the systemic issue
5:14 well and i have definitely sat in
The difference between equality and equity
5:18 meetings where the same thing occurred
5:20 and the response was very different a
5:22 meeting where a woman's babysitter got
5:25 sick and she was forced to bring her
5:27 kids
5:28 and then she was doing double duty in
5:30 that meeting
5:31 keeping her kids occupied and
5:33 participating and she was seen as
5:35 unprofessional why doesn't she have it
5:37 together and i have also been in
5:39 meetings where a man's babysitter got
5:42 sick
5:42 and
5:43 everyone was so impressed at what a
5:46 wonderful father he was to
5:49 you know step up and and you know
5:52 accommodate accommodate accommodate and
5:54 it's just been
5:56 really disappointing you know one of the
5:59 founding principles
6:00 one of the reasons i built Visionality
6:03 was to create an equitable workplace for
6:05 parents
6:06 and to enable parents to show up as
6:09 their full selves in the workplace and
6:11 you know we've talked about this a
6:13 little bit before ... in this series but
6:16 we have an employee who's a mom of three
6:19 and you know she had to learn how to
6:21 zoom school her three her three little
6:24 ones
6:24 and we have an all hands meeting every
6:26 monday
6:27 and she was keeping herself out of those
6:30 monday meetings because she didn't want
6:32 the team to see her distracted and we
6:36 really pushed her and we said you know
6:38 this is the difference between equality
6:39 and equity each of us need different
6:42 tools to show up as our full self and
6:45 you being a parent
6:46 is part of what makes you an incredible
6:48 asset to this team and yeah that does
6:50 require some accommodations that the
6:53 people who aren't parents don't require
6:55 but that's okay and that's what building
6:58 an equitable workplace is that's giving
7:01 the appropriate tools to the appropriate
7:04 individuals and the tools are going to
7:06 require
7:07 different money they're going to require
7:09 different time you know
7:11 and that's what equity is it's giving
7:13 the individuals the tools to show up as
7:15 their best self and recognizing that
7:17 it's going to be different and and
7:19 that's okay
7:20 right
7:22 i have a question for you too i'm
7:24 you know because the gender pay gap
7:26 exists
7:27 typically within you know a two-person
7:30 household that would mean that the woman
7:32 makes less than a man if they're both
7:34 working
7:37 and because that's a systemic issue does
7:40 that then lead to
7:41 when a child comes into the world the
7:44 woman giving up her career because it's
7:46 a less of a financial burden to the
7:48 family so we've built this system and
7:51 then it perpetuates itself because it's
7:53 systemic
7:54 um
7:55 and then the woman is you know four
7:58 years back in her career seven years
7:59 back in her career and it's really hard
8:01 to re-enter and so can you talk me
8:04 through that a little bit
8:06 yeah ... a couple of points on that that

The gender pay gap

8:09 that's really important so when we look
8:11 at the gender pay gap overall and we're
8:13 going to talk about the racial
8:14 inequality in that, I... I know a little bit
8:17 later
8:18 but if we look just at so the the
8:20 typical number that's cited in the pay
8:22 gap is actually what ... white women make
8:25 in in comparison to white men which is
8:27 82 cents on the dollar
8:29 if you look at the comparison of mothers
8:32 to fathers it's actually 70 cents to the
8:35 dollar so mothers actually make
8:38 significantly less than the average
8:41 of
8:42 the the pay gap so the pay gap the
8:44 average pay gap is actually larger for
8:46 mothers than it is for women in general
8:48 so that puts women absolutely at a
8:50 disadvantage
8:52 the other thing early on in the pandemic
8:54 i remember reading this article and it
8:56 still makes me mad today it was about
8:58 this woman who had a successful business
9:01 she had a good amount of employees
9:04 her husband was unemployed
9:07 but could not be bothered to take care
9:08 of their toddler so she ended up closing
9:11 her business all of those people lost
9:13 their jobs just because the husband
9:17 um
9:18 couldn't take care of essentially his
9:20 own child and we saw that decision
9:23 happening over and over again right
9:26 where men's careers are prioritized over
9:28 women and it this absolutely perpetuates
9:32 it right if i learn it you know if
9:34 you're in a position where you learn
9:36 earn less than your partner
9:38 financially that's how the numbers work
9:40 out right you know if you're going to be
9:42 depending on one income you're going to
9:44 want the higher income
9:46 so
9:47 it absolutely perpetuates that problem
9:51 and ... you know it really is this is an
9:54 issue that has to be managed from a
9:57 policy perspective
9:59 it just does and so in
10:02 let me see here i want to get my dates
10:05 correct
10:06 so
10:07 in the
10:08 ... early 60s 1963
10:12 john f kennedy signed the equal pay act
10:15 that is the last time we had any type of
10:19 federal legislation on this issue give
10:22 me that date again
10:23 1963
10:25 john f kennedy
10:26 signed the equal pay act so
10:29 there there was a bill introduced called
10:32 the paycheck fairness act because as
10:33 great as equal pay act is and it did it
10:36 did give us a little boost but
10:38 in about 60 years we've only closed the
10:40 gender pay gap by about 20 cents to the
10:43 dollar so we've still got almost 20
10:45 cents to go and again that's different
10:48 ... depending on race as well
10:51 but that gap
10:53 um
10:54 if we continue at that pace that gap
10:56 will not close in our lifetimes Emily
11:00 so there was a
11:02 paycheck fairness act that was
11:05 introduced
11:06 in um
11:08 in recent years and it's ... it actually
11:11 passed the house in april of this year
11:14 but then it failed to pass the senate
11:17 but what it does is it actually closes a
11:19 lot of the gaps in the equal pay act
11:22 because employers are still able to say
11:24 oh well it really wasn't because she was
11:26 a woman it was because of merit or hours
11:29 you know getting back into some of those
11:30 larger systemic problems
11:33 that we use to justify the gender pay
11:35 gap so it doesn't
11:39 you're the expert in this doesn't the
11:40 law say equal pay for equal work right
11:43 and and but that is so
11:46 subjective and what we already just
11:48 covered is nobody's work is actually
11:51 equal we each require different
11:53 accommodations to show up as our full
11:56 self and
11:57 and so like there are just so many
12:00 like not even knowing anything about
12:01 this i can see so many holes in in that
12:05 statement equal pay for equal work
12:07 because no one's work is equal
12:09 right
12:10 so
12:11 yeah so what does that even mean and and
12:14 talk to me more about what this new
12:15 legislation
12:16 would have done
12:18 right so
12:19 the ... the paycheck fairness act and

Paycheck Fairness Act

12:22 good news is even though it failed to
12:24 pass this year it's going to be
12:26 introduced in the next congress i
12:28 actually spoke with a fellow from the
12:29 National Women's Law Center who
12:31 confirmed that that is the plan so that
12:34 will be one that we can rally around
12:36 when it does get reintroduced
12:38 but basically um
12:41 it really tries to eliminate disparities
12:45 it lifts the
12:47 ... it limits an employer's ability to
12:50 claim that pay difference are based on a
12:52 factor other than
12:54 sex
12:55 and it enhances some of the
12:57 non-retaliation prohibitions so ... and
13:00 it also makes it illegal to force
13:02 employees to sign a waiver that
13:04 prohibits them from disclosing
13:06 their ... wage information so some
13:09 employers use that right some employers
13:12 say oh you can't talk about wages
13:14 to hide the fact that there are
13:16 significant pay gaps and that actually
13:19 happened to me early on in my career i
13:21 found out a male colleague who had less
13:23 experience but the same
13:25 level of manager title
13:28 ... he had only had internships i had had
13:31 a couple full-time jobs at this point
13:33 college
13:34 and ... found out that he was making
13:36 significantly more than me
13:39 probably and based on from what they
13:41 offered me it was about 10 grand more
13:43 and then i had negotiated up an
13:45 additional about five grand so it's
13:47 still making considerably more i found
13:49 out that the initial response was how
13:52 did you find out
13:53 not the fact that it was a problem that
13:55 i was
13:56 more qualified had more experience and
14:00 was a better performer at the job
14:04 but the problem was that i found out not
14:06 the fact that
14:08 and this is something that we do
14:10 i think we find over and over again in
14:12 organizations is we're we're more quick
14:15 to paint the person who points out the
14:18 problem
14:18 as the problem
14:20 than we are to look at the actual
14:22 problem itself
14:24 is
14:26 are

The Problem

14:28 do we have data on if the gender pay gap
14:31 is bigger or smaller when you look at
14:33 large organizations versus small
14:34 organizations or you know
14:36 local or national or global
14:39 um, I... I haven't really dug into that
14:42 aspect of the research um
14:45 i imagine
14:48 you know i think it depends a lot on on
14:50 the organization ... so, I... I could see
14:54 differences based on size but that's not
14:56 something that i've i've looked at that
14:58 closely in the research
15:00 what the one part of the research though
15:02 that is incredibly upsetting and when i
15:05 presented this research ... to some
15:08 colleagues a few months back it was over
15:10 the summer
15:11 ... the aspect of it that really got
15:14 people pretty worked up was the pay gap
15:16 by race and gender
15:19 so as i mentioned before ... white women
15:23 earn
15:24 an average about 82 cents to the dollar
15:26 for men so that's about an 18 pay gap
15:30 asian women
15:32 in total
15:33 earn about 87 cents
15:36 to to the dollar for white men but it's
15:39 not equally distributed
15:42 excuse me equally distributed among
15:45 asian cultures so we'll see that um
15:48 you know for native hawaiian and pacific
15:51 islander women it's actually 63 cents
15:55 which is the same amount for ... black
15:58 women as well black women earn 60 uh
16:01 about 63 cents on average to every
16:04 dollar
16:05 for white men
16:06 and then native americans it's about 60
16:09 and then latinx is actually 55
16:13 so we're 55 cents excuse me so we're
16:16 looking about half
16:18 what a a white man would earn per dollar
16:22 ... for a latinx woman so
16:24 when we look at the intersectionality of
16:27 this issue i think it becomes even more
16:29 pressing and more serious because we're
16:32 not just looking
16:34 like 82 cents sounds bad
16:36 um
16:37 but 55 cents is
16:39 we should honestly we should be ashamed
16:42 yes
16:44 yes

The Nonprofit Industry

16:46 how so how do we see this play out
16:48 specifically in the nonprofit industry
16:53 yeah i mean
16:54 so one of the things and and when we
16:57 look at the larger
16:58 uh
17:00 issues around again coming back to those
17:02 systemic issues
17:04 as a society we tend to undervalue the
17:07 work that women do
17:09 and we've seen this in a few examples in
17:11 the gender pay gap where we've actually
17:13 gotten pay equity in certain areas the
17:16 salaries have gone down so ... healthcare
17:19 is one of the areas yeah this was again
17:22 the
17:22 conversation that i had with the
17:24 professor at george mason
17:26 is that so healthcare is we've gotten
17:28 better pay equity for doctors and more
17:30 women ... in in doctor
17:33 roles
17:34 that the overall pay in the industry has
17:37 gone down and again a couple of other
17:39 areas where we see this right is k-12
17:41 education another field that is mostly
17:44 women ... but
17:47 very very
17:48 well very far below
17:51 what we should be paying for for that
17:53 type of work and the non-profit industry
17:56 is another one of those again
17:58 large ... largely dominated by women in
18:01 the field and basically the assumption
18:04 is while we can get people we can get
18:06 women who can work for nothing because
18:07 if their husbands have good jobs then
18:11 we don't have to pay them if their
18:12 husbands have good jobs and oh you're
18:15 doing good work so that should be your
18:18 compensation and it's like the opposite
18:21 the the people in our industry are
18:23 dealing with the hardest societal
18:25 challenges and with harder work should
18:28 come better compensation
18:31 and by the way like better benefits
18:32 packages because you're doing really
18:34 hard stuff so maybe you want to see a
18:36 therapist or take a yoga class or take a
18:38 vacation by the way
18:41 they actually should be the opposite
18:44 with harder work comes greater
18:46 compensation yeah well in in self-care
18:49 in
18:50 the the non-profit industry and anyone
18:53 who provides those types of services
18:56 um
18:57 is so so important ... and just having
19:00 that having those resources and having
19:02 the ability to be able to care for
19:04 yourself so you can care for others is
19:07 incredibly important but, I... I think the
19:09 the non the pay disparity that we see in
19:12 the nonprofit world definitely stems
19:15 from this
19:16 ... larger issue that we see around
19:20 undervaluing the work that women do and
19:22 so if it's a field that more women tend
19:24 to be drawn to
19:26 the the wages tend to be lower i mean we
19:29 even see this in the communication field
19:31 another field that tends to be a lot
19:33 more women who are in the the doing side
19:36 of it but
19:37 like those other fields we see
19:39 much more
19:41 we see men in the leadership positions
19:43 and those are the positions that are
19:45 better compensated which is similar to
19:47 what we see in non-profit land which is
19:50 typically women are are the ones in the
19:52 trenches doing the day-to-day
19:54 functional work and then we have more
19:57 men in the executive director position
20:00 or on the board making decisions about
20:03 the pay
20:04 of the women who are working alongside
20:06 them
20:09 so

What Can We Do

20:11 so
20:11 for the decision makers who are watching
20:14 this
20:14 um
20:16 what can we do
20:17 what are some things that we can take
20:18 action on within our own organizations
20:21 or on our own boards to start to to
20:24 improve this
20:25 yeah um
20:27 pay women more
20:28 i mean that's i think that's kind of the
20:31 easiest and maybe a little too obvious
20:34 solution but but pay value women
20:37 don't ... if a woman negotiates for what
20:41 she's worth and a woman knows her value
20:44 don't penalize her for that
20:46 you know take a step back and and
20:48 question
20:49 why
20:50 why are you feeling negatively about a
20:53 woman asking for what she wants and what
20:55 she deserves
20:56 ... we also have um
21:00 you know paycheck fairness act when that
21:02 comes back into congress support that
21:05 call your
21:06 call your representatives tell them you
21:08 want to see that legislation get passed
21:11 ... and then also i think that you know
21:14 there are other workplace policies that
21:16 help support
21:18 um
21:19 things like equal pay and one of those
21:22 is family leave and paternity leave
21:25 right because
21:26 when
21:28 one of the places and i think the most
21:31 likely way that we're going to see
21:33 gender equity in the workplace is when
21:35 we have more gender equity at home and
21:38 when it becomes normalized that men also
21:41 are responsible for caring for children
21:44 and that that takes away from the work
21:46 that they do because that's a reality of
21:48 having a family and having children you
21:51 you have human beings who depend on you
21:54 um
21:55 so so that means certain sacrifices uh
21:59 certain times of day when you're maybe
22:01 not available because you have to pick
22:03 the kids up or take them somewhere and
22:06 so to to make that more of a task that's
22:09 shared by parents and and not saying
22:12 that men should be penalized for it um
22:15 that that's not the argument at all it's
22:17 that no parent should be penalized for
22:20 that and
22:22 and again really
22:23 no employee should be penalized for
22:26 having a life outside of work work does
22:28 not have to be our lives and we be we
22:31 come into the workplace better
22:34 well-rounded interesting people when we
22:36 have lives outside of work and so
22:38 whether you choose to have a family or
22:40 not
22:41 your time outside of the office should
22:43 be honored and that should create an
22:45 opportunity
22:47 and really those types of solutions
22:49 creating a workplace like like you have
22:52 Emily where it really recognizes
22:55 individual differences and creates a
22:57 space where everyone can thrive and and
23:00 bring those to the table
23:02 that's a huge step in in looking at pay
23:06 equity issues because you're not going
23:08 to judge people differently based on
23:10 their circumstances right you're going
23:12 to say how can i make this a place where
23:15 great people can thrive
23:17 well and
23:18 honestly it's expensive
23:21 you know like it is expensive and
23:25 you know accommodations are expensive
23:28 and and
23:31 you get better work out of people and
23:33 they stick around longer and
23:36 full stop turnover is my biggest expense
23:40 and so anything that i can do to bring
23:43 out the best in my employees and get
23:45 them to show up as their full selves
23:47 they're gonna work harder they're gonna
23:48 do better work and they're gonna stick
23:50 around longer which means i actually
23:52 make more money which by the way then i
23:54 can pay them more and then they stick
23:55 around longer so it really is like
23:59 i'm gonna be the first one to say it
24:01 does it is expensive and that investment
24:05 pays dividends that

Final Thoughts

24:10 don't show up on your balance sheet and
24:11 that's what is so insidious about this
24:13 like
24:14 you can see the expenses on your balance
24:17 sheet but you can't see the return
24:19 because that turnover expense or that
24:22 lost productivity because people don't
24:23 feel good when they actually sit down at
24:25 their computer
24:26 doesn't show up as a line item
24:28 so
24:29 yeah it's it's really a double-edged
24:31 sport where you see the expenses and you
24:33 don't necessarily see the revenue unless
24:35 you're really acknowledging that that's
24:37 a fact
24:38 so we probably have two minutes left one
24:41 minute 45 seconds
24:43 last final thoughts
24:46 no i think what you said was great
24:48 because that's what we call a virtuous
24:50 circle right it's the opposite of a
24:52 vicious circle virtuous circle builds on
24:55 itself and creates
24:56 creates more of what you want and and
24:58 the thing about it is those lighting and
25:01 those line items are quantitative
25:04 you can put numbers to them it's just
25:07 not an observation if you want to see it
25:11 you can do it and i think too often
25:14 we make excuses about why it's hard or
25:18 why things are the way they are
25:20 like oh women don't negotiate well women
25:23 have kids we make all these excuses but
25:25 if we get to the heart of it we can
25:28 actually see
25:29 the damage this is causing from a
25:31 societal standpoint
25:33 and think about it i mean
25:35 the loss of income for women
25:38 if you're
25:40 talking about that significant amount of
25:42 a paycheck
25:44 it's just
25:46 it shouldn't be happening and it's
25:48 fairly easy to fix and we make it harder
25:51 than it is well and you know
25:54 everyone's talking right now about the
25:55 great resignation and it's so hard to
25:57 find
25:58 good employees
26:00 and we have built these
26:02 structures
26:04 that don't allow parents to show up and
26:07 like
26:08 it's actually easy and like parents are
26:12 really good employees and
26:15 so it just you know we we have created
26:17 these false constructs and like before
26:19 the pandemic you know it was
26:22 impossible for most jobs to be remote
26:25 impossible impossible well guess what we
26:27 all lots of us figured out how to do it
26:30 and
26:31 and so like
26:33 the reason we're calling this series
26:34 building forward is i don't want to go
26:36 back to normal normal was bad for a lot
26:39 of people and we have now realized the
26:42 important the importance of like
26:44 self-care and therapy and work-life
26:47 balance and
26:48 we have all created this ability to work
26:50 from home now which which for most
26:53 people really improves their quality of
26:55 life and that's for parents that's
26:57 people with mobility challenges or other
27:00 disabilities ... people who just like to
27:03 have fun on the weekends you know like
27:06 it's better for parents
27:10 it's better working from home is better
27:12 like i can i'm gonna throw a little
27:14 laundry in after this right like it it
27:17 enables us to live a much more balanced
27:20 and equitable and integrated life so
27:22 like let's not go back to normal normal
27:25 is bad
27:26 right
27:27 absolutely
27:29 i think that's a great place to end
27:30 normal is bad let's not go back pay
27:32 women
27:34 hey women
27:35 pay women, all right? And with that my
27:38 friends
27:39 we have come to the end