Conversations around equal pay are blaring, largely thanks to the dozens of famous women calling out their male counterparts for getting bigger paychecks. This is, obviously, a very good thing. But for all the merit these declarations warrant — and all the echoing cries of “hell yes! Empowering!” — the dialogue is also tinged with certain shades of privilege that average women fighting to be paid fairly generally lack.
In a lot of ways, a celebrity is defined by their ability to get heard when talking about issues women routinely deal with, whether it’s sexual assault or revenge porn. When the disturbing story of how Michelle Williams made less than $1,000 compared to Mark Wahlberg’s $1.5 million for the reshoot of the aptly (ironically?) titled All the Money In the World came to realization, celebrities rallied. Thanks to the explosive responses Wahlberg donated his entire re-shoot paycheck to Time’s Up.
The average woman also lacks the privilege of being able to fearlessly slam a corporation on a massive scale like Deborah Messing — and later, others — did when they criticized E! (on E!) for the pay discrepancy between Catt Saddler and her former colleague Jason Kennedy at the Golden Globes. It was a moment that deserved the excitement and virality it got—it probably wasn’t easy for Catt or Debra or Natalie or Eva or any other celebrity to vocalize their anger, but it probably was a hell of a lot easier to do when the public has your back. And your bank account is full.
Asking for more money just isn’t something most working women are conditioned to do, for reasons that range from company policy to gender stereotypes
Wage inequity is technically illegal thanks to the Equal Pay Act of 1963, but speaking out or asking for more money just isn’t something most working women are conditioned to do, for reasons that range from company policy to gender stereotypes. “Employers historically have discouraged and sometimes prohibited employees from discussing pay, says Debra Steiner Friedman, a partner in the labor department of national law firm Cozen O’Connor. Culturally, many still view it as a taboo subject.” Women may also be fearful of negotiating, even if they have the power to do it , she says — concerned that there may be repercussions, like losing their jobs or being viewed as ‘difficult.’
There’s also a risk associated with speaking out. (In fact, the majority of women I spoke to about this wanted to be anonymous and unable to identify in any capacity, a stark contrast to the freedom that public figures have in voicing their opinions on systemic problems.)
One Austin-based woman in the tech industry told me it took her 15 years of work to feel comfortable asking for a raise. She described to me an instance at a happy hour when she learned male colleagues made more than she did. “I didn’t say anything to my boss — because I was afraid. I just [got hired], I didn’t want to ruffle feathers. [I thought], ‘I don’t want to lose this job; I’ve been laid off before, and I [don’t] ever want to be laid off again.’ I try not to ask my family for money, I try not to ask anybody for money. I had a house at the time.” She described the working atmosphere as an “all-boys club”—a sentiment clearly reflected in the way the company paid its employees.
Another woman in her early 30s who also works in tech told me she did advocate for herself, only to yield negligible results. “I approached my boss, and [told him] I don’t think I’m getting paid what I’m worth,” she says. “He immediately said, ‘I’ll agree with that. Your annual review is coming in a month. We’ll figure it out then and give you an increase.’ I did get an increase, but it was just the normal, annual positive-review-increase [versus an actual salary raise]. So then, I got upset …. And I think that’s where it kind of put me in a hard situation. I was perceived as emotionally needy at that point … I didn’t push beyond that. I didn’t feel comfortable.”
It’s hard to know how much to ask for — [these matters] are non-transparent, and male coworkers are not allies.
A woman in her 20s who worked at a media startup in New York City told me she “brought up wage disparity with [her] supervisor and he dismissed [her] concern.” She left — because she realized she realized she could make more money freelancing — but during her exit interview, “the HR person laughed at me and told me [my department] is always paid less.” She’s interviewing for a new job and says she “will be asking for more,” but “will walk away if I don’t get more. It’s just hard to know how much to ask for — since [these matters] are non-transparent, and male coworkers are not allies.”
It’s easy to say, “leave a job that treats you like garbage and doesn’t pay you fairly!” It’s not so simple when your financial situation isn’t in a great place, which the case for most women: According to a 2017 survey from LendingTree, the average millennial woman is saddled with $68,834 in debt, with the majority — 42.1% — making over $50,000 a year. (57.3% of men make over $50,000.) According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median weekly income for a woman in the fourth quarter of 2017 was $769 — with women in service positions earning a median of $499 a week. And though the wage gap has been slowly narrowing over time, Pew Research Center notes that a woman would have to work 44 extra days in order to make what her male counterparts make in 2015.
The pay gap is significantly worse for women of color, with black women earning 65 cents and Hispanic women making 59 cents to a white man’s dollar, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Not only does this mean that these women find it harder to save money or develop a “Fuck Off Fund”, it means walking away — like Catt Sadler did from her job at E! or even turning down some work — isn’t an option. What Sadler did was a bold, symbolic move worth applauding, but most of us can’t follow her lead, even if we wanted to.
A Texas-based woman in her 30s who works in the lighting industry told me she makes $16.50 an hour — and that’s after she asked for a raise from her previous wage of $16 an hour — to her male coworker’s $18. As much as she’d love to leave her job; she can’t — her salary doesn’t permit for savings. “I’ve been looking for jobs. I can’t support this anymore. I’m over it — I’m making $16.50, and that’s more than any other job I can hop over to. I can’t just let this [job] go,” she says, even though “in these people’s eyes I’m not worth what a man is worth for no particular reason.”
My negotiating skills have to be twice as good as a man’s in order to get up to what their starting salary is.
Making less money than her male counterparts who do the same job “feels like being bullied” — and she likens telling men about the unfairness of the wage gap to telling someone who believes the earth is flat that it’s round. “One time, I was arguing with this guy — we were talking about the glass ceiling, and he was telling me how the glass ceiling doesn’t exist; women just aren’t as good at negotiating,” she says. “My negotiating skills have to be twice as good as a man’s in order to get up to what their starting [salary] is.
None of this to say is the conversation celebrities are starting is bad. It draws attention to issues all women face, and sometimes, we really can relate. Like when Ellen Pompeo told The Hollywood Reporter she was scared of being perceived as “greedy” and she wasn’t going to walk away from Grey’s Anatomy because she didn’t receive $5,000 more than Patrick Dempsey after asking for it; that it took her until she was 48 years old to even feel comfortable asking for more money. Though most of us probably won’t pull in Pompeo’s $20 million this year, her words struck a chord with women online who felt understood and inspired, not left out.
And, fortunately, other celebrities have explicitly acknowledged the visibility famous people have or used their own platform to advocate for the less public — Emma Watson told Esquire UK in 2016 that “Hollywood is just a small piece of a gigantic puzzle but it’s in the spotlight. Whether you are a woman on a tea plantation in Kenya, or a stockbroker on Wall Street, or a Hollywood actress, no one is being paid equally.” Beyoncé has also spoken broadly about how women deserve equal pay to Elle in 2016, and how she works with organizations to promote equality, including Chime for Change.
Women who don’t have the opportunity to be interviewed by large publications need the advocacy of other women, because we don’t know what will happen when they go to their manager’s office declaring it’s time they paid what they’re worth.
“What’s good about the conversation is that people are coming out publicly and getting media attention, and then women are getting paid differently,” says Melissa Josephs, Director of Equal Opportunity Policy at Women Employed. She concedes it’s “women making a lot of money who are doing this, but that does get media attention” — a good thing. And when celebrities do draw attention to women beyond their scope, it resonates even more and can be impactful, such as when actresses brought activists to the Golden Globes as their dates. Notably, actress Amy Poehler brought Restaurant Opportunities Center’s co-founder, Saru Jarayaman. Movements like that turn the attention to women we don’t normally see on the red carpet, sending a pointed message to the millions of people watching at home and, crucially, their industries and employers.
“I think the challenge is on the employer to have to say why they’re paying [women] differently,” Josephs says. This is particularly important because employers aren’t always proactive about auditing their pay practices to make sure women are paid fairly, adds Friedman. Transparency is a good way to begin addressing the pay gap, she says, and there should be “pressure from employees, shareholders, and the public [to] fuel the trend.” Laws and policies that prohibit companies from asking about a woman’s salary history are also important — since that’s one way employers may justify keeping women’s wages low.
Which means that the women who lack the visibility and who don’t have the opportunity to be interviewed by large publications need the advocacy of other women, because we don’t know what will happen when they go to their manager’s office declaring it’s time they paid what they’re worth. Their stories matter just as much as those in Hollywood, and chances are, they have more to lose — and so much more to gain from the advocacy of those in the public eye.