Still Not Comfy?
In 1927 Naturalizer changed the world by creating the first shoe designed to fit the contours of a woman’s foot. Since then we’ve been walking with women as they change the world!
March 8th is a very special day, it’s International Women’s Day! An incredibly important day to celebrate the achievements of women around the world. A day in which we can take stock of just how far we’ve come as a society.
While that message is very important, we believe it’s equally important to remember how long we’ve got to go.
Around the world, women are #StillNotComfy. This is due to a variety of factors, but here we’ve listed what we believe are the most pressing as well as tips of steps you can take to make it better.
The Pay Gap
In Australia, women STILL get paid 82c for every dollar a man makes!
This is brought on by a plethora of issues outside of plain discrimination, much of it falling under gender roles. Women take on a disproportionate share of unpaid caring and domestic work (for every hour a man puts in, a woman on average puts in an hour & 48 minutes).
On top of this there are still huge barriers for women to enter into male-dominated industries (like mining and construction), and those industries pay far more on average than female-dominated industries (caring occupations, social services and healthcare).
Unfortunately, the main factor along this issue is still discrimination and bias.
What Can You Do?
1) Talk to your colleagues about pay: We know that this can be a touchy topic for some people, but there are literally no rules against doing so. Knowing this information can be incredibly illuminating about the inner workings of your company. Once this is done, you’ll be able to notice straight away if there are glaring inadequacies between you and colleagues doing like-for-like work. If there are, this gives you an excellent platform to bring up the conversation with your superiors to get it fixed.
2) Know your worth: Knowing how much your colleagues are getting paid is a great first step, but you should absolutely take it further and find out how much your industry makes. Knowing those industry standards and benchmarks might give you a huge shock when you compare yourself.
3) Negotiate: If in steps 1 & 2 you’ve realised that something’s not right it’s time to go further. This is a very brave step and if you’re considering it, good on you! You’ve already done some research and have some talking points, but there’s a lot more you can do to prepare. Proper negotiation is an art! There are huge amounts of information available to help you master that art. Having a strategy and taking on some tried and tested techniques can make all the difference.
4) Spread the word: By now you could have sorted out inequities in your own arrangements which is a big step forward. But as always, we’re #StillNotComfy and there’s still a lot to be done. Tell everyone you care about (and even those you don’t) to take these steps in their own lives. To take it a step further, become a member of the Australian Gender Equality Council and join a grassroots organisation taking uncomfortable steps to make a difference.