It is expensive being a woman. Health, fashion and beauty products marketed to women oftentimes cost more. These products are fundamentally the same as those marketed to men. Pretty pink packaging for women by some means costs 11 per cent more. The pricing bias begins early when they are girls as they end up paying on an average 7 per cent more for their toys. The “Pink Tax” makes their personal care products 13 per cent more expensive while their clothing and healthcare are 8 per cent costlier than men’s. In the United States, the Pink Tax cost women $ 1,351 a year which is a big amount when you consider they earn 79 per cent of what men do.
In independent India, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit lost most of her personal possessions and assets to her deceased husband’s brothers and had to fight legal battles in order to claim what was hers. Hansa Mehta contributed towards changing the words of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Changing “Human Rights for men” to “Human Rights for all people”. It is no longer acceptable to say women's rights are different from human rights. Equal pay, equality at the workplace, equal treatment of women in society are still not entirely effective in India. Female participation in the Indian economy is among the bottom 10 countries.
Women make up almost fifty per cent population of the world. Not employing, under-employing and under-paying women all have an adverse effect on the world economy. Women are as competent and intelligent as their male counterparts. A lot of women do better than their male peers in their respective fields. Many women are now holding top positions in administration and big corporations. But we need to further our efforts to get them their rightful dividend.
Feminist economics a branch of Heterodox economics questions the extent to which traditional economics is positive and objective and shows the bias traditional economics has towards masculine-associated topics and the favouring of masculine associated assumptions and methods. Feminist economists have explored culturally feminine subjects like family economics while they examine the importance of connections, concreteness and emotion while they explain certain economic phenomena.
Feminist economists like Ester Boserup, Julie Nelson and Marianne Ferber have highly influenced policies that have gone on to reduce gender, racial and ethnic discrimination. Scotish economist Alisa McKay has argued that social policy reform should take account of all gender inequalities, not just those relating to the traditional labour market. New Zealander Marilyn Joy Waring is another celebrated feminist economist. She has been unreserved about the concept of GDP, she disagrees with a system that includes "oil spills" and "wars" as contributors to economic growth.
Coming back to the Indian story, according to a May 2016 news piece by The Hindu, there is a 27 per cent gender pay gap on average in India. Men earned a median gross hourly salary of Rs 288.68 while women in India could only make Rs 207.85 per hour. IT sector which is booming in the country also has a huge bias towards men. Men in IT earn Rs 360.9 per hour, while women earn only Rs 239.6 per hour. The gender pay gap according to the piece was highest in the manufacturing sector at 34.9 per cent and lowest in Banking, Financial Services and Insurance, Transport, logistics and communications at 17.7 per cent.
Bollywood also permits the gender pay gap to prosper. Top actresses are considered expendable if they charge a higher acting fee. In an interview, Aditi Rao Hydari says she does not understand why female actors get paid less than male actors after putting an equal amount of work. Leading actresses like Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra are paid much less than popular male actors. Shah Rukh Khan earns an estimated $ 5.5 million for every film plus he gets a share of profit from the movies he acts in. He has even made it to the list of highest earning entertainers on Forbes which has not been possible for any Indian female entertainer.
Even the Indian cricket board is discriminatory towards its women cricketers. Men earn fourteen times the amount women make. This was after the stunning accomplishment by the Indian women in the Women's Cricket World Cup. The arguments men play more matches or get in more revenue for the board are simply wrong, players earnings should be factored based on their skill and the amount of time they spend training and playing.
In the United States, the women's soccer team is taking action against the United States Soccer Federation. The men make $ 17,000 for winning a match while women make only $ 4,000. If the men lose a match they make $5,000 while women do not make anything when they lose. Women are ranked higher than men and women have won more Olympic gold medals and World Cups as compared to their male peers. Women can brag about the most viewed soccer game in American history which was played by the women's team and not the men's team.
Tennis icon Billie Jean King shocked the world when she beat her Male counterpart Bobby Riggs in straight sets 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in a match titled “Battle of the Sexes”. Sportswomen like American tennis star Serena Williams and English cricketer Tammy Beaumont have been championing the cause of equal pay for women in sports.
Some of the reasons behind the gender pay gap are like the preference for male employees, preferring promoting male employees, career breaks of women due to parenthood duties and other socio-cultural factors. Worldwide, the gender pay gap has taken centre stage with strong sentiments being shared by sportspersons, political and business leaders alike. Let's make the playing field even for women.
At Naturma we try and level the playing field for women through our contract manufacturer, providing women not only with employment but also supporting them procure different skill sets. Women at the manufacturing facility can candidly sing, dance, laugh and play sports. As a young contemporary brand, we not only aspire to employ more women and other diverse personnel but also strongly desire to pay them as much as men. We also charge all our customers alike irrespective of them being men or women as all our products are unisex, creating no gender differentiation.
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