What Is Equal Pay Day Essay

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Woman in the current society of the 21st century have raised above the old fashioned concept of being simply a home maker, housekeeper, or stay at home mother. Through the decades women have triumphed over suppression to gain the rights and privileges to express and excel their intellect and ambitions to climb corporate ladders and gain the right to vote, run companies and become political leaders and role models.
A newspaper from researchers Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn finds that while women made huge gains into the labor force since the 1970s, that growth has actually all but flat lined since the 1990s.The image of Geraldine Hoff in the iconic “We Can Do It!” poster wearing a bandana over her head and rolling up her sleeve over her bicep in a workers shirt produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943 has served as an inspirational message to woman to rise up and compete with men.
On April 20, 2010, US President Barack Obama issued a proclamation declaring National Equal Pay Day. In the proclamation it was recognized that despite years of progress in the workforce, women are still not paid as much as men. The proclamation states: “Throughout our Nation's history, extraordinary women have broken barriers to achieve their dreams and blazed trails so their daughters would not face similar obstacles. Despite decades of progress, pay inequity still hinders women and their families across our country. National Pay Day symbolizes the day when an American woman's earnings finally match what an average American man earned in the year. Today, we renew our commitment to end wage discrimination and celebrate the strength and vibrancy women add to our economy. ” The proclamation emphasized, "Nearly half of all working Americans are women,...

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...asized that women "Women feel they have to be aggressive to be promoted."Then they keep it up when they should be collegial and collaborative as leaders." The article offers some reasons as to why women may react to each other in less than a collegial way, when it points out "Some women may sabotage one another because they feel helping their female coworkers could jeopardize their own careers." The article further offers additional reasons why women are not helpful to other women at work and why women are made targets by other women. "One reason women select other women as targets probably are the assumption they will find a less confrontational person or someone less likely to respond to aggression with aggression." Some, including women, perceive women as less tough than men therefore find it appropriate to withhold information that could help them on the job.

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