Walthamstow Labour MP Stella Creasy has launched the #PayMeToo campaign to advise women on how to tackle the gender pay gap where they work. Together with a group of other female MPs from across the political spectrum, Creasy wants women to hold their employers to account over any promises they make to improve the situation now that the deadline for gender pay gap reporting has passed.
The results of the reporting are not encouraging. Creasy’s has tweeted that 78% of companies in the UK pay men more than women. She adds that on average women earn 14% per cent less than their male counterparts. However she also reports that 13% of companies pay their female employees on average more than their male workers, while only 8% have no gender pay gap at all.
Creasy’s campaign has gained a great deal of support from both women and men in the UK. However, there has also been an equally strong backlash from people who have used her platform to say that the gender pay gap does not exist to the extent that it is claimed. Some of these tweets argue that as women sometimes lack the skills necessary to be top executives, and do not work the same long hours as men do, the data is meaningless and mere opinion. Another Twitter user replying to Creasy’s posts argues that women choose to work in low-paying careers and choose to put in fewer hours at work.
But although this explains some of the gap, there is no avoiding the truth that there is a wider problem, and it is not only a problem in the United Kingdom. The gender pay gap is something which is experienced almost everywhere in the world. Women have always been undervalued, and if nothing is done about it, the discrimination is never going to end. The #PayMeToo campaign is setting good precedent for women all over the world, and judging by the zeal with which it is being taken up, it looks as if it will be a great success.