THE BBC’s report on the gender pay gap has been widely anticipated, though not always for the right reasons. As the pay scales and discrepancies of this behemoth are pored over, ordinary employers’ pulses will be doing double-quick time, as they dread a copycat revolution in their own ranks. At the Beeb, meanwhile, confirmation that certain male colleagues have been earning more than their female peers promises to make Broadcasting House an unhappy place.
Yet long before the report’s “comprehensive analysis” was made public, many women in the corporation were sceptical about whatever evidence it produced. Nor were they being paranoid. The salaries department might not have a deliberate agenda or policy with regard to women’s remuneration, nor intentionally obfuscate almost a century of under-valuing their contribution. Nevertheless, bald statistics will never tell the whole story. Wherever inequalities are laid bare, you can be confident that beneath them lies a yet more insidious, invisible and perhaps even unconscious chasm.
READ MORE: Scotland to be first part of the UK to legislate to make gender balance on boards
Several BBC journalists have pointed out, for instance, that while salaries might appear comparable for both sexes, there is often a shocking lack of parity in terms and conditions and benefits. Thus, as I have suggested before, despite the likes of John Humphrys nobly taking a pay cut to help recalibrate the scales, winning a few high-profile scalps doesn’t begin to address the problem. Indeed, in some ways it confuses it.
That’s because the biggest issue is not really the minutiae of who is paid what and why, even though that makes headlines. In broadcasting, some egregious differences can reasonably be explained by experience and specialism, or rare and valuable attributes: in simple terms, audience pulling power. The same is true in almost every workplace that requires a creative element, be it in theatre, film or advertising. Crudely put, some individuals are worth more to a company because of the profits or glory they attract. Of course, there is a highly subjective element to assessing who is “better” or “more important” than others, but such distinctions are nevertheless inevitable, and not always invidious.
Where the issue becomes thorny, highlighting ancient prejudice, is when time and again, women are deemed lesser. As one after another fails to make promotion, or is kept figuratively in the back office, you realise that the very definition of “talent” by which the BBC and other employers work is flawed. Talent becomes a description, like “managing director” or “explorer” or “concert pianist”, that is still overwhelmingly associated with men.
READ MORE: BBC review finds no evidence of ‘gender bias’ in pay decisions
No matter what realm we are thinking of, apparently, women are seen as inferior. And before any of us thinks the blame lies squarely with men, a documentary on Radio 4 pointed out earlier this week that women are just as guilty of this mindset. Sometimes more so. As Mary Ann Sieghart’s programme uncovered, the primitive part of the brain processes what it observes, rather than what it wants to or has been taught to believe. So when thinking of people in positions of authority, or picturing someone who looks after children, old-fashioned views of men’s and women’s capabilities still dominate: men in the serious, prestigious, influential roles, and women on the middle and lower rungs.
Hence the need for imaginative initiatives. One such is our bid to become the first part of the UK to legislate that at least half the board members of public authorities are female. Now, you can scoff at tokenism, or complain about special pleading, or rail against political correctness, but the facts are stark. Until women are as visible in the top echelons of business, medicine, higher education, agriculture, the law – name whatever line of work you like, and chances are we still have a long way to go – the very notion of equality is doomed, if not to failure, then to falling short.
I find it distressing, not to say angering, to think that young women starting out on their careers today, in supposedly enlightened times, are at the same psychological and social disadvantage as their great-grandmothers. From the days they lay chortling in their pram, the lesser ability of their gender has been made clear to them in a million small ways, by their family, teachers, friends. These women may look sophisticated and self-confident, but beneath the surface they are woefully unsure of their right to be ambitious and successful on their own terms.
READ MORE: Scotland looks at making misogyny a hate crime
When a novel stands more chance of being picked up by a literary agent if the author is male; when maternity leave is considered the end of a career, or a drain on an employer’s profits; when asserting oneself in a meeting, or asking for a pay rise leads to accusations of “who does she think she is?” then equality is but a pipe-dream. No doubt a chastened BBC will try to mend its ways and set an example. Until the rest of society has overwritten aeons of prejudice and discrimination, however, real, meaningful change, whether in one’s pay packet, or in public attitudes, simply cannot happen. Not in my lifetime is my best guess, and probably not in my step-daughter’s either.
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