Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about the gender pay gap.
What struck me about the pay gap was whether job titles could possibly be having an impact on them as there are several job roles where the title ‘differs’ depending on gender - e.g. actor/actress, headmaster/headmistress, waiter/waitress - and that perhaps these differences in job titles feed off the perceived differences in gender and thus contribute to a difference or bias with regards to salary. So even if it’s exactly the same role, an actress will be paid less than an actor, a saleswoman paid less than a salesman, a comedienne paid less than a comedian.
(There are also cases when this inference works out negatively for men. For example, stewardesses, nurses, midwives are all perceived to be female yet are jobs performed by men and women.)
As we have already got rid of some denotations – such as dropping
the W from WPC – and as we now live in a time when the emphasis for employers
is on focusing on equal opportunities, is it perhaps time to amend the others?
So instead of actor/actress we use actor, perhaps use server
instead waiter or waitress, and might this be the start or help towards
achieving true parity with incomes.
Here are examples of other roles with perceived or clear
differences (and their proposed revisions):
- Actor/Actress à
Actor
- Fireman/Firewoman à
Firefighter
- Salesman/Saleswoman à
Salesperson
- Policeman/Policewoman à
Police officer
- Chairman/Chairwoman à
Chairperson or Chair
- Usher/Usherette à
Usher
- Author/Authoress à
Author
- Waiter/Waitress à
Server
- Steward/Stewardess à
Flight Attendant
- Barman/Barmaid à
Bartender or Barstaff
Particularly in our (for the most part) more accepting gender-fluid society should gender neutral roles now be the norm?
After all:
Are the roles they refer to any different? No
Do they impact on the person’s ability to do the job? No
Might they help dispel any associated misconceptions and
prejudices? Who knows…
