I recently watched a film called 'Made In Dagenham' no before you ask it is not the Essex version of 'Made In Chelsea' that is called TOWIE my loves. This film is set in the late 60's when a mother of two who worked in the Ford Factory in Dagenham stood up for equal pay for women. The film is truly inspirational but at the same time it is quite hard to believe that it took our country and other countries to make it law that women should be given equal pay as men do. We have all heard of the Suffragette's and the amazing campaign and hard work that they put in to get us the right to vote, to me they were the first group of feminists of our country. At the same time we all think of this as history it happened a hundred years ago, to think that the right for equal pay was only made law 50 years ago when my nan was only 20 just doesn't seem right to me. The fight that these women put up is truly inspirational to me and I will forever look up to them and be grateful for what they have given me. If you haven't seen the film before it is currently available on BBC IPlayer, I highly recommend you watch it.
The film urged me to look at what has happened after they won their fight. In May of 1970 the Equal Pay Act was made Law (Hooray!). But what shocked me more is when I found an article posted by ELLE Magazine on equal pay today. I found some shocking statistics... Firstly that Women make up 47% of the UK workforce so just under half. Men who worked full time earned £558 per week in April compared with £462 for women, so in an average month men were being paid £2,232 a month and women were being paid £1,848 a month. Furthermore ELLE discovered that 'Over the last decade, a male graduate could expect to earn on average 20% more than a female graduate'. If a woman is taking the same degree and sitting the same exams as men do then why is it fair that Men get paid 20% more for doing the same job. The main problem that these women faced in Dagenham in the 60's was that FORD were threatening to shut down their factories and produce cars in different countries if they had to pay women the same amount as men. However as ELLE has discovered women wages could increase by about 50% by eliminating gender discrimination in relation to pay and occupation would actually boost our economy by 5%. So what I don't understand is why our government does not enforce it more and why there is still this divide between men and women. Men and Women SHOULD get paid the same amount for doing exactly the SAME job, it is as simple as that. So I urge you to take a look at this website (http://makethempay.co.uk) and see if what you get is the same as men.
