OPINION: One of the givens in news reporting is that you treat with skepticism research or surveys undertaken by organisations that have an interest in the results.
On Tuesday, the Ministry for Women released a report for International Women's Day showing that nothing has changed for a decade and there are still wide gaps between what men and women are paid.
I haven't seen a thing in any New Zealand media that shows any skepticism toward this assertion. It seems to me there is a lot of gender pay inequality in my parents' generation.
There is less discrimination in my generation and there will be even less in my children's generation. And I have to admit I struggle to see any gender discrimination in my industry today.
The report says that only 20 percent of pay inequality is due to women having to leave their jobs to raise children. The other 80 percent is due to unknown factors most likely due to conscious or unconscious discrimination.
It just seems a lot more complicated than that. A listener who worked for a union phoned me to tell me that there are huge gaps and cited the example of people who load trucks for supermarkets and those who unload them.
Apparently men tend to load and women tend to unload and are paid less. "Same thing loading and unloading boxes," she said.
The problem is that lots of people employed in those jobs phoned in to say they are quite different. Loading is fulltime all day in a more industrial environment requiring more machinery.
Unloaders unload fewer boxes and also stack shelves. The point is that these glaring examples of gender inequality often turn out to be not as simple as first thought.
I also talked to Paula Bennett, the Minister for Women, and asked her whether there were any laws Government could pass to improve the employment situation for women.
She said there was already a law against gender discrimination but "sadly there have been very few prosecutions."
Why "sadly?" We could equally say "happily there have been very few prosecutions".
Another assertion that women are not as good at negotiating pay is unprovable and probably nonsense. Sexist nonsense at that.
I am sure there is discrimination still. But I find it difficult to believe there hasn't been any progress on this issue.
Mitch Harris hosts RadioLIVE Afternoon Talk, 12-3pm weekdays.
