There’s no denying this year’s superbowl was one of the most unforgettable games thus far. Unfortunately, the commercials fell short of expectations.
In fact, the most memorable commercials were probably the worst. Audi, an American luxury car company, released a commercial about the gender pay gap.
The ad featured one girl racing against a group of boys in a soap box derby. During the race, the girl’s father asks a question.
“Do I tell her that despite her education, her drive, her skills, her intelligence, she will automatically be valued as less than every man she ever meets?”
Save me the tears. Despite gender pay discrimination being illegal since 1963, organizations like Audi are still bent on spreading the false claim that women are paid less than men for the same exact work.
Suffice it to say, the gender wage gap is one of those myths that refuses to go away.
Proponents of the wage gap do not take into consideration variables such as differences in occupation or hours worked.
On average, men choose higher risk and higher paying jobs more than women. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost 93 percent of work-related deaths in 2015 were men.
This demonstrates that men, more than women, expose themselves to dangerous work situations for a higher pay.
Women choose to work in lower paying occupations and often avoid occupations that are dangerous.
A Georgetown University economist, Anthony Carnevale, demonstrated that women are over represented in college majors that result in lower paying occupations such as social work, early childhood education and visual and performing arts. At the same time, they are underrepresented in majors such as mathematics and engineering which result in higher paying occupations.
On average, men also work longer hours than women. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, men work on average 42 minutes more than women per week. For full-time employment, men worked 8.2 hours compared to women’s 7.8 hours.
In addition, women see more disturbances in their careers than men.
Part of the reason the gender gap exists is because married women choose to devote more time to their children and family than to their careers.
According to Pew Research data, women spent more time with their children than men in 2013. Marriage may be the single greatest driving factor behind the pay gap.
Unfortunately, the gender wage gap is a symptom of a greater problem; assuming, without evidence, that just because a disparity exists, discrimination must be the cause.
In this case, the disparity exists not as the result of sexism but as the result of people’s free choices and preferences.
Tyler Grudi is a Staff Writer for the Bona Venture. His email is gruditj15@bonaventure.edu
