The income gap between men and women is proof of the misogynist criterion that still prevails in this society. We are led to believe, in other fields, that we have equality, but math is an “exact science”. Inferior beings= Inferior salary. It is a math formula. In the past days, up to date information about Spain was published, al though Europe does not escape this gap. This has led us to the next consideration.
From being the guardian of mere survival supplies in the first human tribes, to being the administrator of properties of the “oikos” (household) in ancient and pre-modern societies, we find, nowadays, the “working woman” with a salary.
That a woman is now a “worker” is nothing new, she has always worked and a lot! She has been an administrator under a fundamental trait: it was sustained to a criterion of “needs”. Real needs.
We’ve all had a grandmother, a mother or an aunt that have made possible, with their own way of administrating the family resources –sometimes rather scarce- that a house could be bought, or that someone could study in the university. The miracle of numbers!
The industry development “uprooted” women from the administration of resources. The great economic movements, from which she was excluded, were developed (the same as she was excluded from literacy centuries before). In this new way of economy, she only participates through her work, now remunerated.
What do we have nowadays? A woman who doesn’t control either production or the great movements of money, and receives a remuneration, which, as the article tells us, keeps an important gap with the one received by men, not only in Spain, but in a lot of places worldwide.
There is no doubt that great economies have been made with “cheap labor”. First there were slaves, they worked for free, and then came the “modern slaves of the 20th century”, those who are paid enough to make them think they are free, and have purchasing power that makes them believe they live well, but a scarce one so that their gaining margin is considerable. Let’s not forget: Big economies are developed abusing and enslaving.
That we are able to buy expensive goods and we even think ourselves “Rockefeller” is part of the mirage this system creates for us.
With the tight salary a woman receives, even if they are top-qualified professionals, she can cover the needs this system creates for her. It is a perfect trap: the system pays little for her labor, and the worker –she in this case- invests part of her salary in paying for the needs this same system creates for her, in other words, she invests in the same system which exploits her. With so tight salaries, she can hardly invest in herself, in her culture, in her promotion, etc. This would be the best investment, but the systems takes care that this doesn’t happen. This way, a slave is guarantied.
While remunerations in accordance with her professional rank are achieved, we have to manage our resources in an intelligent way, just as our predeceasing generations did; they invested in real needs, not in the unnecessary ones. Nowadays, the superfluous is an atrocious consumption disguised of need. The real need we have is of ourselves.
Let’s not forget there are other ways of subsistence, and some groups of women are already doing things in this way. One in which they join their work to have benefits invested on themselves. There are other choices instead of receiving an unworthy salary in the end of the month, and even being grateful. Women have to communicate and share these experiences among us to help each other find new perspectives.
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