She works hard for what money?

Oh, so you’re a woman? Excuse me while I significantly reduce the amount of your salary so that it in no way matches that of your male co-workers.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average full time working man earns about 18% more than an average full time working woman.

But why is that?

One interesting idea suggested by BBC World News anchor Katty Kay and ABC News Contributor Claire Shipman is that women have a ‘confidence gap’. They say that women are more likely to downplay their abilities and qualifications, not apply for jobs unless they satisfy all the criteria and apologise for talking about their career goals. Another suggestion is the choice of careers where women tend to go for more humanities oriented jobs that have a lower salary compared to jobs in the STEM sector.

And then there is Helen Conway, director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency who said, “…many organisations simply don’t realise they have a gender pay gap.”

Seriously?

And it’s not just white and blue collar jobs that have this gap, just take a look at Hollywood. Jennifer Lawrence was paid about 23% less than all her other male co-stars in American Hustle.

Hollywood is notorious for gender disparities. Earlier this year Wikileaks released some emails between Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter and Sony CEO Michael Lynton talking about their reluctance to make another female superhero film. They mentioned how Catwoman, Elektra and Supergirl were basically disasters and didn’t bring much money at the box office. Don’t get me wrong, I love Marvel films but I think they certainly have the capacity to make a good superheronie film. There have been many fans vouching for a Black Widow film (myself included) and it would be wrong to assume that it would be bad based on previous female led superhero films that were not so great.

On a skit on Saturday Night Live, Scarlett Johannson even poked fun at Marvel by starring in a trailer for a Black Widow movie:

I think these pay gaps are completely wrong. Women go to the same schools, the same universities and have the same jobs as men (well unless you went to an all-girls/all-boys school) just to wind up getting paid less? No. It is long past time for change.