Feminism for All hosted a wage gap bake sale Friday, March 15 in Jamrich Hall to educate on the gender, race and ethnicity wage gap.
The student organization provided statistics on the wage gap and how it affects individuals of various groups. Using these numbers, baked goods could be purchased in comparison to the white man’s dollar.
“All of our prices here are compared to the white man’s dollar, so the most expensive thing here is $1. So, it’s basically the average that each person based on gender and race [and] ethnicity would make based on statistics from 2016,” said Lin Herron, co-president of Feminism for All. “We do the best that we can to make sure that we get the most accurate information on what people tend to make on average compared to the white man’s dollar.”
The group used baked goods to create a conversational environment to address the wage gap.
“Everybody likes food, whether you’re a feminist or not, so it’s just a way to draw people in and then we can tell you about all this information,” Herron said. “So, the bake sale is just a fun little way to say, ‘come eat some food and let us tell you about this thing that is very taboo.'”
The wage gap bake sale also addressed misconceptions around the wage gap, highlighting that socialization is a big factor in this issue.
“The common misconception is [that] in every job that you go into, there is going to be a wage gap, when it’s more influenced by the type of careers that we’re socialized to be in,” Herron said. “So, women tend to work service jobs and men tend to work more manual labor jobs and those manual labor jobs tend to pay more, so it’s more about [our] socialization.”
For their next event on April 4, Feminism for All is hosting a psychologist from Texas who has researched the effects of birth control on the brain, personality and relationships, Herron said.
