The Gender Pay Gap: Evidence, Opinion, and a Side of Intersectionality.
Sociological Meanderings Towards Collective Well-Being
Hello students of Sociology! Many of you stated that you lacked clarity around two key concepts from the Week One material, so I’d like to keep on digging in, and learning more.
As an important aside, I do read every word you write, even though you are not graded for content, on the study guides. I pay special attention to the reflection, to what you share about what you’ve learned, for precisely this reason–so that I can tailor my teaching around your needs!
So, let’s talk about pay gaps, and let’s focus on the (W)NBA, and in doing so, learn about the line between evidence and opinion as well as intersectional thinking. I did some digging around the internet and found this information (see below) on pay gaps. I checked multiple sources, even though I only have one source linked per piece of evidence. This is a key component of evidence: being able to replicate sources, to know your sources.
[This, by the way, is why AI (like ChatGPT) is so concerning: there is not a name attached to the information, so there is no way to check sources, thus, it does not aid critical thinking.]
- WNBA: average salary is $102,751 (2022), though it will likely increase given the increased attention the league is getting of late. A handful of players make $200,000 or more.
- The highest paid NBA player earns $51,915,615.00
- The highest paid WNBA players earn around $220,000.
- Caitlyn Clark’s starting salary will be $76,525.
- Angel Reese’s starting salary will be $73,439.
Okay, so these numbers lead us to evidence of a gender pay gap, where humans who are categorized as “male” earn significantly higher salaries playing basketball than humans categorized as “female.” Like I said above, I linked only one article per stat, but I checked multiple sources to verify that these numbers are accurate/representative.
Let’s see the numbers lined up, so you can see how many numerals there are/aren’t:
$51,915,615
$220,000
That’s fifty million dollars as compared to two hundred thousand dollars.
So, the evidence makes it clear that there is, in fact, a pay gap. This is not debatable.
Before we proceed with a discussion of evidence and opinion, let me say that all this, already, is intersectional. Intersectionality is about learning to see how our position across various identity markers (race, class, gender, sexuality) shapes our social position/status/access to resources. It’s also about how this varies across time and place and social context. So, talking about gender AND pay is intersectional: it is looking at how BOTH gender AND class shape people’s power/position. But it’s also always about race, too. See how Angel Reese is making less money than Caitlyn Clark? Even if in this case it’s only a few thousand dollars, look in your wallets and tell me if a few thousand dollars would make a big difference in your life right now? As sociologists, we are interested in patterns, so really, it’s less about two specific basketball players and more about the intersectional pattern that women of color make less money than white women, so it’s not just a gender pay gap, it’s a racialized gender pay gap (race + gender + class). So, how much money you make is shaped by age AND race AND gender AND ability. When you speak, whether or not others listen is also always about all these dynamics simultaneously. This means that, as Collins’ notes, we are all BOTH privileged AND oppressed. I am female identified (oppression) and upper class (privilege). I am a lesbian (oppression) and able bodied (privilege). I could go on. But I experience all these things, and am treated by others through the lens of all of these identities, simultaneously, so it’s messy and interconnected. And how these factors shape my power differs based on my location: I have different amounts of power at work, depending on whether I am in a classroom, in my office, in the hallway, in the parking lot, or on the street. And my access to power is always shaped by all the factors (race/class/gender/age/ability) all the time, even as it’s always changing. Complex? Yes. If you practice, you’ll wrap your head around it, I promise!
So, then, what is opinion? Opinion, as one example, refers to how we feel about this information. Some examples:
- “I think they all make too much money.”
- “I think that the women should earn more money.”
- “I think the men should earn less money.”
- “I don’t like sports.”
- “I don’t like to watch sports on television, but I love going to see live games.”
- “I don’t think that sports should be sex segregated.”
- “I don’t think that women should be allowed to play basketball.”
- “I think the pay gap is made up, or exaggerated.”
- “I think this gender pay gap is wildly unfair.”
Do some of these make you mad? Do some of these make you nod your head? That anger, those head nods, help you identify your opinion. Note, here, that for these bullet points you cannot prove anything. Sure, you can prove that you don’t like sports by illuminating all the ways that you ignore them, but you cannot prove that you are “right.” You cannot prove anything outside of your own opinion, which is valid, and yours, so you get to own it. And, it’s all debatable. For all the people who think the pay gap is a problem there is someone who thinks it’s no big deal. How do we know who is right? We don’t. We just know our own values.
That said, we can build some of this opinion back into evidence. Let’s take the last point: “I think the gender pay gap is wildly unfair.” That’s an opinion. It is taking the evidence (the existence of the pay gap) and adding a moral judgment (wildly unfair). That is a valid opinion based on the evidence. We can go further and dig into the sociological evidence that highlights the consequences of the pay gap, such as how women and children are more likely to live in poverty. We can argue, on the basis of this evidence, that the pay gap weakens solidarity, and thus threatens the health of society.
But, critical thinking means that you do not have to agree with this sociological conclusion. You get to decide for yourself, based on your own values and morals and ethics; your own opinions. What I am trying to do here, with all this, is teach you how to think, not teach you what to think.
One step further! We could even say that we should use some of the money that men in the NBA earn to pay women in the WNBA more equitable wages. But that is also an opinion. Since it’s never been done, we have no evidence that it would work. This is where solidarity comes in: if collectively, we agree to pursue a solution, we can try it to see if it works, and if it doesn’t we can try something else! But we need to be able to come together, and be creative, and come up with ideas, and take some risks, together, based on our shared values. But we have to do the work of solidarity building to get to this place of shared values.
Critical thinking, sociological thinking, means in part, rejecting binaries. We don’t have to figure out who is “right” or “wrong.” We don’t have to decide which is “better” or which is “bad,” evidence or opinion. It’s both/and: they are just what they are. Evidence is evidence and opinion is opinion and they both exist and they both shape our experiences in the world and they both shape the direction of social change in society. Maybe you don’t like the evidence (that’s an opinion). Or, maybe you don’t like my opinion (also an opinion). That’s okay. What matters is that you learn how to hone your critical thinking skills, so that when you use evidence to form your own opinions, you are able to live out your values, and act in the world in a way that supports your values, that allows you to stand tall in your actions, and feel good about your role in our interconnected society.
As always, take good care of yourselves and each other.
Dr. Monica
