Gender Pay Gap: What are influential women across the world saying?

It’s 2019 and women are still not getting paid equal to men. The problem of gender pay gap actually exists and, unfortunately, it gets worse as women move up in their careers. Certainly, policymakers, employers, and the government must do something about this problem.

However, a few influential women are finally speaking up against the gender pay gap problem, advocating equal pay for both genders.

Here are a few women that have minced no words in speaking about this problem.

• Michelle Obama, Lawyer and Writer

“I took my last job [before my husband entered the White House] because of my boss’s reaction to my family situation. I didn’t have a babysitter, so I took Sasha right in there with me in her crib and her rocker. I was still nursing, so I was wearing my nursing shirt. I told my boss, ‘This is what I have: two small kids. My husband is running for the U.S. Senate. I will not work part time. I need flexibility. I need a good salary. I need to be able to afford babysitting. And if you can do all that, and you’re willing to be flexible with me because I will get the job done, I can work hard on a flexible schedule.’ I was very clear. And he said yes to everything.”

• Emma Watson, Actress

✊🏻 Today I stand with @woman_kind @ChimamandaReal @AmikaGeorge @AdwoaAboah_ @MissDumezweni @MeeraSyal @NimkoAli & others to call on govts to do more to ensure the rights of women everywhere are respected, protected, valued & realised. #IWD2019 #WK30https://t.co/daW3t6DV25 pic.twitter.com/q4VkUb2VBf

— Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) March 8, 2019

“The reality is that if we do nothing it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work.”

• Cate Blanchett, Actress

“It just feels like the industry has the same conversation every year, and I think that’s a fabulous conversation… We’ll be back here like Groundhog Day next year having the same fucking symposium. It just has to shift.”

• Oprah Winfrey, Talk Show Host and Philanthropist

“I went to my boss at the time and I said everybody needs a raise. And he said, ‘Why?’ He actually said to me, ‘They’re only girls. They’re a bunch of girls — what do they need more money for?’ I go, ‘Well, either they’re going to get raises, or I’m going to sit down.’ I will not work unless they get paid. And so they did.”

• Meryl Streep, Actress

“The [Devil Wears Prada offer] was to my mind slightly, if not insulting, not perhaps reflective of my actual value to the project. There was my ‘goodbye moment,’ and then they doubled the offer. I was 55, and I had just learned, at a very late date, how to deal on my own behalf.”