Yahoo Lifestyle Beyonce: "Gender Equality Is A Myth"
Beyonce on stage during her Mrs Carter tour. Photo: Getty Images.
Just when we thought Beyonce couldn’t get any better, the singer has written an open essay on gender equality.
Published in former Californian first lady Maria Shriver's media initiative, The Shriver Report, Beyonce’s article touches upon equal pay and education for women.
"We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality,” Beyonce implores. “It isn't a reality yet. Today, women make up half of the US workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 per cent of what the average working man makes."
In Australia, the stats are unfortunately just as dismal: Australian women have to work an extra 64 days a year to get the same pay as men doing the same work. And it's the year 2013.
According to the Equal Pay Alliance there’s no one cause of the gap, and no one solution. In fact most of the gap occurs because of unconscious bias. Employers don’t deliberately pay men and women differently – that is illegal; but they might recruit differently, create different position descriptions, have different expectations or promote differently depending on whether you are a male of female - without even realising it.
So what is the solution? According to Beyonce, it all comes down to education.
"These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning,” Beyonce explains. “We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life.”
The singer and mum-of-one adds that girls also need to be nurtured so they can reach “as high as humanly possible” and strive for equal opportunities to their male counterparts.
“Women are more than 50 per cent of the population and more than 50 per cent of voters,” Beyonce says. “We must demand that we all receive 100 per cent of the opportunities."
The singer isn’t the only star to voice her opinion on the matter – Eva Longoria, Jennifer Garner and Jada Pinkett-Smith have also written essays detailing their views on education, poverty and human trafficking.
There’s nothing we love more than stars using their status as a means for good!
