Rationalizing pay inequity: women engineers, pervasive patriarchy and the neoliberal chimera

Abstract

This article argues that neoliberalism with its pervasive patriarchy and co-option of feminism, renders women tacitly complicit in gendered pay inequalities. We show that in New Zealand, one of the world’s most neoliberal nations, women who might precisely be best equipped to argue for equal pay – engineers – do not do so because neoliberalism makes many feel responsible for, and accepting of, their lower salaries. In interviews and focus groups, many women engineers talk of deserving less pay than men because of their ‘choices’, their ‘personality’ and their lack of ‘responsibility’. In a disempowering environment, some women show agency by disavowing gender as a reason for the pay gap. Such narratives of individualized shortcomings reduce hope of collective action that might uncover and dismantle the systemic causes of pay inequity, which are not due to a woman’s choice or personality but rather what we frame as the neoliberal chimera.

Keywords:

• Women in engineering
• neoliberalism
• patriarchy
• gender pay gap
• feminism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sharyn Graham Davies is Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences and Public Policy at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. Sharyn is an anthropologist focusing on gender and sexuality in Indonesia and author of two monographs and co-editor of Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia, winner of the 2015 Ruth Benedict Prize for best edited collection. Sharyn has previously been Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Cambridge University and received a Fulbright award to present her work at Yale in the US.

Professor Judy McGregor is the head of the School of Social Sciences and Public Policy at Auckland University of Technology. She was Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission between 2002 and 2012, and her national inquiry into aged care was the catalyst for trade union litigation and significant public policy change on equal pay. She is the Australasian editor of Gender in Management: an International Journal and has published extensively on human rights and gender equality issues including equal pay, women’s economic empowerment, and women’s participation and representation. Her latest co-authored book is Human Rights in New Zealand: Emerging Fault lines. In 2016 she was the NZ-UK Link Foundation Visiting Professor in London.

Judith Pringle is a Professor of Organisation Studies, School of Business, Economics and Law. Her specialist research interests lie in the areas of women, gender, diversity and careers. She has published chapters in edited books and wide ranging articles in journals such as Gender Work and Organization, British Journal of Management, International Journal of HRM, Journal of World Business, Personnel Review, Organization, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, Women and Management Review, Women Studies Journal (NZ) and consistently contributes to international conferences.

Lynne Giddings is an associate professor in the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences at Auckland University of Technology. Her research focuses on: methodological issues in research, women’s health issues, and social justice issues in healthcare and education. She has authored and co-authored book chapters and journal articles on these topics and is especially recognised for her contribution to the methodological debates on mixed methods.

Notes

1. Thank you to the anonymous reviewer who pushed us to interrogate further the subtleties surrounding women’s negotiation of the neoliberal chimera. While women may indeed acquiesce in practical ways to gender expectations, they may do this fully realizing that they are operating within a framework stacked against them. Women thus rationalize a situation they cannot individually change.

2. We recognize that this article concludes on a rather pessimistic note. We also recognize that while there are many flaws in Sandberg’s argument, she at least provides women with a sense of optimism and agency – ‘you can make as much money as men if you learn to lean in and demand a pay raise’. Our article provides no clear direction for women in this regard. We thus encourage future articles that specifically address ways that the neoliberal chimera can be dismantled and thus give women concrete tools to achieve pay parity as well and gender equity across all spectrums of society. Thank you again to the anonymous reviewer for challenging us on this point and pushing our article forward.