A Friendly Morning Rant

Though I introduced my blog to feature friendly posts about new scientific discoveries- I am using my freedom of thought/speech/opinions to post a rant. A friendly rant though- enjoy.  

Women’s rights in science and technology

Salary differences across genders are an ultimate disgrace. As a member of the scientific community and potential future member of the science/biotech industry sector- I am appalled that we as a society have allowed and assigned a differentiation in monetary benefits across the genders. Helen Kendrick Johnson would be rolling in her grave at the overshadowed injustice women in science and technology have to accept with regards to compensation. At first glance, the amazingly superfluous difference that separated the salaries of women and men with the same years of experience in the industry sector seemed slightly off, but my immediate reaction was to accept the oddity as if I had seen this scenario and should accept it as the norm. After turning to my experiments in the lab for a couple minutes, my natural protective instincts kicked in to high gear. I couldn’t let the image of that simple table with numbers (favoring higher digits under the column titled ‘men’) pass through my mind.  Did I witness an almost double difference in salary for ‘under one year’ of experience? I showed that scandalous table to a female colleague of mine hoping that perhaps she would emit a stronger sentiment at first glance than my own- to my dismay, she has also been accustomed to accept this injustice and brushed it off as if she’d also seen this scenario many times before. Without being too condescending we can demystify and tackle this inequality first by begging the question- Why is there a difference in salary between men and women with the same experience for the same job position? Let’s all wrap our heads around this concept for at least more than the thirty seconds my colleague and I took to brush it off at first glance and let’s at least consider a simple answer and resolution.

For reference, here is that naughty table I adapted from the article featured in The Scientist. 

Table adapted from http://the-scientist.com/2011/12/01/life-sciences-salary-survey-2011/