Penelope Trunk, journalist for BNET, a CBS owned website, wants women to stop being paranoid about the wage gap and for God’s sake, show a little cleavage!
In her article entitled “A Salary Gap between Men and Women? Oh, Please” Trunk takes special care in dispelling the “myth” of the wage-gap.
“Women today do not face wage discrimination. We have solved the problem.”
She explains this to her demographic: mostly white male readers. Can you imagine the sheer magnitude of fan letters they must be sending her?
Oh, yes, and thank you Ms. Trunk for enlightening me, I was unaware that we solved this problem …where the hell have I been?
Where do I even begin? First off, we have not solved this problem.
Yes, things are much better than they once were. As Ms. Trunk points out in her article, some statics have even shown that young women …
… entering the work force in large cities tend to make more money than their male counter parts. While that is fantastic news, the truth is these young women only earn more momentarily. As women age, even so much as just one year out of college, the pay gap dramatically shifts in favor of men. Older women and ones working in smaller cities are still being overlooked and underpaid. But don’t fear — Penelope Trunk has some helpful advice that may solve this problem. She urges women to:
“Stop looking paranoid. The world is not out to get you. Men are not against you. In fact, all the women I know who have top-tier careers are most thankful to the men, rather than the women, who helped them, get there. Instead of focusing on the bad apples, find the men who respect women, and prove yourself to them.”
That’s right ladies. In 2010 in order to get ahead we need to latch on to male coworkers for guidance. If that were not eloquent enough, Trunk also added these extremely wise insights on how women should dress for the office:
“Don’t pretend to be a guy at work. Don’t dress like a guy by wearing boring suits. Show some cleavage – yup, you read that right – because guys like working with women they are attracted to. And show some leg because it’s fun – legs are the easiest thing to flaunt and the last thing to go. Women who dress like women move up the ladder faster because me think those women are smarter.”
Who knew that all along the answer to receiving equal pay hinged on purchasing a push-up and some sexy skirts? Clearly our role as women in the workplace is not to work hard but rather to look attractive to men.
My advice to Ms.Trunk: crawl back under that rock from which you came.