I caught the tail end of a story on the news the other day that really piqued my interest. The tagline was “girls get an average of 12% less pocket money than boys.” And unfortunately that’s all I saw. This kind of blew my mind a little bit. I have always been aware of a pay gap between males and females, it’s a huge point of interest in feminism and sociology in large, but, perhaps ignorantly, I hadn’t thought about it outside of the workforce and how and why this was happening kind of baffled me. So I thought I would go through the reasons that sociologists apply to the wage gap in the work place to home and pocket money to see if they also applied here.
1) “We are socialised into believing males are worth more than females and therefore we give them more.”
I mean, this may or may not be true in the work force, I don’t know. As something I haven’t really experienced I feel like I can not really comment on that. But as a parent, I, for one, know that I think my child is worth all the money in the fucking world and the sun shines out their backside and I like to think this would be true whether they were male or female. However, how much money I give, or spend on my child is proportionate to how much I have and how much she actually needs, and although she is only young I think and hope that that will stay that way. But maybe I’m just being naiive.
2) “Boys are socialised to be more forceful when asking for things, that being strong and confident is good, whereas girls are socialised to be meek and humble and that being “bossy” is a negative trait”
This one resonates with me somewhat more, it comes down to that gendered playing I have mentioned in previous blog posts. By role playing, toys, books and stereotypes boys and girls are taught that men are strict, business type people who take on the role of provider and have the responsibility of the families financial security on them (which is equally damaging to them as to females, but that’s another blog post for another time) whereas women take on the nurturing roles, as mothers or nurses or other such figures to whom finances and careers are secondary. Girls who try to take control in play or, when older, in conversation are labelled “bossy” or “bitches”, insults that are seldom turned towards boys who share similar traits.
So how does this equate to boys getting more pocket money? Merely because they have the confidence to ask for money more often and more forceful in how they do it. So although on the surface things may seem equal to the parents if you add up the “extras” that boys get it ends up with that gap.
3) “men are motivated by money, whereas women are motivated by goods and services”.
This one is interesting to me, when I looked at the news story in more detail I realised it only counted monetary gifts and not presents or toys that were bought for the children. This is not to say that girls necessarily get more gifts, however it could show an issue with the data provided and not give us a full picture. Especially as studies into the wage gap have shown that women take up “job perks” more often than men, for example discounts, freebies, offers provided by their work place. But, I would argue, this is due to a subconscious dissatisfaction with wages and a “I’m going to take what I can get” attitude. So do boys get more actual money and girls get more gifts? I wish that I could find some data measuring that, but unfortunately, for once, the internet hasn’t provided. But even if that is the case is this a natural phenomena or one guided by our gendered socialised behaviour?
So, is this gap caused by a historically rooted gender bias? Honestly, I don’t think this is the kind of thing that will ever have a foolproof answer, but as with most parenting conundrums I have I think the first step is to bring up children to collectively challenge the internalized gender bias around them and not to make assumptions based on gender in general, hopefully eradicating thoughts and feelings before they become actions.
Nemimothers 