This week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the state's Fair Pay Act. The law isn't the first legal measure to address the pay gap between men and women. Since 1949, California state law has prohibited wage discrimination on the basis of gender. The old law, however, applied only to "equal" work, which the courts have been interpreting as the exact same job.
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I wish there was some other industry we could point to as an example for what the entertainment industry should be doing to reduce the pay gap, but it seems like there really is no other standard. The entertainment industry is frustratingly unique in this respect, and it makes it hard to craft laws that would prevent industry professionals from being able to weasel their way out of following a new act like this. Beyond the law, money is consistently put above any sense of moral decency as well it seems when it comes to gender parity in the entertainment industry, which seems to be the larger and unfortunate issue at hand. The fact that these kinds of laws aren't already taken care of by the Fed is also very complicatedly confusing, just because it doesn't seem right for something as large and as wide-spread as gender issues to be addressed on a state-by-state basis.
First of all, it's ridiculous that we have to have this in the first place. Like Brennan said, there really is no other way standard that we can hold other entities to like they're doing in the entertainment world. It all comes down to the transparency of salaries, both on the company sense and on a person-to-person sense. Many people don't want to talk about what they make, and it's when they step forward that the truth spills over hundreds of miles of internet posts. However, this is definitely a step in the right direction and I'm really glad to see celebrities using their popularity to make a difference. Even though this is in no way the end of the war, it’s a battle won for women who are finally getting fair compensation for the work that they’re doing, as if that’s a radical concept or something. Employers will still try and figure out a way to weasel money out of contracts and that is definitely sucky, but at this point, people are so much more open about talking about the subject that I hope it gives them something to own up to if that does happen.
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