Editorial: Oscar won't fill gender gap

OPINION: It's taken 82 Academy Award ceremonies but yesterday American director Kathryn Bigelow made Oscar history by becoming the first woman to win the best director statuette.Bigelow won the award for the Iraq war film The Hurt Locker, which also went on to win the award for the best film.

While females all over the world were celebrating Bigelow's achievement in a previously male-dominated arena, New Zealand women were digesting the news that a new study of graduates with bachelor degrees has revealed that men start earning more than women a year after starting work.

Data from Inland Revenue shows that after five years the gap ranges between 1 and 20 per cent.

The Women's Affairs Ministry conducted a study using data from Inland Revenue and looking at the difference between the income of male and female graduates between one and five years after they started their employment.

The gender income gap is something that has been around for a long time. From time to time (particularly after the release of a report on the issue) there is an outcry about equal pay for men and women and a few promises are made about addressing the issue.

Then it gets put on the back burner and eventually forgotten until the next report – by which time the gap has widened again.

It's a sad reflection on our society that women with the same qualifications doing the same work as their male counterparts are still seen as being worth less by some employers. Such behaviour is understandable – although not acceptable – in countries where cultural norms place women on a lower social rung than men. But for such a phenomenon to be found in a civilised country which prides itself in fairness and equality is tragic – and wrong.

It would be naive to suggest that women and men are equal when it comes to employment. Nature and biology dictate that there are some jobs better suited to specific genders, and that is not debatable. But when a man and a woman are suitably qualified for the same job there is no justification for paying the man more than the woman.

Sadly the gender wage gap is an international problem and even in the United States, where the Equal Pay Act of 1963 required equal wages for men and women doing equal work, there is still a significant gap in some sectors.

So, while members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may have eventually decided that a woman is as good as a man when it comes to directing films, other areas of society still have a lot of work to do before gender equality is achieved.

- The Marlborough Express

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