The law says women should have the chance of doing the same jobs as men and earn the same as them. The reality is very different. Women lose because, 25 years after the Equal Pay Act, many of them still get paid less than men. They lose because they do lower-paid jobs which men just won't consider. And they lose because they are the ones who interrupt a career to have children. All this is reported in an independent study ordered by the Government's women's unit. The biggest problem isn't equal pay in workplaces such as factories. It is the sort of work women do.
Make a list of low-paid-jobs, then consider who does them. Try nurses, secretaries, cleaners, clerks, teachers in primary schools, dinner ladies and child-care helpers. Not a lot of men among that group, are there? Yet some of those jobs are really important. Surely no one would deny that about nurses and teachers, for a start. So why do we reward the people who do them so poorly? There can be only one answer—because they are women. This is not going to be put right overnight. But the government, which employs a lot of them, and other bosses have to make a start.
It is disgraceful（可耻的） that we have gone into the 21st century still treating women like second-class citizens.