I’M going to start this column on the continuing furore over the BBC gender pay gap with a disclaimer: I’m an active committee member on Women in Journalism Scotland, a most excellent organisation set up to help women in the media reach their full potential. As such it will come as no surprise that I’m going to be banging the drum for equality.
We regularly debate the barriers that still exist in the media – and indeed most other spheres of life - when it comes to achieving gender equality, and the issue that exorcises members most, that really cuts to the quick, is pay. It can be hard for men to put themselves into the shoes of women on this one, since the automatic privilege they possess is often invisible to them, simply another cog in the structural patriarchy that has existed since time immemorial. Pay and indeed “worth” can indeed be complex matters, wound up with age, experience and other factors, such as the dreaded “market rate”.
But when the evidence is clear that the only reason you are being paid less than your colleague is that you happened to be born with female genitals, it is not only hurtful and anger-inducing, but downright humiliating. I know exactly how this feels because it has affected me at various stages in my career, in both the private and public sectors. Like most other women, I learned to live with it over the years, reasoning that if I thought about it too long I’d either never get out of bed, do something really stupid, become a crushing bore, or a mixture of all three. Basically, you get on with it and try not to feel too bitter.
I can imagine almost everyone on the list of prominent BBC women who signed yesterday’s letter to the Director General demanding equal pay has probably done likewise over the years. But last week’s report, which outlined the true extent of the gender gap between male and female “talent”, listing all those paid more than £150k, was evidently a humiliation too far; the anger and indignity burning beneath the wording of the letter is crystal clear.
The likes of Fiona Bruce, Sue Barker and Gaby Logan rarely spring to mind when you think of revolutionaries, but the call to “act now” in the letter has a welcome whiff of revolt about it. Will there be industrial action if BBC managers do not hastily rectify the situation? Well, I’d welcome a BBC announcement that the Antiques Roadshow is not available due to strike action on more than one front, to be honest. Or perhaps the women will decide to take a class action against the BBC? Such a case would surely be a potentially landmark moment in British life that all those who believe in equal pay could get behind. It will be interesting to see how Tony Hall manoeuvres an already embattled BBC through these waters.
First-rate Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis, who didn’t make the £150k list, has been among the first to set about renegotiating her contract. The fact that her colleague Evan Davis earns between £250k and £300k clearly came as a shock. (I can’t imagine how she reacted on hearing dinosaur Radio 4 presenter John Humphreys gets £600k.)
But this case highlights why it will be crucial to set-out new, more radical ways of thinking around how parity is achieved.
The signatories of the BBC letter rightly and generously point out that female staff in areas such as production and engineering, who earn way, way less than the so-called talent, have also been languishing in a pay quagmire for far too long.
This whole debate is surely pointless and hideous if all that comes out of it is that a group of high-profile women - the few - sort themselves out with bigger salaries at the expense of pay for the many. After all, the BBC, like every other publicly funded organisation, is under severe pressure to cut costs. If bosses are to raise the pay of these women to match that of their male counterparts, you suspect that it will be funded either by cuts to staff budgets elsewhere - don’t get me started on zero-hours contracts at the BBC - or programme-making, neither of which would be acceptable to taxpayers who pay all these exorbitant salaries.
With this in mind, I suggest the pay bands for all the “talent” be amalgamated and significantly reduced in number – perhaps down to three categories, with a maximum of £300k, which can take into consideration prominence and experience - and that to make this work across the board, the pay of the male presenters is reduced to bring it in line with female colleagues.
If male - or indeed female - presenters don’t like the new pay arrangements, then they should be encouraged to find alternative work at those wealthy commercial stations they all keep banging on about. Humphreys on ITV? I can’t see it. Lineker exclusively on BT Sport? Fine. He regularly gushes about how much he respects the Beeb; let’s see just how much.
Pay stubbornly remains arguably the most crucial gender equality battleground in society, a constant source of pain and humiliation to women from every strata of society. But equality cannot and must not be achieved by the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. It must apply to all.
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