The Blame Game: How the Rhetoric of Choice Blames the Achievement Gap on Women

Abstract

In 2013, fifty years after the Equal Pay Act guaranteed women equal pay for equal work, almost fifty years since Title VII made discrimination based on sex unlawful, thirty-five years since the Pregnancy Discrimination Act made it unlawful to discriminate against women because of pregnancy, and nineteen years after the Family and Medical Leave Act provided twelve weeks of unpaid leave for some caregiving reasons, there is still a significant achievement gap between men and women in the workplace. Women still make less money, and rise more slowly and not as high in workplace hierarchies. Why? The common narrative states that because these laws have given women access to formal equality for many years, the fact that women have not achieved equality in the workplace must be blamed on something else. Specifically, the something else relied upon by society, the media, employers, and courts, is that women\u27s own choices are to blame for the achievement gap. The blame game asserts that women\u27s relative lack of success in the workplace is caused by three interrelated choices: (1) women\u27s decision to not pursue high-pressure, high-status professions, or jobs that are seen as men\u27s work ; (2) women\u27s unwillingness to negotiate on their own behalf; and (3) women\u27s decision to devote more time and effort to caregiving and homemaking tasks