Beyoncé Pens Article on Equal Pay
Singer Beyoncé Knowles Carter has not only made a name for herself in the music industry, but she is now making it very clear that she wants women to know that they need to come together and make a change.
In her essay about feminism in The Shriver Report’s book A Women’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, says women need to earn equal pay for equal work as men. The letter is very empowering and will open eyes and ears!
Singer Beyonce wrote an article for The Shriver Report’s book A Women’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink. (Photo: Beyonce)
“We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn’t a reality yet,” Beyoncé wrote. “Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes. But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more—commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender. Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect.
“If women received pay equal to their male counterparts, the U.S. economy would produce $447.6 billion in additional income,” Beyoncé says.
“Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal? These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning,” the singer writes. “We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible.
“We have a lot of work to do, but we can get there if we work together,” she says. “Women are more than 50 percent of the population and more than 50 percent of voters. We must demand that we all receive 100 percent of the opportunities.”
The study is a partnership between Maria Shriver’s The Shriver Report and the Center for American Progress. The report was meant to encourage women to make a stand on what they believe in and how to be successful working women in the U.S. economy. Stars like Jada Pinkett Smith, Eva Longoria, LeBron James, former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and social activists like Barbara Ehrenreich, Maya Harris and Ai-jen Poo also contributed. Download the full report here for FREE from Jan. 12–15 from Amazon.
