Read the original article at iNews.co.uk
It seemed simple enough. After asking my producers several times if they were satisfied with my work enough to allow me to send an invoice, I now demanded payment.
The producers were livid I would expect my contract to be upheld. The multi page chastisement made two things very clear. First, I was, as far as the producers were concerned, out of line for suggesting that payment was past due. Second, these were film producers I never wanted to work with again.
I should’ve been thankful to work at all, they claimed.
An even bigger gap exists
For as much as we talk about the gender pay gap an even bigger pay gap exists for those of us with disabilities. Disabled men earn on average eleven percent less than their abled bodied male counterparts. Disabled women earn twenty-two percent less than other women in the same job, effectively doubling the pay gap yet again.
Society demands that disabled women always act thankful in order to gain access to what most people consider to be common decency. Disabled women who are thankful for their job don’t ask for pay raises. They don’t over step their boundaries and need ‘too much’ help. Such a woman isn’t going to demand that you install a lift, challenge your preconceived ideas, or hire a solicitor when you don’t uphold your contract.
Disabled women are taught to be grateful
A disabled woman ought to be too busy being thankful to demand her right to equal access. And if she’s foolish enough to assert such a right, we can always remind her she’s lucky to have anything at all in the first place.
Thankfulness, of course, has its place. I’m thankful I was able to survive the emotional trauma which seems inevitable in pursuing higher education with a disability. I’m thankful in this economy to have a job at all, when the majority of people who want a job but are also out of work have some sort of disability. I’m even thankful for the stuff you take for granted, the gift of eating when I can’t feed myself, my PA who helps me get dressed in the morning, the warmth of the sun relaxing my spastic muscles on my way to work.
Ablism ensures a forty percent pay gap goes unnoticed
I will not be thankful for someone who obstructs my path toward equality.
If you have the expectation of us to be thankful and inspirational, an extreme feeling of betrayal when we dare to stand up for ourselves, if there a reliance on the assumption we feel lucky to have a job in the first place, then you are part of the systematic ablism that ensures a forty percent pay gap goes unnoticed.
I joined the Women’s Equality Party largely as a direct result of those film producers’ refusal to pay me for my work. I will speak out as disabled women are paid less than 60p for every pound abled bodied men earn. If being thankful assumes I am willing to be complicit in system that allows society’s most vulnerable to be paid less for their equal work, then consider my thanksgiving withdrawn.
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