Money is a difficult subject for me to discuss. I feel shame and resentment when talking about money. And even now, after so many years, the subject hasn’t gotten easier. When I faced the challenge of writing about money as one of my assignments for my writing class, I felt an instant sense of shame and resentment all over again.
I’ve worked very hard all my life, but I never earned as hard as I worked. I believe there are numerous reasons for the mishap. On the one hand, I hold the society that I grew up in responsible. Another part of it goes back to family upbringing, and still another reason is my own mental state, and the host culture I live in.
Iran
Back in Iran, like in any part of the world, women’s work wasn’t valued as equally as men’s work. Even compensation for women’s domestic work, which is crucial for the economy and the well-being of society, never materialized. My first experience with an unjust system goes back many years ago when I worked full-time, as a business and economy correspondent for Zan Newspaper.
I worked at Zan Newspaper, with a newsroom of 60 percent women. The word “Zan” in Farsi means woman. We published stories for women, by women, and about women. Yet, We earned 30 percent less than men.
Even before I started full-time employment at Zan Newspaper, I was paid 30 percent less than a male for my freelancing job at Hamshahri Newspaper. I really didn’t know, or even understand the discrepancies between sexes and pay rates until much later.
One day Ramin Radnia accidentally left his paycheck on the desk we shared in Zan Newspaper’s newsroom. Radnia was my colleague. We both covered business beats on the paper. Radnia held two jobs simultaneously.
He worked at Zan Newspaper in the afternoons, coming back from his day job at a different news outlet. It was during the late 1990s.
I worked much harder than Radnia and usually made it to the front page. On that particular afternoon in February of 1998, I arrived at my desk and unfolded my stuff. I saw the check with his name on it. The check read something around $2200 US dollars considering the exchange rate and the pay rate in Iran during those days. Mine was around $1400. We both knew I worked harder, stayed late, and was always ready to take care of any emergency.
After I saw the paycheck I was cross. I was utterly annoyed. I confronted him when he came back from the bathroom. “I just saw your paycheck on our desk,” I said. “How come you earn more than me while you spend fewer hours here and deliver less quality work,” I said. Radnia didn’t say anything. He was a calm person.
After a long pause, he finally said, “It is the labor department policy. Women are paid less than men.”
“Who said that?” I asked. My voice was a bit high-pitched out of anger.
“It is the labor department policy,” he repeated. His demeanor was kind and non-confrontational. His gesture suggested he understood my frustration. I didn’t continue the conversation.
The law clearly indicated that women were paid less than men. It is one thing to follow unspoken rules, and quite another to carry out the discriminatory law.
The biggest irony was that I worked at Zan Newspaper at the time. The word “Zan” in Farsi means woman. More than 60 percent of the newsroom were women. The stories we published were for women, by women, and about women.
The head of the paper was female. She was the daughter of the reformist president Hashemi Rafsanjani. Yet, women in her newsroom were paid less than men.
Later that day I went to HR. The HR manager confirmed my doubts. “It’s always been like this,” she said. “All women at this newspaper are paid less than men.” I knew women were paid less. It was the first time I could comprehend it.
I called the labor department’s head office the next morning. He was the department’s vice president, with direct contact to the secretary. I requested he send over the policy. He took it upon himself to fax the papers to me personally. I saw it on the papers.
The law clearly indicated that women were paid less than men. It is one thing to follow unspoken rules, and quite another to carry out the discriminatory rules that have been written as law.
Family
As far as family rules go, my dad always encouraged me to work and be independent financially. “Never rely on a man to feed you,” he kept saying. “You are smart, educated, and Jamshidi,” he said to me and my sister. “Jamshidies are always independent financially.” As much as he loved us to be independent, he downplayed the importance of money and financial management.
My dad didn’t teach us how to invest and take care of financial issues. If I was unpaid and went to him for advice, his answer was always, “Oh, azizam, why do you really need the money? You are well provided for. Just work for the sake of enjoying the work. I am still alive and will provide you with everything you need.”
The messages at home were too confusing for me to understand. There was a dilemma to be financially independent, yet, I never had to fight for my rights because I was well provided for.
The host culture
I traveled to the United States believing that this country respects women in its written and spoken rules. However, my dream proved to be wrong here as well. I worked as a medical interpreter at Harborview Hospital. I knew I was paid $2 less than my male colleagues. My manager’s excuse was his experience and the language demand on his part. But, I never believed in the rubbish.
Here in the U.S., women get paid 82 cents for every dollar a man earns. The trend has been steady for the last 20 years, according to Pew Research Center analysis. The pay gap is wider among black women and white women, and much wider among white men and black women. A black woman earns 64 cents for every dollar that a white man earns for the same job with similar work experience.
As I was writing this piece, I looked at today’s paper. There is a big headline on the second page of the Seattle Times: “Iceland women strike in push for equal pay and against violence.”
Iceland is one of the rare countries in the world with the smallest gap in paying female and male workers. Yet, they are frustrated over discriminatory pay. So, who should we hold accountable for the same problem?
Mental State
On one hand, I blame myself for feeling shame and resentment over earning less money. On the other hand, I hold societies accountable for wage discrepancies. What’s more — I think my dad could have done a better job of teaching me how to save, invest, and enjoy money. Having said that, I think I can still learn how to fight against shame and teach my daughter to push boundaries in her workplace when she comes of age.
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Goltune Editorial Team