WEBVTT - BONUS: The Pay Check, Episode 3 0:00:01.639 --> 0:00:04.920 Hey Max, Hello Becca. So you and I went to 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:07.800 a bar in downtown Manhattan when it was still extremely 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:10.320 cold out, and we went to talk to people about 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:13.119 the gender pay gap. We wanted to hear what the 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.040 average person on the street has to say about this stuff. 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.680 One of the first guys we talked to works for 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.440 the state of New York. At first he told us 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.600 he believed in the pay gap, and even saw him 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.480 one of his previous workplaces. But then after talking to 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:29.440 him for a little while, he told us what he 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:33.599 really thought from what I could see in my current position, 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:37.440 if there's a gap, it's not twenty cents on the dollar. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:40.920 But if that was in fact true, Yes, of course 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:43.639 that's not right. But it is true as far as 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.360 I know. That really is what the data shows. I think, 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:52.040 yes it is. So this guy knows women are paid less, 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.520 but the number he hears it it just doesn't sound 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.520 right him. He looks around, he sees things getting better 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.440 for women. He just doesn't buy that things could really 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:07.560 be so bad. I don't think it's a conspiracy um, 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:12.320 but yes, I think maybe maybe somewhat overmown, especially nowadays, 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:14.080 it's a lot of different than it was even ten 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.479 years ago. So while I recognize that probably is somewhere 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:19.520 of a gap, I think that gap is getting smaller. 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.480 I think there's more opportunities for women these days to 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.880 advance in their career. Then he said something that reminded 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.479 me of what I hear in my reporting all the time. 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.000 It's not that the pay up isn't real exactly, but 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:40.720 that I'm misunderstanding the data. Basically, the data doesn't show 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.080 what I say it does. You could look at data, 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:45.640 I could look at data, She could look at data, 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.120 and we could all come up with our own numbers. 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.560 I mean, it's not a black and white thing. There's 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:59.920 a very great area when you look at the world. 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.040 You know what the population like, where is our place like? 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.480 Where is our value? Will deserve people for equal work? 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.279 This woman, we almost put this gender bias and ourselves, 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:15.760 and nationwide the median salary for men is greater than 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:21.320 women in ninety nine point six percent of major occupations Women. 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:26.000 What do they want? We want to end gender inequality, 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.240 and to do this we need everyone involved. Well, actually 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.560 it's the feminist celebrities and politicians spreading this wage cap 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:39.400 myth who have the math problem. Ginger Rogers did everything 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:43.200 that Freda Stare did, She just did it backward did 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:52.120 in I welcome back to the Paycheck. I'm Rebecca Greenfield. 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.320 This week we are going to investigate the gray areas 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.240 in the data. We've heard from listeners who feel like 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:00.960 the guy from the Bar, and we've also heard from 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.120 people who don't believe in the pay gap at all. 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.320 They say that figure the gap between what women and 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.800 men make in the US is misleading, that it's just 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.280 an average that doesn't control for people in the same 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.560 industries or doing the same job. This is a common 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.800 critique of pay gap reporting. Here's Britt Hume on Fox 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.400 News making that same case. Women make different choices about 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.280 what kinds of jobs they seek in reaction to marriage 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.280 and childbirth when those things have taken into consideration. Studies 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.840 have indicated that the pay gap all but evaporates. That phrase, 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.200 all but evaporates. I heard a lot that the pay 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.200 gap disappears when you control for things like the fields 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.400 women tend to work in and the time they take 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.040 off to care for their families. The pay gap does 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.960 get smaller when you control for certain things. But no 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.960 matter how much Matthew do, it never disappears when you 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:56.880 control for job title, company, and industry. One study found 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.520 that there's still a five point four percent pay gap 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.040 in the u US that's unexplained. We know pay discrimination 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.200 is still happening, and that's not right or fair. But 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.440 I also want to talk about another part of this 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:12.280 argument that women make choices to focus on family rather 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.080 than work and that's why we earn on average less 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:20.680 than men. Is that what's really happening. The research does 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.120 show that women start off at near parity with men 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.720 in their careers, but after having a kid the gap widens. 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.160 Is this because women are choosing parenting over working in 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.719 high paid jobs because that's what they value. I think 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.640 that it's a more complicated story than simply that women 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.320 value family more than careers. I think the whole workplace 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.920 is really set up so that it's harder for women 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:49.760 to be parents than it is for men. That's Robin Eale. 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:53.479 She's a business administration professor at Harvard, and she recently 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.719 co wrote an article with Kathy Tinsley, a management professor 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.840 at Georgetown, called What Most People Get Wrong About Men 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.719 and Women. When she talks about how the workplace is 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.479 set up better for men than women. She's partly talking 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:08.720 about the rigid nine to five work day and how 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:10.880 that makes it harder to say, pick up your kids 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.680 from school. It's challenging for anyone, regardless of gender, to 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:17.480 work a full time job and take care of kids, 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.679 but we expect women more than men to make it work. 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.279 And to make it work, women shift to jobs with 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:28.240 fewer demands, flexible schedules, or telecommuting options. The culture is 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.440 telling them that once you become a mother, to be 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.160 a good mother, you really need to take those accommodations, 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.440 whereas for men, it's saying, you know, you really shouldn't 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:40.039 take those accommodations because your role is as the breadwinner. 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.239 So men tend to wratch it up after they have kids, 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.640 and women will be more likely to wratch it back. 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.799 So the culture and the organization interpret what people should 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.000 be doing once they have children. This idea that we 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:54.320 expect women to do less at work when they have 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.000 a child and men to do more. It shows up 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:01.000 in the data. Women's earnings decrease four then for every 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:05.440 child she has. Men's earnings actually increase six percent when 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.720 they have kids. These are known as the motherhood penalty 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.360 and the fatherhood bonus. And even when men and women 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.719 both act the same at work, the stereotypes we have 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:20.239 about women can hurt their earnings. Here's Kathy Tinsley, Robin's 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:24.800 co author. So when somebody is absent from a meeting, 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.919 there's oftentimes uncertainties about why that is occurring. Right, you 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:31.960 don't have perfect information and corporations about what everybody is 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.839 doing all the time. And what happens is when you 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.120 have imperfect information, your brain doesn't really like that i 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.240 perfect information, and so it fills in that imperfect information 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:45.080 with assumptions, with educated guesses about what that missing information is. 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.040 And people use gender stereotypes as a way of helping 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:53.280 them fill in missing information. And So what can happen 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.880 in any meeting where a man may be absent, The 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.839 assumption is more likely to be, oh, he could be 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.919 at another client meeting, or he you know, had some 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:08.800 emergency come up that was also work related, right, Whereas 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:10.920 if if a woman is doing it, it would be 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:15.840 more likely to be a family related assumption. So, even 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.280 if women and men do the same things at work, 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.440 we imagine a woman's work is suffering because of her family, 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:23.960 whereas we don't assume the same thing about a man. 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.560 Then there's that other point that paygap skeptics make that 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.920 women make different choices about what kinds of jobs we seek. 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.440 As we've talked about on the show before, women do 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.520 tend to work in jobs that pay less, like teaching 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.040 and secretarial work. Last week we showed you that those 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.600 jobs pay less because women do them. But is working 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.480 in these jobs always a choice? Take technology, it's a 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.280 well paid and male dominated field. If women aren't rising 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.720 to the top or succeeding as coders and engineers, some 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.320 people say it's because they're just not interested in it 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.320 or not good at it, and that feeds into this 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.920 general idea that women don't have the aptitude for math, coding, 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:08.920 or other skills that happen to lead to high paying jobs. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.760 We're just choosing jobs, lower paying jobs that we just 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.840 happened to be suited for. Well, there's a couple of 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.720 things that are going on there. The first is our 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.560 women as good at math as men, and the answer 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.400 there is yes. Um Shelby Hide has been doing research 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:30.280 for decades, and all of her research shows that the 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:35.559 gap between men and women in math ability is small 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.880 to negligible. You could call it trivial. Then the question becomes, well, 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.960 if there aren't any inherent differences between men and women 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.720 and math ability, then why is it that women aren't 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:51.080 entering some fields and men are entering them. One theory 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.920 that Robin brings up is that those fields they aren't 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.720 hospitable to women. That's where you have to look into 0:08:57.760 --> 0:08:59.960 the context. What is it that men and women experire 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.000 riants in the workplace and are they given the same 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:08.480 opportunity to thrive? That question, are women given the same 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.960 opportunity as men to thrive? We know that women and 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:15.559 men do have different experiences at work, like women experience 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.280 much higher rates of workplace harassment, and that actually pushes 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.200 them out of the highest paying jobs in fields. Research 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:24.439 has found that when women get harassed, they go to 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.560 safer jobs, and the more female dominated jobs have much 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:33.280 fewer reports of workplace harassment, and those jobs they pay less. 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:37.480 But there are more subtle ways our experiences are different too. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.080 There are all kinds of messages that tell women they 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.959 don't belong in the higher tiers of a company. Does 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:46.040 it mean the same thing to strive for a particular job? 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.600 Is it harder on women to perform in a job 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.160 where they have power over other people, probably because the 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:56.400 stereotype is that women aren't supposed to want to have power, 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.120 They aren't supposed to want to be ambitious and so 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:01.640 m So it's just it's just harder to live in 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:06.160 those jobs. When we talk about the gender pay gap, 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.920 we're not talking about people in power, mostly men, conspiring 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:14.040 to pay women less. There's no grand conspiracy, just a 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.080 bunch of systems that don't work well for professional women 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:27.360 because they were never designed to. As hard as the 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.760 aggregate number is to understand, even when we hear stories 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.600 from individual women that are telling us exactly how much 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.480 less they're making, we don't always see it as a 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:38.960 part of the pay gap. Our next story is about 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.760 a time a woman pointed out something that seemed unfair 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:44.240 and the world came back at her with a million 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:48.320 reasons why she can't be mad about it. Earlier this year, 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.040 comedian and actress Monique went public about a salary negotiation 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:55.480 with Netflix that went south. She said she was offered 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.400 way less to do a comedy special than what famous 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.160 men and white women had been paid it. She asked 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.600 her fans to do something kind of major boycott Netflix. 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.000 Her story went viral, but not in a good way. 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.679 People didn't rally behind Monique like they rallied behind other 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.360 women in Hollywood. They told her she didn't deserve more money. 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.679 I say, what kind of reactions was I expecting. I don't. 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:29.040 I wasn't expecting the reaction of, oh, we'll just do 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:33.079 it because Monique said it. I was expecting for us 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.720 to research what it is that I'm saying. Jordan Holman 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:42.120 spoke to Monique about her experience. In January, Monique posted 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.200 a video on Instagram. This was not a typical Monique post. 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.960 Her feed is mostly clips of her working out and dancing, 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.680 or promoting the podcast she does with her husband, Sydney. 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.800 Most of the time, she starts her videos with hey 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:01.760 my Babies. On that Sunday, she went script, hey my 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.480 loves I Am asking that she stand with me and 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.839 boycott Nextflix for gender bias and color bias. It was 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.200 all for a five d dollars deal last week to 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.520 do a comedy special. However, Amy she was afread eleven 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:18.880 million dollars, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle twenty million dollars. 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:23.040 A popular fan revolt from Netflix didn't happen. The general 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.559 reaction was not pro Monique. In blog posts and tweets, 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:29.880 comedy fans were skeptical about the comedians called to action. 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:34.280 Words like delusional, loudmouth, and ignorant were being thrown around. 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.480 A few people defended Monique, but most said she was 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.520 basically stepping outside of her lane. Here's Tony Rock, Chris 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.559 Rock's brother talking to TMZ. She's calling it color bias 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.920 and gender bias. In her words, not believe the stage 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.400 and how long people. She's been sta A long long time, 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.959 And I thought it was expressly interesting that people were 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.520 reacting like this is to Monique. At the start of 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:03.959 this year, which was also at the height of the 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.160 Me too movement, the public was learning that other big 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.719 name actresses like Michelle Williams and Claire Foy from the 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.720 Netflix series The Crown were paid less than their male 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:18.199 co stars, But the audience response to those Hollywood pay 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.839 gapps was very different. People got really mad about it. 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.680 Claire Foy even ended up getting back pay. I talked 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.840 to Monique about all of this in March. Hello, Hi, 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.800 this is Jordan's Hey Joean, Now you're doing baby, It's 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.480 Monique good. How are you today. I'm wonderful. I'm so glad, 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:39.320 I asked her if she was surprised that people seemed 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.480 to respond differently to her pay gap then those other actresses. 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.360 It didn't surprise me because of what the package looks 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:51.000 like in Monique, it's a problem. And those sports that 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.839 you named their white women correct. Yes, right. So when 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:01.199 our wife to say listen, this is not right, we listen, 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:06.319 and we should and we should. Now, if I'm a 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.319 fat black woman, well people are really looking at me 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.000 like have you lost your mind? You should just be 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:17.760 grateful they let you in because you've got three strikes 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.160 going against you. You're a woman, you black, and you fat, 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:26.360 and you want to take a stand girl. Monique is 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.480 one of the most famous black female comedians in America, 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.040 but even before this Instagram post, she has always been 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.160 the type of celebrity that you either love or hate. 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.640 She has a huge personality in her comedy. Isn't for everyone. 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:49.680 Black women. Don't give a we don't give a we 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:54.680 don't give a about, we don't give a way, don't 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.920 give a fun. Girl, You're gonna work them all, girl, 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:05.640 that y'all. In the early two thousand's she was everywhere. 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.680 She had the Monique Show, she wrote books, she appeared 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:13.280 on sitcoms. But what I know her from is The Parkers, 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:17.120 her number one hit sitcom on the UPN network about 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:20.320 a single mother and her dizzy daughter. If you were 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:27.400 a black girl like me, it was Appointment TV. Monique 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.040 moved to l A to pursue acting. When she was thirty, 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.480 she got the offer to start on her own show, 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.760 The Parkers. After only ninety days in Hollywood, when they 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.400 told her how much she'd be making, she felt like 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.160 a kid in the candy shop. So I was a 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:45.760 little girl. I didn't know the eggs questions. I didn't 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.960 know to say what's rating because no one told it 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.120 to me. So when they told me I would be 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:59.920 making a week, what you mean every you mean every week? 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.360 I would I would give this. Well, that's more money, 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:07.880 Jordan than my parents made. Monique star kept rising, and 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.360 in two thousand nine she landed something very rare for 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:15.520 a black woman, an Oscar nomination, not for her comedy, 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.240 but for her role in the serious drama Pruscious. And 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:23.359 that's when something happened that earned her reputation as a troublemaker. 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:28.920 In Hollywood. See, winning an Oscar involves its own separate 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:32.040 kind of side job. You don't just sit back and 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.120 let the Academy honor you. You have to do something 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:39.840 called an Oscar campaign. It involves going on junkets, doing 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:43.600 interviews and pressed lunches, and sometimes being on the road 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.600 for months. Monique she refused to do all of that. 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.360 She says she was busy with her family. She was 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.480 raising two young twins during the Oscar season for Pruscious. 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.440 She wanted to stay home with them and watched Curious George. 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:02.000 She says, the directors and producers didn't care. Everything was 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:05.280 simply about the business. We hear all of that, but 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.199 we need you here, and I understand that because at 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:09.800 the time it was coming from three people that have 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:14.400 no families. Monique won the Oscar anyway, making her one 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.760 of only eight black women to ever when an acting 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:24.240 Oscar first. I would like to thank the Academy for 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:28.399 showing that it can be about the performance and not 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:33.920 the politics. But looking back, Monique says that even though 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.320 she won the Oscar, refusing to do that Oscar campaign 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.760 that hurt her career. I got labeled as difficult and 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:46.080 demanding It's hard to know how much that difficult and 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:50.479 demanding label hurt her, but after Pressures, the jobs definitely 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.000 slowed down. She's only done two stand up specials in 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.200 the past decade. She's been in a handful of movies 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.360 since Pressures, but none of them have been nearly as big. 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.080 So that brings us to the beginning of when she 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.679 gets this offer from Netflix. Even though she hadn't had 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.000 a big hit in a while, the amount they were offering, 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:15.920 five hundred thousand dollars, sounded really low to her compared 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:19.679 to the tens of millions she knew other comedians were offered. 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.760 She says that her team, which includes her attorney, Ricky Anderson, 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.120 and her husband's Sidney Hicks, who is also her manager, 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.520 had to fight to even get Netflix VP Robbie Prawe 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:35.640 on the phone to talk about the offer. Netflix declined 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.280 to speak on this podcast, saying that they do not 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:44.000 comment on contract negotiations, but the conversation Monique describes once 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.920 they eventually did have a conference call with the studio 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.399 shows you just how difficult it can be to prove 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.800 your value as an entertainer. Monique and her team felt 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:57.040 like they could make a case that she was worth 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.440 more by any standard Robbie Praue could come up with, 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.359 but whenever they made their case, he would just change 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:08.760 the standard. Monique's people said she was worth more than 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.959 five hundred thousand dollars because of things like her oscar. 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.960 Robbie Prau said, that was Monique's resume, and they didn't 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.359 look at resumes. They asked why Amy Schumer Steel was 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.920 so much bigger, and he said, well, she sold out 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:25.960 Madison Square Garden twice and she had a big hit 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.440 over the summer. So Sidney said, is that not Amy 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:35.959 Schuma's resume? And you know how quiet it is right now? 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.520 Jordan's yes, that's how quiet it was. On the phone. 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.200 We talked about the gender pay gap a lot, but 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.399 if you're a black woman, you also face a racial 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.719 pay gap. It's really tricky to know which one affects 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.320 you more. We know women make eighty cents to the 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.720 dollar on average, but if you're a black woman, you 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.200 get sixty three cents to a white man's dollar and 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:04.440 ninety three cents compared to black men. Here is Monique 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.879 being told that the market value for her entertainment was 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:11.880 less way less than a white woman or a black man. 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:17.480 Was it her qualifications, her race, her gender. It's impossible 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.960 to every say for sure. And that's what's so crazy 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:24.399 for anyone who's ever been in a negotiation like this. 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.439 If you're one of those people who knows Monique as 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:32.440 a comedian and you're just not into her jokes, you 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:36.440 might think she's ridiculous for comparing herself to Amy Schumer 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.640 or Dave Chappelle. But a few people had her back. 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:42.800 But then you have those other people saying you better 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.920 not sit down, you better keep standing, you better keep 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:51.280 speaking up and speaking out. After all, she says, Schumer 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.199 and Chappelle were offered twenty two times more and forty 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.200 times more respectively than she was for a similar job. 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:03.080 Or are they worth that much more than her? Comedian 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.639 Wanda Sykes thankful Nique for sharing what Netflix seemed to 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.040 be offering black women compared to men in white women. 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:15.280 Wanda Sykes, she said Netflix offered her two hundred and 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:19.920 fifty dollars for her own comedy special, and when I 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.480 called for that boycott, there have been people that have 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:28.600 said calling for a boycott was extreme, and I want 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:30.680 to be the first to tell people calling for a 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:39.280 boycott is extreme. It was extremely extreme. However, isn't inequality extreme? 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:49.680 Injustice is extreme. Some people might hear Monique story and 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:53.879 say hers was obviously not a case of discrimination. She 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:56.879 had barely worked in comedy since the Parker's and some 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.240 just don't find her appealing, but take the reason since 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.600 why she hasn't worked and why she's not always appealing, 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:07.359 Her gender, her race, and even her size are all 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:10.119 part of it. That's how a lot of the gender 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:13.119 pay gap plays out. Women make less than men for 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:16.520 what seemed like innocent reasons, but when you dig deeper, 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.040 the real reasons have everything to do with the fact 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:24.159 that they're women. Next week, on the Paycheck, we'll go 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:26.480 to a country that thinks it knows how to fix 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:31.080 the pay gap, how by forcing big business to come clean. 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:37.400 Thanks for listening to The Paychecks. If you like the show, 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.520 head on over to Apple Podcasts and rate, review and subscribe. 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:44.560 We appreciate all feedback, even those one star reviews from 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.760 people who don't believe in the pay gap. This episode 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:50.960 of The Paycheck was reported by Jordan Holman, Max Abelson 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:54.399 and hosted and reported by me Rebecca Greenfield. It was 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:58.159 edited by Francesca Levi and produced by Liz Smith. We 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:01.720 also had helped from Magnus Henrickson, Gillian Goodman, and Janet Paskin. 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:06.439 Our original music is by Leo Sidron. Carrie Vanderriott did 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:08.680 the illustrations on our show page, which you can find 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:13.080 at bloomberg dot com slash paycheck branchesca Levy is Bloomberg's 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:13.919 head of podcasts