Equal work, equal pay

Tomorrow, 8 March, is International Women's Day. Coinciding with that, Get Up Australia is running a campaign for equal pay for women. They point out that:

For every $1 earned by men in Australia today, women earn just 84c.

Even worse - the gap has actually widened since 2004.

Isn't it outrageous that 99 years after the first International Women's Day, we still have to campaign for equal pay between men and women? Now we have a Labor government with more women in cabinet that ever before, you'd think that the Rudd government would be inclined to fix up that inequity. Well, you'd hope. Let's not take that for granted. As the Get Up email says:

From paid maternity leave to high-quality affordable childcare - a people's movement has the power to convince politicians and corporations to actively remove the stubborn systemic inequalities that still exist, to ensure productive participation - for equal reward.

You can sign Get Up's Equal Pay campaign petition at their website (the image above is off their site).

To help celebrate IWD, I also recommend that you visit and read these wonderful Australian, feminist bloggers:

• Ampersand Duck
• Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony
• Cirsty at Two Peas, No Pod
• Galaxy
• Hoyden About Town
• Pavlov's Cat
• Reeling and writhing

Of course, there are heaps more out there, but these are the ones I enjoy reading regularly. If there are others you'd like to suggest, please feel free to leave a comment.

And happy International Women's Day to all women, and especially all those who read this blog, for tomorrow.
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Update: as a further celebration of International Women's Day, I've posted the fabulous photograph of women workers at an American railway dated 1943. It is from the Library of Congress flickr collection. [updated Friday 4.16 pm]