T

he gender pay gap has reached Hollywood. At the Academy Awards, for instance, a number of actresses have revealed in their victory speech that they earn significantly less than their male co-stars for exactly equal roles.

While the gender pay gap is real, the general root of the problem — the gap in competence and productivity between genders — should be dealt with comprehensively. To say that women are less competent and productive than their male colleagues may sound like a discouraging statement that put women further in a disadvantaged position.

Yet, it is necessary to fully comprehend this fact before relevant authorities can act to close the gap.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati spoke at the GE Women’s Network Luncheon on April 13 in Jakarta about inequality faced by career women. As expressed in her Facebook post regarding the event, the minister did not talk about the pay gap.

She instead addressed the obvious competence gap in which women are always found as an underdeveloped group despite their actual potential.

The main problem is due largely to women’s limited choices in balancing career and family life.

The competence gap does not mean that women are inherently less competent than men. Instead, it is more a matter of earning greater privileges and opportunities to improve their competence and, thus, their
paycheck.

For many, a higher paycheck may mean the ability to afford more opportunities to improve their competence. This makes it challenging for women to achieve an equal platform to begin with.

The higher education system may present a strong case for this incessant circle of competence gap/pay gap that women face.

In the department where I teach, for example, female to male professorship is at a concerning 1:10 ratio. Even for those exclusive 10 percent, the management ladder is a tough battle they can rarely win.

This greatly explains why female academics earn significantly less than their male colleagues. The consequence is less privileges and less chances to independently fund participation in academic events such as workshops, which are essential in allowing them to network, and build up their skills and competences.

Even in externally funded opportunities, female academics often miss their chances to participate, particularly due to family-related commitments. Staying longer hours at the office or participating in training and further education, which generally require women to travel and leave their family — often little children — behind, is not seen as a viable option.

In order to reduce the pay gap, more policies should be made female-friendly. As trivial as it may sound, this is only possible if the system and authorities agree to fairly compensate the natural consequences of womanhood. Maternal leave, for example, takes away a significant amount of productive period from a women’s career.

Even after the leave ends, female academics like myself, who are concerned about their children’s development, will need to wait for at least two years before arranging new professional commitments, particularly ones that require them to be away from home. Men generally are not bound by similar responsibilities.

Despite many claims of positive progress in feminism, authorities in higher education surprisingly put very little effort to giving female academics a fair platform in their career.

For instance, the selection process of many grants for further education, including the prestigious Finance Ministry’s LPDP scholarship, does not bother taking into account women-specific challenges.

Increasing the age limit for female applicants, for instance, can be a simple yet important policy to compensate for women’s barriers. Establishing high-quality childcare centers in universities may also lessen women’s burden in juggling family and career commitments.

Many studies suggest that the gender pay gap may take us another century to close.

Meanwhile, socially constructed ideas of women as the main carers of children and, thus, non-potential breadwinners remain unshakeable in our larger community.

Therefore, even small gestures and the willingness of authorities to initiate change would be meaningful in encouraging a fairer platform for many women to exercise the best of their roles in both sides of their worlds: the home and careers.
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