Who wears the pants? from Aana J on Vimeo.
Shout out to Generation Y! While equal opportunity between men and women in the workplace environment has gained increasing support. There are currently 12 times as many men as women on the boards of the top companies and women in senior roles are earning an average of about 30 per cent less than their male colleagues (the latest census on women in leadership shows). We are the future of global change and it is time we ‘re-dress’ the continual issues of unequal pay, power and position in the workplace between women and men. As we follow our destined career paths into our adult lives, it is important that we are aware of unequal opportunity within the current corporate world. We are directly affected by these issues. So I urge you to stop for a moment, look at your own situation and ask yourself: ‘Who wears the pants?’ Here is a closer look at the collection of trousers I created the prints for and put together myself to be used in the film campaign...
The idiom ‘who wears the pants’ stems from the time of patriarchy, when men went out and worked, while women tended the home. During this time it was considered taboo for women to wear trousers and it was only in the 1970’s that trousers became acceptable for western women to wear.
The issue that I set out for my project to address is the problem of unequal pay between men and women in the current workplace environment.
My concept is communicating underlying notions of imbalance and inequality between two individuals. As a result of this project, I want to prompt the viewer to question their own position of power, within their own workplace relationship, asking themselves: “who wears the pants”.
Today in Australia, women can still earn 16-25% less than men in equivalent jobs. This graph shows us that the pay gap has gone back to where it was in 1989.
“Equal pay for equal work.” It’s the same issue raised at a rally 103 years ago in New York City where 15,000 women marched through streets demanding their right to equal pay. There are still too many workplace environments where women are not given the chance to wear the pants.
My project aims at creating awareness amongst gen y which is generally those aged 18-27. They are the future of our workplace community. I set out to target both men and women this age as the issue is going to affect them directly. They can make the changes necessary to make the workplace an equal playing field in the future.
