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  • 3 hours ago
Illustrating the gender and race pay gap with Jenga blocks shows the truth about how women and people of color suffer in the workforce. It's harder to build without a stable foundation.
Transcript
00:00She's jealous. She got all this opportunity over here.
00:04Today we're going to be playing Wage Gap Jenga.
00:07The worst party game ever.
00:09We are here working with these blocks, which are representing women and how they stack up in our culture.
00:16And this is actually, I believe, the gender and race wage gap.
00:20It's not really surprising though, because honestly, a Latino woman like me only gets paid like 54 cents for every
00:26white man's salary.
00:27I have 100% of the blocks, which feels good, but I don't feel good that it feels good, because
00:33I see objectively fewer blocks over here.
00:36It's already unfair, I feel like.
00:38Sabotage. Straight up sabotage.
00:40It's a huge risk to make a move for you. It's pretty low risk for me to make a move.
00:45We've been getting some facts here. I'm ready to read one.
00:47I make 87 cents to a white man's dollar.
00:51As a black woman, I just found out that I make 63 cents to the dollar.
00:56This is easy. I don't know what you're complaining about.
01:00Straight out of college, women make about $3 less per hour than men.
01:05Hmm.
01:06Because that makes sense.
01:07Gay and bisexual men are paid 10 to 32% less than similarly qualified heterosexual men.
01:13I usually am the only openly gay person of color in any place that I work at.
01:16I apparently make 77 cents to a white man's dollar.
01:22And you have children as well, right?
01:24I have two kids. There is a motherhood penalty for that.
01:27A motherhood penalty?
01:29Yeah, and in some states and in some instances, women can be penalized up to 15%.
01:35Just because you might have children, that shouldn't be a reason that you make less.
01:40I just feel like single moms get totally made invisible and that's part of the reason why like you would
01:46get paid less is because you're not viewed as like as valuable a contributor in some way.
01:51This is a really depressing game to play as a white guy. This is mad depressing.
01:55I got you, I got you. Right here in the middle.
01:59I got you, girl. I got you.
02:02The average woman can expect to lose out on nearly $500,000 in earnings over the course of her career
02:08because you're a woman, because you're a mother, because I'm a person of color.
02:13I think statistically, advantage is a difficult thing to explain and this is fair because you have played insane.
02:20Like you're insane at Jenga. Advantages of the stable support system, I think is the massive difference.
02:27Yeah, no, I'm like not moving. Oh, it didn't fall though, right? Does that count?
02:31That's not like cheating.
02:32Is it?
02:34Public policy could help close the gender wage path, but Congress has obstructed progress. Why Congress? Why?
02:43We already have like three laws that says you can't pay someone less because of their gender or race.
02:50However, the system we have set up makes it almost impossible to prove that.
02:54I think a lot of people are just like afraid, you know, they just like are happy to have jobs.
02:58They're like happy to have their job and don't want to lose it.
03:00Everybody should be speaking up about how much they're making. Talk to your friends, talk to your colleagues, especially, especially
03:06your bosses too.
03:08Alright, if it's gonna end, let it end with this.
03:13That's insane!
03:17Now we're equal.
03:19Should we karate chop it?
03:21I say let's break this down. Let's build our own. Let's knock it over. Let's build our own thing.
03:28When it clearly turned out better with both of us building it, not just me being a weird block miser.
03:34You can do anything that you want to do and do not let anybody stop you.
03:38You're all you need to be. You have everything that you need within you.
03:43Alright guys, we'll see you guys next time. Bye!
03:46See you guys next time.

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