It’s become cupcakegate.
Students at the University of Queensland in Australia have proven—once again— that feminists cannot have their cake and eat it too.
As part of their annual Feminism Week, the Women’s Collective at the University of Queensland in Australia organized a “Gender Pay Gap Bake Sale.” Baked goods were priced differently depending on students’ self-identified gender, race and ethnicity.
“Come and visit the members of the UQU Women’s Collective to purchase baked goods—with a difference. Specific to each faculty, each baked good will only cost you the proportion out of $1.00 that you earn comparative to men (or, if you identify as a man, all baked goods with cost you $1.00!)” read the Facebook event page.
“ For example, if you are a woman of color in the legal profession, a baked good at the stall will only cost you 0.55 cents.”
Aimed at raising awareness about wage disparity among different genders and races, the event spectacularly backfired, sparking outrage, mockery and jokes of varying taste levels on social media:
The event prompted claims of discrimination, with some decrying the irony in protesting gender bias by discriminating against a group. Another commentator pointed out that the sale itself constituted discrimination under two separate laws:
“This is incredibly disappointing. Shame on UQU for condoning this. This is exactly why more people are starting to reject feminism. It’s insulting to the women (and men) who fought, and who continue to fight for equality,” wrote another student.
If only the moral outrage had stopped at that.
In typical internet fashion, what could have been a constructive debate turned instead into a cyberbullying playground, drawing a plethora of insults, tasteless comments and even death threats directed at the event organizers.
Ironically, despite (or thanks to) the whole online controversy, the sale went ahead and ended up being a great success as most of the cupcakes were sold in under an hour.
The Australian government describes the gender pay gap as the “difference between women’s and men’s average weekly full-time equivalent earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings.” Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last year estimated that “gap” to be at 17.9%.
But as the agency rightly points out, such figures are influenced by a number of interrelated factors, including stereotypes about what work women and men “ought” to do, what their place in society should be, but also due to women’s choice to engage in lower paid positions.
