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I was surprised to be asked this question recently when doing a short telephone survey, “Do you agree that women should be paid the same salary as men?” Select your answer; “Strongly Agree, Agree Somewhat, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Disagree Somewhat, Strongly Disagree”.

Before I tell you what I answered, here’s a little story from my past. I was a traffic police officer in the Queensland Police Force back when I was handsome, young and lean (some would debate the handsome) and worked for about six months on radar … detecting speedsters. When I worked a 4 pm to 12 pm shift and was rostered with a female officer, at 6pm these girls would leave the radar operation and go with another officer in an unmarked traffic patrol car. I would spend the rest of the shift often doing radar on my own, many times in dark, dingy, suburban backroads. (There was in fact another officer, usually a fat, unfit and aging sergeant operating the Marconi radar instrument about 500 metres away and not much use to me if I got into a blue with an unhappy client)

The theory was that it was too risky having female police officers doing radar after 6pm as they may have gotten assaulted. Assault goes with the job and you have to be tough enough to wear it. What used to really annoy me is that these officers got exactly the same salary as me. I always thought that was unfair and unreasonable.

Now, how do you think I answered the survey?

I answered “Strongly Agree” because I can’t see any reason why women doing the same job as men should be paid more or less. If they aren’t however, doing the same job, then they shouldn’t get the same pay … it could be either more or less depending on the circumstances.

Equal pay for equal work, I thought, had come in years ago.

Robin Henry
“Think Success - Achieve success”