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The AOM claims that because the overwhelming majority of Ontario’s midwives are women and because they work in the area of women’s health, the province doesn’t value their work as much as they do “their male counterparts in comparable professions.” It has taken their fight to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, which began hearing the case this week, three years after an initial claim was filed.

The association explains its decision to take the case to court on its website, professing that, “Midwives are among the thousands of Ontario women stuck in the gender wage gap.”

“Female-dominated professions face a historical lack of pay equity,” it continues. “We believe unwaveringly in the principle that women’s work should not be underpaid and undervalued.”

In case anyone misses the point, it adds flatly: “Our human rights are being violated.”

The AOM says 99.9 per cent of midwives in Ontario are women — a claim that was not disputed in an interim decision on the case issued in 2014. While that might very well be true, it does not negate the fact that should a male midwife chose to practise in Ontario, he would be paid the same amount as his female counterparts. The AOM’s point is not that female midwives are making less than male midwives, but that midwifery as a field is undervalued in the province because women’s work more generally is undervalued in society.

Perhaps there’s a case to be made that midwives deserve to be compensated better than their contracts currently allow, but using doctors’ salaries as proof of a “pay gap” bases the argument on a false comparison of two entirely different jobs.