The gender wage gap exists in 98 percent of jobs. With a number that high, it’s no surprise that even celebrities suffer from this inequality. Pop rock band Haim recently had their own run-in with this disparity when it came to getting paid for their performance at a music festival.

Haim is a band of three sisters: Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim. This talented trio is not your average girl band. In fact, these sisters don’t want to be known as a girl band – just a band, according to youngest sister Alana.

In 2017, Haim accepted a deal to perform at a music festival in exchange for radio exposure. Later, the sisters discovered that a single male artist, who was only one spot ahead of them in the line-up, was paid 10 times more than they were. The names of both the festival and the artist have not been disclosed.

Immediately after discovering that they were paid only one tenth of what the male artist received, Haim fired the agent who was responsible for setting up the inequitable deal.

While we applaud Haim for taking action, it’s clear that this is a temporary solution to a larger problem. The most effective way to fix this would be to change the laws surrounding equal pay, but what can the average person do to fight against this disparity? Haim was able to correct their situation, but most women are not so lucky.

Due to the social stigma of discussing money, many women have no idea what their male coworkers are earning, but money doesn’t have to be a secret. One way to move toward equality in our paychecks is to talk about our paychecks.

“It’s so hard to check: everything’s so secretive about how much people are getting paid, and that’s bullshit,” Danielle Haim said in an interview with Vulture.

Let this be a message from Este, Danielle, and Alana: stick together. In this male-dominated world, women must join forces and openly discuss the conditions we live under if we are to truly correct the issue of unequal payment – and unequal treatment.

Featured Image by Jed Villejo on Unsplash

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