'We Took On The System And Won'
Marie Claire - UK|June 2018

As part of Marie Claire’s ongoing #NotMyJob campaign in partnership with the Fawcett Society – pushing for genuine equality in the workplace – we speak to the women who called out their employers for discrimination to find out how they did it

Helen Nianias And Charlotte Philby
'We Took On The System And Won'
‘I REFUSED TO BE PAID LESS THAN MY MALE COUNTERPARTS’

‘My colleagues and I were in the office chatting about our Christmas bonuses, when the penny dropped. Working in procurement for an electrical utility company, I was the only woman in my department. The guys were talking about how much they earned and, despite one of them being awarded a smaller bonus as a percentage of his salary, his cheque was still larger than mine. I got my calculator out, did some quick maths and felt stunned. He was earning £10,000 a year more than I was for doing the same job. My initial feeling was disappointment – I felt as though I wasn’t worth as much as they were, and it was a huge knock to my confidence, especially as most of the men I worked with were a lot less experienced than me. I had been in the industry for six years, with three years in this particular role. I raised the issue in 2015 with my head of department by arranging a face-to-face meeting to say I was aware of the pay gap and would be leaving if it wasn’t sorted. They said all the right things and made promises, but nothing was followed up. I was told I needed to hit certain targets in order to raise my salary, so I worked hard to achieve those over the next 18 months, but the goalposts kept moving.

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