'We Took On The System And Won'

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

‘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.