Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment

by Francis Fukuyama

Much of the agenda of modern feminism has been set not by working-class women hoping to get jobs as firefighters or Marine grunts, but by educated professional women seeking to rise closer to the top of the social hierarchy. Among this group, what is the real motive driving demands for equal pay? It is not economic in any conventional sense. A female lawyer who is passed over for partner or is made vice president but at a salary 10 percent lower than that of her male counterparts is in no sense economically deprived: she is likely to be in the very top of the national income distribution and faces little economic deprivation. If she and her male counterpart were paid twice their relative salaries, the problem would still remain. Rather, the anger felt in such situations is not so much about resources as about justice: the pay she is awarded by the firm is important not so much because it provides needed resources, but rather because salary is a marker of dignity, and the firm is telling her that she is worth less than a man even though her qualifications and contributions are equal or even superior. Salary is a matter of recognition. She would feel equally aggrieved if she was given the same pay, but told that she would never hold a coveted title simply because she is a woman.