Gina Rodriguez teamed up with Luna, the first nutrition bar that caters to women, for their Equal Pay Day initiative. As we all know, Equal Pay Day is April 4th, which helps raise awareness for the 20% gender pay wage gap that women face.
As part of the initiative, Luna is giving a 20% discount to represent the 20% gap in gender pay, donating up to $100,000 to the American Association of University Women (AAUW). “But it’s more than about money. It’s about this idea that there should be equality based on merit, not based on gender, or culture, or race. If you are the best person for the job, you should get paid the way anyone in that position would get paid,” said Gina Rodriguez to Latina magazine.
This is a change that needs to happen, by starting a conversation. “It’s something that I have been working on for a long time because as a Latina female that grew up in the hood, you’re so appreciative to get out and you’re like, ‘Oh my god! I graduated college. I’m one of the small statistics to graduate college. Now I’m super excited.’ Then you go on to accomplishing your dreams and you think, ‘Wait! Am I going to get paid less than a man? Why? Why? Why ever?'”
She feels that it’s more about getting paid what you deserve, what anyone doing that exact same job deserves to be paid, regardless of gender. “I feel like culturally, Latinos are so used to uplifting our men — but we are domesticated that way. It’s like; I got my dad’s back. Oh yeah, my brother wants this. I got you! You know what I’m saying? My man? Oh, I got my man like a rock. And we have yet to learn how important it is for us to support other women, and how we are stronger in numbers.”
Rodriguez feels that people need to talk about this issue and they have to come together because let’s face it, there’s a lot of women that this is affecting. “We cannot do this with an unstable ground. We have to do this together. We have to work together. We have to fight this good fight together, not tear each other down,” she says.
Most women tend to put their families and children before their own interests, but it’s time to change that mentality. “It’s a beautiful thing to be a selfless beautiful, phenomenal mom and wife, and also a career woman.”
She thinks women need to be informed about what affects them personally. “My advice to women is to get informed about yourself, about the kind of thoughts you walk around with, about the culture you’re walking in. If it is one that doesn’t support other women, figure out why. Figure out what that fear is — because I promise you life is a lot better when you don’t live it alone. But I will also say that self-love is very important because when you love yourself, it is very difficult to hate others. If you’re tearing others down you should stop and ask what part of you are not happy with that you have to tear somebody else down. That’s where it always begins, with self-love. I definitely think that we need to work on our unity cause we are stronger together once it all comes into place — which it will. We are leaning towards that, trending towards that, and I’m positive about that.”
