mind the gender gap

How to Walk Out of Work to Protest the Gender Pay Gap Like a French Girl

Photo: Holos/Getty Images

One can hardly turn the page in a women’s magazine without hitting a guide for how to eat, dress, or merely exist like a French girl — so here’s something else to add to that never-ending list of fetishized Gallicisms. Today, Frenchwomen were encouraged to leave work at 4:34 p.m. to protest the gender pay gap. This demonstration comes a few weeks after women in Iceland took to the streets to do the same.

Per The Guardian, as of 2014, the 13.8 million working women in France made up 48 percent of the workforce, though men’s salaries were 15.1 percent higher. According to the women at Les Glorieuses, a feminist newsletter, “From 7 November at 16.34 (and seven seconds) women will be working ‘voluntarily’. If women were paid as much as men, they could stop working on November 7 at 16.34.”

In fact, Les Glorieuses suggests women should take the last 38.2 days of the year off. Considering how the wage gap in the United States is projected to close in 136 years, it’s not the worst plan.

How to Protest the Gender Pay Gap Like a French Girl