{"id":341141,"date":"2017-08-01T17:13:28","date_gmt":"2017-08-01T17:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=341141"},"modified":"2017-08-01T17:13:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T17:13:28","slug":"serena-williams-essay-calls-for-equal-pay-for-black-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=341141","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams essay calls for equal pay for black women"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Serena Williams has written a powerful essay calling for equal pay for black women.<\/p>\n<p>To mark Black Women&#8217;s Equal Pay Day in the US, the tennis star posted an article titled How Black Women Can Close the Pay Gap.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The gender pay gap hits women of color the hardest,&#8221; she writes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Growing up, I was told I couldn&#8217;t accomplish my dreams because I was a woman and, more so, because of the color of my skin.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"embedded\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"instagram-embed-0\" class=\"instagram-media instagram-media-rendered\" src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BXN5pUHhZWT\/embed\/captioned\/?cr=1&amp;v=7&amp;wp=643#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A33039.495%7D\" width=\"300\" height=\"861\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-instgrm-payload-id=\"instagram-media-payload-0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div class=\"embedded\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"related_stories\"><\/div>\n<p>Writing in\u00a0Fortune Magazine,\u00a0the 35-year-old speaks about the systematic imbalance of pay for black women in all types of jobs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The issue isn&#8217;t just that black women hold lower-paying jobs. They earn less even in fields of technology, finance, entertainment, law, and medicine.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She adds: &#8220;Even black women who have earned graduate degrees get paid less at every level.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is as true in inner cities as it is in Silicon Valley.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"image_container \"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/976\/cpsprodpb\/143CE\/production\/_97149828_gettyimages-678117184.jpg\" alt=\"Serena Williams\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Serena does recognise her position of privilege as one of the most successful sportspeople of all time, writing: &#8220;I am in the rare position to be financially successful beyond my imagination.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But today isn&#8217;t about me. It&#8217;s about the other 24 million black women in America.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If I never picked up a tennis racket, I would be one of them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The cycles of poverty, discrimination, and sexism are much, much harder to break than the record for Grand Slam titles.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"image_container \"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/976\/cpsprodpb\/0F36\/production\/_97149830_gettyimages-633139914.jpg\" alt=\"Serena Williams\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"caption\"><span class=\"screen_reader_text\">Image caption<\/span>Williams won the Australian Open in January &#8211; it later emerged that she was pregnant at the time<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In terms of action, she calls for &#8220;dedicated action, legislation, employer recognition, and courage for employees to demand more&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In short, it&#8217;s going to take all of us,&#8221; she writes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Men, women, of all colors, races and creeds to realize this is an injustice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Black women: Be fearless. Speak out for equal pay.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Every time you do, you&#8217;re making it a little easier for a woman behind you.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Most of all, know that you&#8217;re worth it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It can take a long time to realise that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Serena Williams has written a powerful essay calling for equal pay for black women. To mark Black Women&#8217;s Equal Pay Day in the US, the tennis star posted an article titled How Black Women Can Close the Pay Gap. &#8220;The gender pay gap hits women of color the hardest,&#8221; she writes. &#8220;Growing up, I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-showbiz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=341141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}