No Male Comparators: The Doubling Up of Discrimination on Pay Equity

Abstract

Women seeking pay equity in women-dominated professions often encounter structural barriers to equity in the form of the “no male comparator” (NMC) analysis built into pay equity legislation. NMC is a symptom of larger societal inequities in the workforce, but it also serves as a catalyst to further entrench discrimination, which has the effect of reducing the societal value accorded to women-predominant professions. In this article, I engage in a thematic analysis of two NMC cases that highlight how current legislative and judicial approaches to equity seeking hinder equitable outcomes through procedural means. Such techniques include the development of an ill-defined legislative approach to NMC analysis, resulting in the “de-responsibilizing” of the state; opaque methodological approaches to assessing NMC cases, resulting in the justification of enactment delays by government; and the provision of scant attention to the historical and sociological conditions of women in gendered professions, resulting in a hollow commitment to equality.