College deletes International Women’s Day tweet after gender pay gap highlighted

Southport College have deleted a tweet celebrating International Women’s Day after campaigners pointed out that they paid women less than men.

The “Gender Pay Gap Bot” took Twitter by storm yesterday, highlighting the gender pay gap of organisations that tweeted in support of International Women’s Day.

The account revealed that women’s median hourly pay at Southport College is 25.9% lower than that of male staff.

There is no suggestion that Southport College pays women less than men for the same role.

The college has since deleted the original post to try and mitigate the controversy.

The now-deleted tweet carried a quote from Principal Michelle Brabner that read: “Careers and success have no gender! If we all work towards the same goal to break the bias, we have the collective power to create a future where gender bias and discrimination ae consistently challenged out of society.”

In their 2020/21 Gender Pay Gap Report, Southport College said: “The key reason for this difference is that there are significantly more female staff than male staff across part time, term time only, administrative and learning support posts most of which fall within Quartile 1 of the organisational gender profile.

“The College will continue to monitor this disparity and identify whether there are any specific reasons for it and whether there are any actions that can be taken to encourage more males to take up positions both overall across college and particularly for roles in Quartile 1.”

Co-creator of the Gender Pay Gap Bot, Francesca Lawson says: “I want employers to stop treating International Women’s Day as a Hallmark holiday and start taking responsibility for the inequalities in their organizations,”