Why do French women work for “free” from Monday November 6th at 11:25?

This Monday, November 6, from 11:25 to 19 seconds, French women work… in vain. Faced with this observation, the feminist collective Les Glorieuses is calling on women to protest and stop work to denounce the wage inequality between women and men.

This date of November 6 at 11:25 was not decided by chance. It was simply calculated by taking into account the gender pay gap index compiled by the Eurostat Barometer. What exactly does the European Statistical Service say? According to him, the average gross hourly wage of French women is 15.4% lower than that of men (the European average is 12.7%). Based on 7-hour days (and 35-hour weeks), the Les Glorieuses team then reported this difference to the number of working days in 2023, taking care to exclude weekends and public holidays. Result: we get the date November 6 at 11:25 and 19 seconds.

This is the eighth year in a row that Les Glorieuses, behind the movement #6Novembre11h25, has mobilized against wage inequality and carried out this count. However, nothing changes. The founder of the collective, Rebecca Amsellem, is angry. “I think the question I’ve been asked most often in eight years is: “But how do you calculate this date?” not “but how is it still possible” and no longer “what consequences these inequalities can have for women, for our society”, laments the feminist economist in her press release. “How is it that our society is less interested in the economic, health, psychological, social, and philosophical consequences of deep global inequality and more in calculating the cross-product?”

Fight against inequalities

Rest assured, ending these wage disparities is not an impossible mission. Rebecca Amselem details three avenues. The first will be “the application of the principle of equal conditionality”, claims the founder of Les Glorieuses. Obviously, it offers companies access to government subsidies, tax breaks and condition the public market with respect for equal pay (opening to companies with more than 99/100 in the Labor Index); equality between women and men).

Another option. raise minimum wages for so-called “feminized” professions, i.e., where there is a large predominance of women. “I think about midwives, nurses, teachers. All these professions, which do not contribute to social cohesion, but which constitute our social cohesion,” says Rebecca Amsellem. Finally, the activist advocates mandatory and adequate post-natal leave for parents to “put all workers on an equal footing”.