By Ann-Marie AlcĚÁntara
If you’re not familiar with the gender pay gap, a new app will help you figure out what it’s all about. It’s called Toothpick, and it instructs you to give a lower tip when your server is a woman.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Toothpick seeks to enlighten people about the gender pay gap by urging a customer to “tip what they [women] deserve.” It deducts 22% from a standard tip to illustrate how much less women earn compared to men. Although most people wouldn’t deliberately tip women less, that’s exactly what happens across all industries — gender-based income inequality exists, and women aren’t paid as much as men.
When you use the app, you first decide how much you want to tip (15%, 20%, really any number), then you select the gender of your server. To test it out, I entered a $20 tab with a 15% tip; my hypothetical male server would get $3, while my female server would get $2.31. According to the app, the calculator is based on 2013 wage data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The app isn’t kidding around either. Both Toothpick’s website and the app encourage people to sign a White House petition calling for the Equal Rights Amendment to become part of the Constitution. The ERA, which guarantees equal rights to women, is an amendment that received Congress’ approval in 1972 but failed to be ratified by state legislatures. So far, the petition has 1,015 signatures (it needs 98,985 more to warrant a response from the White House).
While the app is only available for iPhones, you can still sign the petition — and next time you dine out, make sure you don’t shortchange your waitress.
[via Fast Company; top photo courtesy of ThinkStock]
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