07 October 2019

Female business leaders have come together to spark the #MeTooPay campaign, which borrows its name from the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment and repurposes it to focus on another area in which women are particularly vulnerable – pay.

The campaign, led by formed Royal Mail boss Dame Moya Greene and run by 100 businesswomen, was inspired by a case at BNP Paribas bank, where it was revealed that a female employee was being paid 25% less than her male colleague and that his first-year bonus was double that which she received.

"Pay discrimination is more widespread than we had thought, even though we have had laws on the books for 40 years," Dame Greene told the BBC. "We want to keep this issue alive."

The #MeTooPay campaign hopes to keep the issue in the spotlight through its website and social media channels, where the gender pay gap will be illustrated for all to see through reports on recent cases and examples of good and bad policies.

"Pay discrimination is fundamentally a management issue, they decide who is going to be paid what," Dame Greene said.