Student Sponsored Equality Bake Sale a Success

Photo Credit: SAGE Bakesale
February 21, 2014
On March 3, 2014, the SAGE student group hosted an Equality Bake Sale to promote awareness of the gender wage gap.  The Daily Nebraskan featured a write up of the event.

Women had an advantage at a bake sale in the Nebraska Union Wednesday, and they will on March 3, too.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Students Advocating Gender Equity teamed with Students for Choice to sell “wage gap” cupcakes representing the inequity of pay for men and women in the United States. Cupcakes were 77 cents for women and $1 for men, because women make 77 cents for every dollar that men make.

Wednesday’s sale was a hit, SAGE treasurer Audrey Nance said, so the group will hold another one March 3 in the Nebraska Union from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“We were actually really surprised by the reception,” said Nance, a sophomore journalism major. “We baked 30 cupcakes, and I thought we were gonna be there from 12:30 to 4 being harassed the whole time and selling no cupcakes. But we only had like two people question our statistics.”

In fact, the group sold out of cupcakes within a couple hours. Students and other onlookers seemed to “get it,” Nance said.

“The whole point was, yeah, it’s not fair that men would pay more for a cupcake,” Nance said. “And it’s not fair that women get paid less than men. It’s not supposed to be fair. It’s supposed to open your eyes to how unfair it is.”

Nance and SAGE president Meredith Cain, a junior women’s and gender studies major, helped revive the inactive RSO, along with Students for Choice, in Fall 2013. Funds from Wednesday’s bake sale will go toward the next one, but leftover funds will go toward group activities. Future activities could include film showings and roundtable discussions, Nance said. And then there are the condoms – 500 of them, to be exact, which the group is tasked with distributing thanks to the Great American Condom Campaign. Group members are considering dressing up as “condom fairies” and giving out the freebies at bars.

After all the cupcakes had been sold, Nance said, students helped themselves to about 30 of the free condoms.

“So I guess we have 470,” she said with a laugh.

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