Carrie Gracie donates backdated BBC pay to help other women fighting for equality
Carrie Gracie — the BBC journalist who resigned after learning she was paid 50 percent less than her male colleagues — has donated her backdated pay from the BBC to other women fighting for equality.
In a joint statement, the BBC and Carrie Gracie announced they had "reached an agreement to resolve their differences." Per the statement, the BBC has apologised to Gracie for underpaying her, and she has received backdated pay.
In January, Gracie resigned her post after discovering what her male colleagues were being paid. "With great regret, I have left my post as China Editor to speak out publicly on a crisis of trust at the BBC," wrote Gracie at the time.
Gracie said she was "glad" to have been able to resolve it with the BBC's Director-General Tony Hall. "It shows that we can make progress," she said in the statement. Gracie added that she's also "pleased" that her work as China Editor has now "been properly recognised" by the corporation, which is funded by licence-fee payers.
"For me, this was always about the principle, rather than the money. I’m delighted to donate all the backdated pay from the BBC to help women striving for equality at work," she added.
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Gracie donated her backdated pay to the Fawcett Society, the UK's leading charity campaigning for gender equality and women's rights. The money will be used to set up a fund for "women who need legal advice on equal pay claims and to support Fawcett’s strategic legal work," per a statement emailed to Mashable.
Per a Fawcett Society spokesperson, the money will fund "access to a legal support service" to help women fight for equal pay. "This new service will be initially for women earning below £30K per year without access to advice," reads the statement.
"My own experience has taught me how lonely and challenging this can be."
The money will also pay for "strategic legal cases and interventions" which aim to strengthen the law. It will also pay to establish a "strategic legal interventions panel" of experts to "support this work."
The amount of money Gracie donated will not be specified at this time, the statement said. The fund is set to launch later this year, and is not currently in operation.
"When my case became news, women wrote to me from all over the country to recount horror stories about unequal pay and the difficulties they faced in trying to put it right," Gracie said in a statement emailed to Mashable. "My own experience has taught me how lonely and challenging this can be."
"I am relieved my own battle is over. Now I want my back pay to help other women win equality at work, especially women who lack the personal funds, union support or public profile to get access to legal assistance," Gracie continued.
Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, praised Gracie for her tireless campaigning for equal pay. "I want to pay tribute to Carrie who is a fearless and principled champion for equal pay," says Smethers. "Her generous donation means we can get the fund underway."
On Twitter, women commended Gracie's actions.
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Claire Cohen, women's editor at the Telegraph, said Gracie's donation is a "good reminder that this isn't about women greedily wanting MORE money — simply about being paid equally."
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Gracie's colleagues at the BBC expressed their pride
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Congratulations and thank you, Carrie!
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
