If you hear the "Hallelujah Chorus" playing in the distance, you're not losing your mind—you're just sensing the arrival of EquiTable, a new app that accounts for patriarchy and racism in bill-sharing.
Conceived by comic and civil rights educator Luna Malbroux, the new app takes direct aim at our society's wage gaps across gender and race by charging white men a truly fair share.
When a group of friends is wrapping up a meal or night at the bar, EquiTable splits the bill so that people who experience the most institutional oppression pay proportionally less for the bill, while those at the top end of the wage gap cough up more dough.
Malbroux told NTRSCTN in a statement that the app uses data from the Bureau of Labor to decide who makes more money, and therefore who is responsible for more of the bill. Genius.
Malbroux came up with the idea for EquiTable after she had been hearing a lot about the wage gap in the U.S., and pitched the idea at the 2016 Comedy Hack Day, an annual "hilarous tech" competition, where it won the grand prize.
While the app has its roots in comedy, Malbroux said that it's "humorously approaching a very serious issue." She also asked, "Could you imagine if everyone used this app? There would be much more incentive for people to make sure people were paid equally for equal work!"
As for other apps she has cooking, Malbroux said that she's come up with a way to have tech call attention to microaggressions. This app would "anonymously alert someone [when they commit a micro-aggression]. Like the next time someone told me I 'was so articulate' (for a black woman), I could just send them a push notification and go about my day," she said.
