The Truth: It's complicated. Some of those things do make a difference. But no matter how you crunch the numbers or spin the results, there is a persistent pay gap between men and women that can't be explained away by life choices or any of the other factors that MRAs and others suggest may "really" account for the differences.
You want the gory details? Check out these articles, studies and blog posts.
AAUW (American Association of University Women): The Gender Pay Gap
Women have made remarkable strides in education during the past three decades, but these gains have yet to translate into full equity in pay — even for college-educated women who work full time. A typical college-educated woman 25 years and older working full time earns $50,000 a year compared to $70,000 for college-educated male workers 25 years and older — a difference of $20,000! ...
For the entire full-time workforce, a typical woman earned $35,745 compared with $46,367 for a typical man, a pay difference of $10,622.
EXAMINING THE CRACKS IN THE CEILING: A SURVEY OF CORPORATE DIVERSITY PRACTICES OF THE S&P 100 (Calvert investments)
The "Glass Ceiling" is still a problem (emphasis added):
We remain disheartened by the glacial pace at which women and minorities are reaching the upper echelons of power. ... Of the 100 CEOs represented [in the S&P 100], 92 are Caucasian males. While women make up approximately 18% of director positions within the S&P 100, they represent only 8.4% of the highest paid positions within the same group of companies, positions that provide the opportunities to develop the expertise and networks needed for future board-level appointments.
Why Do Women Still Earn Less Than Men? by Laura Fitzpatrick (Time magazine)
U.S. women still earned only 77 cents on the male dollar in 2008, according to the latest census statistics. (That number drops to 68% for African-American women and 58% for Latinas.) ...
Once you control for factors like education and experience ... women's earnings rise to 81% of men's. Factor in occupation, industry and whether they belong to a union, and they jump to 91%. That's partly because women tend to cluster in lower-paying fields. ...
But industry doesn't tell the whole story. Women earned less than men in all 20 industries and 25 occupation groups surveyed by the Census Bureau in 2007 ... Female secretaries ... earn just 83.4% as much as male ones. And those who pick male-dominated fields earn less than men too: female truck drivers ... earn just 76.5% of the weekly pay of their male counterparts.
Women's Earnings: Work Patterns Partially Explain Difference between Men's and Women's Earnings (GAO report, 2003) (Emphasis added)
Of the many factors that account for differences in earnings between men and women, our model indicated that work patterns are key. Specifically, women have fewer years of work experience, work fewer hours per year, are less likely to work a full-time schedule, and leave the labor force for longer periods of time than men. Other factors that account for earnings differences include industry, occupation, race, marital status, and job tenure. When we account for differences between male and female work patterns as well as other key factors, women earned, on average, 80 percent of what men earned in 2000. While the difference fluctuated in each year we studied, there was a small but statistically significant decline in the earnings difference over the time period. Even after accounting for key factors that affect earnings, our model could not explain all of the difference in earnings between men and women. ... we cannot determine whether this remaining difference is due to discrimination or other factors that may affect earnings.
Blaming Women's Choices for the Gender Pay Gap, by Hilary M. Lips
The language attributing women’s lower pay to their own lifestyle choices is seductive—in an era when women are widely believed to have overcome the most serious forms of discrimination ... Women work in lower-paid occupations; on average they work fewer paid hours per week and fewer paid weeks per year than men do; their employment is more likely than men’s to be discontinuous. ...
However, a closer look reveals that the language of “choice” obscures larger social forces that maintain the wage gap and the very real constraints under which women labor. The impact of discrimination, far from being limited to the portion of the wage gap that cannot be accounted for by women’s choices, is actually deeply embedded in and constrains these choices.
See also:
The Gender Wage Gap: Debunking the Rationalizations, by Hilary M. Lips
Confronting the Gender Gap in Wages, by Deborah Kolb, Judith Williams, and Carol Frohlinger
Barry Deutsch at Alas, a blog has written a series of excellent posts analyzing various antifeminist pay gap myths. Let's take a look at some of the highlights:
Wage Gap Myth: The pay gap only exists because men work so many more hours than women.
[T]he argument is generally that the pay gap ... has nothing to do with discrimination. ... Women are paid less because they work so many fewer hours ...Myth: The pay gap only exists because women take time off from work to raise kids.
According to a [Department of Labor] web page in 2001 ... comparing only hourly wages, women were paid 83.2% of what men were paid in 2000. 83.2% is a noticible difference from the 76% figure for weekly full-time wages – but it still leaves the majority of the pay gap unaccounted for.
[T]he average female worker has 12.79 years of full-time experience, while the average male worker has 17.41. This difference accounted for between 26% and 30% of the total wage gap.Myth: The pay gap only exists because women haven’t been in the workplace as long as men
In this view, the pay gap is only still around because women only recently entered the workforce; as such, women haven’t had as much time to work their way up the employment ladder to the well-paid positions. ...
[E]xactly how long must we wait...? A woman who had been in the workforce five years when the Equal Pay Act was passed [in 1963] might well be retired by now, and the pay gap still hasn’t gone away.
Myth: The best way to measure the pay gap is to consider only the young and the childless
[T]he effects of discrimination add up over a lifetime. So, for example, losing a single job offer or promotion usually won’t make a big difference; but dozens of such small losses over the course of women’s careers eventually add up to a big wage gap.
Myth: If women really got paid less for similar work, then employers would replace all of the male workers with female workers
Some industries have, in effect, saved money by gradually replacing a male work force with a female work force. But there are many reasons employers might retain a male workforce, even though ... men are paid more on average.
Evidence of Discrimination
[E]xamples that clearly demonstrate that economic discrimination against women, contrary to the claims of the anti-feminists, is a real problem.
Myth: The Wage Gap is Caused by Men’s Higher Pay for Dangerous Jobs
It’s true that men are much more likely to die or to be injured on the job than women. Surely no one would be willing to risk their life without getting paid a premium for it; and no reasonable person would argue that extra pay for extra danger is unjust. ...
The problem is, there is no premium for dangerous jobs. And since the “danger premium” doesn’t really exist, it can’t explain the wage gap.
Myth: The CONSAD report clearly refutes the notion that there is pay discrimination
There are important kinds of direct employer discrimination which CONSAD’s methods cannot measure or disprove. For example, some employers are more likely to hire women to lower-paid positions and men to higher-paid positions. (Empirical testing – by sending male and female testers to apply for the same jobs — has proven that this sort of sexist occupational sorting sometimes happens.) ...
[P]robably the most important kind of sexism going into the wage gap is the sexism of unquestioned assumptions; unquestioned assumptions about who does the housework, unquestioned assumptions about who does the child-rearing, unquestioned assumptions about innate ability, and most of all, unquestioned assumptions about how jobs are designed for people with wives at home.
I call this last factor the “Father Knows Best” economy; most jobs implicitly assume that workers have wives at home who are taking care of the kids and house, so that these responsibilities never need to be accommodated by employers. Maybe that assumption made sense half a century ago, but it doesn’t make sense now; and by continuing to implicitly make this assumption, our economy is making it unfairly difficult for caretakers (who are usually women) to have careers.
If companies could get away with paying a woman who has equal experience and education to a man less money for the same position, why would they ever hire men in the first place?
ReplyDeleteJ. Durden, did you even read this post?
ReplyDeleteSome industries have, in effect, saved money by gradually replacing a male work force with a female work force. But there are many reasons employers might retain a male workforce, even though ... men are paid more on average.
You keep posting links to things like "aauw", "womens media" - clearly biased.
ReplyDeleteaauw accepts donations to "combat the problem".
If there were no problem - they would get no donations - would they.
Also, it seems like many of the links you provide - explain why there is a wage-gap (and it has nothing to do with "sexism").
What exactly is the purpose of this post?
To back up MRA claims?
That is what most of the links you provide do - except the ones that are accepting donations.
Get a clue.
But of course, you'll just brush me off and tell me to "read" your post eh...
Scarcrow: are cancer research facilities unreliable sources for the extent of the problem of cancer?
ReplyDeleteIf there is a problem in their methodology, point it out. You cannot just throw out an argument because of the source.
I also like how you put read in quotes. "Read", pshaw, whatever that means.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, not one specific employer who pays women less than men for doing the same job at the same proficiency with the same seniority is named, NOT ONE. Gee, could that be because the claim is bullshit and if any specific employer were named, a libel suit would result?
ReplyDeleteCold, that is some very sloppy thinking. It does not matter what a specific employer. Statistically, a woman makes less than a man for the same work, and the difference is not accounted for in hours worked, experience, time off, or any other factor that has been examined. It is true whether you compare all jobs or like jobs.
ReplyDeleteIt would not prove or disprove anything if we cited examples of specific employers behaviors without a statistical analysis.
It most certainly DOES matter, because you can't actually identify any discriminators, then it's VERY sloppy thinking to claim that discrimination has anything to do with the income gap.
ReplyDeleteNo, it is not sloppy thinking, Cold. This is statistical evidence of discrimination because there is a real difference between the groups that cannot be fully explained by any other factor.
ReplyDeleteEven if it is not due to discrimination, it is a real difference, not explained by factors such due to choice, which makes it a problem.
Oh, and statistically, men are four times more likely to kill themselves and ten times more likely to wind up in prison, but you'll probably chalk that up to "life choices".
ReplyDeleteNo, I would not. It is also a serious problem that men are more likely to kill themselves and be in prisoned, and a serious problem that black people are more likely to be in prison.
ReplyDeleteI do not need affidavits from individual judges stating that they sentence black men to longer sentences because they are black men to know there is discrimination. I can see it because a singe factor: race, is a predictor of sentencing, while no other factors explain the difference.
The same is true for the gender gap. A factor: gender, effects differences in wages, and other factors do not fully explain the difference.
If it's not due to discrimination then I don't give a shit about it because we're talking about differences in outcome instead of differences in opportunity. An individual who is not facing any discrimination can take it upon him/herself to find the best-paying job that his/her skills and experience justify, or start his/her own business and run it to the best of his/her ability. Incidentally, female entrepreneurs enjoy "positive discrimination" in the form of government grants.
ReplyDeleteMy point is we have not found any factor that is a personal choice that explains the difference, and that is a problem.
ReplyDelete"I can see it because a singe factor: race, is a predictor of sentencing, while no other factors explain the difference."
ReplyDeleteDoes this hold true when you remove EVERY other variable, i.e. nature of the crime, past criminal history, etc.?
"A factor: gender, effects differences in wages, and other factors do not fully explain the difference."
This is practically creationist logic. "Science doesn't explain this perfectly and fully, therefore God did it." Except in this case, other factors actually do explain it just fine, but David sites biased sources that look for ways to handwave away those explanations.
Yes, it holds true when you remove every variable. The same for the gender wage gap.
ReplyDeleteIt is not creationist logic. Gender, unlike god, is a testable factor. We can see that gender effects wage and other factors do not explain the difference. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that it is the gender that is causing the wage difference.
Actually it's a faulty analogy to compare judges and employers for two important reasons:
ReplyDelete1. Judges don't have any of their own money riding on their decision; it costs them nothing to be prejudiced in their decision-making as long as nobody can ever prove it. Employers, on the other hand, are throwing their own money away if they don't hire the best-qualified person for a job.
2. If you don't like the decisions your employer makes, you can quit and find another job. If you don't like the sentencing decisions a judge makes, you don't have the option of finding someone else to sentence you.
It is not a faulty analogy because we are not arguing over whether the Judge or employers behavior is a problem or one is bigger problem than the other, we are arguing over whether we can tell there is discrimination without asking the individual decision makers or examining the individual decision makers decisions.
ReplyDeleteGod, your thinking is sloppy.
"Yes, it holds true when you remove every variable. The same for the gender wage gap."
ReplyDeleteProve it.
"Gender, unlike god, is a testable factor."
You completely missed the point. I wasn't comparing God to gender, I was comparing God to the specific things causing a wage difference. To imply that your idea of what causes it is true as long as all alternative explanations fail to fully account for it is a logical fallacy, same as when creations claim that because science doesn't explain the origin of like PERFECTLY, the creationist claim that "God did it" must be correct.
I still have yet to see a situation where women get paid less than men for doing the same job at the same proficiency with the same employer, but I just remembered that there is one field where MEN get paid less after accounting for all other variables, and that is in the porn business.
"God, my thinking is sloppy."
ReplyDeleteFixed it for you.
The specific thing that causes the wage difference is gender.
ReplyDeleteProve it.
ReplyDeleteRead the post above, women get paid less for doing the same jobs, and this is not explained by experience, time off, hours worked, or job danger. If you want to see it for yourself, you have only to read the studies cited above.
ReplyDeleteBut it is explained by: gender. Gender is the factor that explains the difference.
ReplyDeleteThe studies do not prove that women get pain less for doing the same jobs with the same hours, proficiency, and experience with the same employers. If you think they do, then YOU either did not read them or failed to apply any critical analysis.
ReplyDelete"But it is explained by: gender. Gender is the factor that explains the difference."
ReplyDeleteIf you're talking about the porn industry pay gap, it's actually explained by differences in supply and demand for female "talent" vs. male "talent". So, while it's technically true that "gender explains the difference" in an indirect way, it's sloppy thinking to say that without actually looking carefully at WHY this is the case.
It is wrong that female talent is more desired than male. We want equality between the genders, that means equal opportunity. That means opportunity should not be excluded based on the factor "gender."
ReplyDeleteIt would be equally wrong and worthy of examination if female or male newscasters were paid more because people preferred watching female or male newscasters.
Note, however, that if the difference is due to actual difference between the genders (men are statistically stronger than women for example) then this is acceptable difference based on gender. However, such actual difference between the genders does not explain the pay gap.
ReplyDeleteGoing by american figures
ReplyDeleteSingle women are paid more than single men.
Female CEOs are women at the top of business are paid more the their male peers.
Married women that either don't work or work part time create the gap, but they spend x5 more of the families buget on themselves then their partners do.
If you really want to see who has the wealth, look at the shoes, women of every class wear better shoes than the men of their class.
There is no conspiracy to pay women less than men, what nonsense.
EDIT - Female ceos and women....
ReplyDeleteA note, I am not an MRM or a feminist, or what have you, but I read Roissy and The Spearhead from time to time as some of the articles strike me as being out there on the lunatic fringe.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, your research here either betrays either sheer ignorance or a severe feminist bias. If it's the latter, that will turn off any neutral readers that you have.
The US Department of Labor conducted a huge internal study recently on the wage gap, to ascertain at a high statistical confidence level what the causes of the wage gap are and how to correct them. However, their conclusions turned out to be quite the opposite of what is normally portrayed in the media: http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf
The UK Deparment of Statistics also has a word on people who try to use the wage gap to advance their agendas:
http://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/reports---correspondence/correspondence/letter-from-sir-michael-scholar-to-harriet-harman-qc-mp-11-june-2009-and-m-a-note.pdf
Note that part-time women workers apparently outearn their male counterparts in the UK. Simpson's Paradox can create some amusing results.
Hopefully, you aren't the type of person that the US Department of Labor and the UK Department of Statistics are warning about in their papers, or else I will also have to demote you to the lunatic fringe.
"If you really want to see who has the wealth, look at the shoes, women of every class wear better shoes than the men of their class."
ReplyDeleteThis is my favorite argument so far.
"Female CEOs are women at the top of business are paid more the their male peers."
ReplyDeleteActually, this one is pretty good too.
There are 16 women CEOs out of 500 in the S&P 500. That's it. That's 3%. Clear proof of a glass ceiling, unless you think women are genetically inferior at CEO-ing.
These 16 women (out of 500 total CEOs) make more than the typical male CEO.
Therefore this counts as evil anti-male discrimination!
Oh no, the 3% of top CEOS who are female typically earn more than typical male CEO!
It would be interesting to add up all the money earned by all the male CEOs in the S&P 500 and compare it to all the money earned by the 16 females CEOs.
source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-13/women-ceos-earn-more-than-men-get-pay-raise-in-2009-video.html
"It is wrong that female talent is more desired than male."
ReplyDeleteSpare us your moral absolutism. There is no way to prove that any particular desire or lack thereof is right or wrong, and that is completely irrelevant to the topic.
"We want equality between the genders, that means equal opportunity."
We all have an equal opportunity to be desired, what you seem to want is equal outcome. The pay gap in the porn industry, which favors women, exists because of millenia of biological programming, and you seem to think that you have the authority to claim that this is morally "wrong"? Why is it wrong? Apparently, it's because you say so.
David, becoming a CEO takes decades of uninterrupted work, if most women chose a humanities type degree, and over half semi or retire from the work force completely 5 - 15 years into their career.... how is there not going to be a glass ceiling?
ReplyDeleteBut when women do decide to work to become top execs...
"Women at the top of business outearn men - Saturday, December 13, 2008
By Torsten Ove, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A Carnegie Mellon University study has concluded that women executives out-earn their male counterparts.
The study, which examined 16,000 executives over 14 years, found that women at the top of the business world bring in a bit more than men and are promoted at the same rate, countering the popular notion that women earn less than men for the same work.
"That common perception is not borne out by this study," said Robert A. Miller, professor of economics and strategy and one of the authors. "If you're looking for evidence of gender discrimination in executive promotion and compensation, it's not happening there."
The study, "Are There Glass Ceilings for Female Executives?," was released last month by Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business but hasn't been published yet.
The largest empirical analysis of the top echelons of publicly traded companies determined that women earned about $100,000 more per year than men of the same age, educational background and experience".
"Clear proof of a glass ceiling, unless you think women are genetically inferior at CEO-ing."
ReplyDeleteTry looking down for a change, through the glass floor, at all the men working dirty, dangerous jobs and often getting low pay in spite of that dirt and danger. Over 90% of workplace fatalities are male, and by your logic that's clear proof of a glass floor unless you think that men are genetically inferior at staying alive.
"Once you control for the position that they're in, that is, their rank, and you control for experience and control for their education, background and turnover, once you do that you find that they earn a little more," said Dr. Miller.
ReplyDelete[...]
Female executives on the whole still earn less than male executives, but that's because more women quit before they reach the top, the study says.
"At any given level of the career hierarchy, women are paid slightly more than men with the same background, have slightly less income uncertainty and are promoted as quickly," it concludes. "We concluded that the gender pay gap and differences in job rank in this most lucrative occupation is explained by females leaving the market at higher rates than males."
Why they quit is harder to explain. Younger women opt out of the work force to have babies, but the average age for executives in the study was 53, beyond the child-bearing years.
Yet female executives still retire earlier than men and are more likely to switch careers. The CMU paper offers some possible reasons, including "more unpleasantries, indignities and tougher, unrewarding assignments" at work. The authors also suggest that women over time acquire "more nonmarket human capital" than men -- meaning connections outside the workplace -- that make retirement more attractive.
[...]
Some studies had indicated female executives were paid the same as men, but those didn't address the rate of promotion as this one does, he said.
More recent studies reached similar conclusions. A report released last month by The Corporate Library, a research firm in Maine, said women corporate directors earn 15 percent more than male counterparts, although they are still outnumbered 8-1 by men on boards.
The CMU study compiled data representing 60 different job titles at more than 1,800 companies between 1992 and 2006. In addition to examining promotion rates, the researchers also analyzed total compensation, including benefits, bonuses, retirement packages and stock options in addition to salary. Overall, the study concluded that job turnover and tenure are better indicators of compensation than gender.
Facts about the "Purse Power" of women:
ReplyDeleteWomen are the dominant spending force in almost every retail/business category and are the most affluent and influential consumers of today.
* Of all consumer purchases, women are responsible for 83%
* Homes: Directly purchase or influence the purchase of 91% of all new homes
* Home fix-up purchases: More than 55%
* Retail: Account for 88% of customers in the US & Canada
* Auto: Make more than 50% of all auto purchases and influence 85%.
* Home furnishings: 94%
* Vacation choices: 92%
* House purchases: 91%
* Consumer electronics purchases: 51% (women are involved in 89% of all consumer electronic purchase decisions)
* Home Computers: Account for 66% of all purchases
* Bank Accounts: Hold 89% of all accounts
* Credit Cards: Women carry 76 million credit cards, 8 million more then men—(Fast Company, 2004)
* Healthcare: Make 80% of Healthcare decisions and account for 67% of spending
* Health: Purchase 65% of herbal remedies, vitamins and minerals and purchase 80% of all healthcare
* Beauty and hygiene: Purchase more than 90%
* Clothes, accessories: Wear more than 90% of items such as jewelry and perfume
* Meetings: Plan the meetings and comprise the majority of certified meeting planners
* Office Supplies: Purchase $44.5 billion
* Lawn movers: Purchase approximately 81% of riding lawn mowers
All facts noted above are from the 2005 Wow! Quick Facts book and the U.S. Census Bureau, 2004
and dont forget, the wage gap counts a married man's wage as his when in reality at least half of it belongs to his wife.
ReplyDeleteAs well as that, the time use survey shows that all in women have more leisure time than men.
* It is expected that by 2010, women will control 60% of wealth in the United States.
ReplyDelete- from the new Allianz Women, Money, and Power Study. 2006
And dont forget the shoes... whoever heard of an oppressed group that wear better shoes than their oppressors?
Each year, on balance, men hand trillions of dollars they’ve earned over to women to spend. Some of these vast transfers are through the tax system, and some through inheritance by widows. (She-conomy.com claims, for whatever it’s worth, “Senior women age 50 and older control net worth of $19 trillion and own more than three-fourths of the nation’s financial wealth.”) Nonetheless, most male-to-female handovers are from husbands who are specialists at making money in a particular career to their more generalist wives, who take on for the family the bulk of the onerous task of trying to spend it wisely.
ReplyDeleteStill, women tend not only to be more interested shoppers, but also more enthusiastic shoppers. For example, a 1995 survey found that women are more likely than men to admit that they shop to celebrate, buy without need, buy unplanned items, and can’t resist a sale.
http://takimag.com/article/the_estrogen_recession
Cold, on the dangerous jobs issue. There are certain professions that have traditionally been male, and others that have traditionally been female. Some of these male fields are dangerous.
ReplyDeleteThing is, feminists have always pushed for equal access in all jobs. Including the dangerous ones. Feminists want men and women to be able to do the same work, for the same pay, in every profession.
All that said, the fact that people, mostly men, are dying or getting badly injured in the workplace is a very bad thing. I don't think anyone, male or female, should have to take the risks that some workers, mostly male, have to take to earn a living at their particular job.
Interestingly, I haven't ever seen the MRM actually campaign to increase awareness of job safety. This topic always comes up in the MRM as a way to bash feminists and/or women.
Eoghan, all this stuff about women "controlling" most wealth in the US is just because women do most of the family shopping, or take care of family finances. It's not like they're spending all this money on themselves. They're going to the grocery store more often them their male partners, that sort of thing. It's not all going to shoes and bon-bons.
ReplyDeleteDavid, women spend more on themselves than men. Quite a bit more.
ReplyDeleteWomen are not an oppressed class. Single women get paid more than men, women at the top get paid more their peers, the married women that dont work or work part time that make up the wage gap spend more on themselves and own at least half of their husbands wages.
Everything has moved on since the 1970s, except feminist rhetoric it seems.
and as someone else brought up, women dont really dig in when it comes to the lower order, dirty and dangerous jobs...
ReplyDelete"Thing is, feminists have always pushed for equal access in all jobs. Including the dangerous ones."
ReplyDeleteDo you have any examples of feminists pushing for women's access to dangerous jobs, particularly dirty and LOW-PAYING dangerous jobs like working in sanitation?
"Interestingly, I haven't ever seen the MRM actually campaign to increase awareness of job safety."
I can tell that this is a world from which you have been far-removed for your entire life. We ALREADY HAVE thorough safety regulations for workplaces, which exist because MEN successfully advocated for them decades ago, and injuries and fatalities for these dangerous jobs are fraction of what they would be without these regulations.
However, as anyone who has actually worked a dangerous job can tell you, you can't just legislate away all the danger. Even when every precaution is taken, things can go wrong. I'll even admit that a large number of these workplace fatalities are due to men not correctly following procedure, although when any particular worker fails to follow procedure he are just as likely to end up causing the death of his co-worker, who DID follow all the rules, as he is to cause his own death. Only someone with ZERO life experience with what goes on beneath the glass floor would think that you could erase the danger with some kind of legislation or awareness campaign. You can mitigate the danger and reduce the number of fatalities, which is absolutely worth doing, but it has ALREADY BEEN DONE.
I dont think Ive ever seen a woman doing a lower order job like collecting the rubbish nor have I ever heard of a feminist campaign to end male domination of these fields.
ReplyDeleteEoghan, huh? Women do plenty of low-paying dirty jobs -- domestic work, for example. Sanitation workers actually earn surprisingly good wages, much better than domestic workers who also spend their time cleaning up other people's garbage. Indeed, if you look at labor history, when labor organizers tried to organize domestic workers (almost all female) they aspired to the status and pay of sanitation workers.
ReplyDeleteSee here: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cobble/Cobble_Spontaneous_Loss.pdf
"Dorothy Bolden, a veteran community and civil-rights activist who had
started cleaning houses in 1935 at the age of twelve, founded a domestic-workers
organization in Atlanta in 1968 . Its aim was to improve working conditions
and build "respect for the women in this low-income field of labor ." ... Similar groups organized in some two dozen other cities across the
country. As one participant explained, "The garbage men have been upgraded
to sanitation workers, with all the benefits, and that's just what we have to do,""
And here: http://www.basicincome.org/bien/pdf/dublin08/4diizellekeftbi.pdf
An this:
"Gender neutrality may
mandate that the occupations of sanitation worker and day care worker both be open to
men and women without bias, for example, but does nothing to rectify the large
imbalance in pay and benefits between the largely male occupation of sanitation worker
and the largely female occupation of day care worker, despite the similar educational and
training levels requirements for both positions, and the similarly low-skilled, somewhat
physical and dirty nature of the jobs performed by both.14"
Egohan,
ReplyDeleteDo you hve a blog? Cause if not you really need to have one. You always have sound logic.
Random Brother
David's research is very much biased claiming all women are poor and hardworking, while men are rich and doing nothing.
ReplyDeleteHe fails to identify even one company, which pays less to women than to men.
He fails also to see the situation in other countries, where feminists are showing up persistently with similar arguments but fail to prove such claims.
In Germany women are working up to 12 hours less than men per week, which should result in lower pay of course. But David does not write anything about working hours and overtime pay.
In Austria women work up to 60 years of age, and men work up to 65 years of age, 5 years difference, which should result in lower pay, if you calculate the income for life-time. (average 40 years : 45 years) - But David does not write anything about how many years women are working compared to men.
Retirement allowances are also unfair against men in Europe, they work longer and die earlier.
David does not consider retirement allowances and for how many years they are paid and to whom they are paid - often to a widow, as the man died earlier.
About hard and dangerous labour we got the best example recently from Chile. Mining and trapped - and not even one person trapped in the mine was a female, and not even one person working to drill day and night to rescue them was a female.
David ignores the fact, that men are also on the other side of the life - not all of them are CEO - and are the clear majority of people in prison, of homeless people, of people out of job, handicapped men ... worldwide.
In USA, it is often up to the individual to earn your money yourself - for what do you need an employer?
Start your own business, but again, the huge majority of people starting their own business are men - David of course is writing nothing about this... as usual.
Interesting to mention the fact that there are female employers too, but they are not known to pay more to women than to men. I wonder why?
Maybe David can explain and answer all my questions to him ... but I don't think so.
David
ReplyDeleteSo you point is that even though women women are paid more than men, over all spend less time working than men, and spend more on themselves than men, dont die in the work place in anywhere near the numbers that men do and so on.... oh and of course, wear better shoes than men, they are somehow an oppressed class..
and domestic work is light work, it wont kill you or damage your health, I do it, we all do it, there are machines and sprays, it is not comparable to working in a sewer, collecting other peoples rubbish or any of the glass cellar jobs, it it was women would have no problem moving into sewage work.
The world is moving on from believing in sinister plots against women and gendered abuse, its just not real. This propaganda makes a lot of money and has been an effective political platform, but these things are just not real David. You should go back and think about what one of the guys above said.... he pointed out that your source presented a problem that doesn't exist and then asked you for money and to fix it, think about that.
TKS RB
The significantly higher wage for (most, at that time, not all) men happened first in England around the turn of the 19th century when the trade unions fought for and obtained what was then known as the "family wage" for the traditional breadwinner. The higher wages earned by men as the traditional breadwiner (and, at first, the higher wages were only earned by married men supporting a family) were intended to be a wage that factored in not only his work but her unpaid domestic work. Employment that was open to women, such as domestic work for other households, commanded a lower wage than a man's unskilled labour job because the wage from her job was seen as supplementary only, not required to sustain a family. Over the years, the higher wage was extended to include all men, not just the ones who were married and had a family. Some, but not all, women at that time were avid supporters of the family wage concept (widows supporting a family, for instance, did not support the family wage model).
ReplyDeleteThe "traditional breadwinner" model also has much to do with the reason companies would hire men in the first place, even if they could get away with paying a woman who has equal experience and education to a man less money for the same position.
Over time the principles behind the "family wage" have become largely forgotten, but the wage gap between "traditional" men's work and "traditional" women's work still persists. Some women are trying to sustain a family on a wage that reflects the "supplementary income" wage status of the job from bygone years.
And men who view housewives as being on a lifetime holiday, etc., at their expense have forgotten that the wage that they receive now is based on a wage that originally factored in housewives' unpaid work.
@PAM
ReplyDeleteAnd what has this all what you write here about the 19th century to do with the (non-existing) salary gap of the year 2010?
Identify and name a company which pays more for men than for women for exactly the SAME work.
Go ahead!
PAM: ... the wage gap between "traditional" men's work and "traditional" women's work still persists
Where does it persist? Prove it!
Let us know those companies.
Quite right, Yohan, we should ignore the antecedents behind the wage gap between occupations considered traditionally men's work and women's work so men can continue to think that it's because traditional men's work is dirtier, more difficult, more important, etc., and that women who choose to be housewives are parasites, leeching off a wage that was always solely intended for him.
ReplyDeleteI'm not privy to the wages earned by every individual in every company, but thanks for thinking that I'm that omnipotent.
Where does it persist? Let's take the above-mentioned examples of sanitation worker and day-care worker:
Starting salaries for day care workers are usually around $15,000 per year. The average day care worker salary is just over $19,000 per year.
Child care workers' starting salaries are usually around $16,000, while the average employee earns closer to $20,000 per year. More experienced childcare workers can earn upwards of $23,000 per year.
The average sanitation worker salary is approximately $34,000 per year, although this figure is expected to rise steadily over the next 10 years.
The highest-paid garbage men earn upwards of $66,000 per year.
Pam
ReplyDeleteSingle women out earn single men as a group. Women are on average paid more than men and really, do you think that sanitation and childcare are comparable, if both were paying the same wage, which one would you chose? Id chose child care, any and everyday of the week.
and there you see choice, women tend not to chose lower order jobs like sanitation. The jobs are there for the taking but we dont see women taking them, instead we see complaining about a sexist wage gap that doesnt exist and the arrogent assumption that the men in societies least pleasant jobs shouldn't be compensated for for working in those conditions, if those jobs didn't pay reasonably well, we would have to force people into them.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me, does anyone remember what happened when cleaning work was equalized with laboring building work in Canada? Builders moved into cleaning for obvious reasons, safer, cleaner, easier and out of the weather. Cleaners didnt moved into building, the surplus of cleaners drove the wages back down and the shortage of builders laborers drove the wages up.
ReplyDeleteEoghan,
ReplyDeleteOnly in specific situations:
"A new study that finds young women are outearning men is pinging around the internet. The pay of young, single, and childless women between age 22 and 30, it reports, has “caught up and [is] now exceeding men in most of America’s cities.” These women–a rather narrow demographic–earn about 8% more, on average, than their male peers, according to Reach Advisors, a consumer research company...However, there are some nuances to the findings. James Chung, president of the Reach Advisors, was kind enough to fill me in on the back story. The gender gap, he says, is evident in three contexts. Women earn more in cities with an abundance of knowledge-based jobs, which are magnets for the college-educated; where minorities are a majority share of the total population; and in areas with a decimated manufacturing base, which makes it harder for men with less education to earn a decent wage.
In contrast, in areas with one dominant industry, as in some small towns, or in areas with male-dominated industries, men still outearn women...This brings up another possibility in explaining part of the gender gap: Perhaps the significant decline in the earnings of men with lower skills and less education has been far greater than the gains of women, thus widening the gap–in a dispiriting hollowing out of the middle."
If both were paying the same wage, I'd choose sanitation any and every day of the week. Being around children all day??? Definitely not for me!!
It's not simply a matter of choice. Sanitation workers, as with, say, firefighters, must meet a certain physical requirement that most women cannot meet. If those requirements were lowered so that more women could meet them and obtain jobs in those fields, then that would cause quite a stir, wouldn't it.
"Sanitation workers actually earn surprisingly good wages, much better than domestic workers who also spend their time cleaning up other people's garbage."
ReplyDeleteBull fucking shit. I know women who get paid more than the top end of that scale for bagging groceries. In fact, garbage collectors make more than that.
"Gender neutrality may
mandate that the occupations of sanitation worker and day care worker both be open to
men and women without bias, for example, but does nothing to rectify the large
imbalance in pay and benefits between the largely male occupation of sanitation worker
and the largely female occupation of day care worker, despite the similar educational and
training levels requirements for both positions, and the similarly low-skilled, somewhat
physical and dirty nature of the jobs performed by both.14"
See, I asked you to show me an example of feminists pushing for more access for women to dirty, dangerous jobs and instead you show me feminists wanting women performing the objectively cleaner and safer job of day care work to get paid the same as men performing the objectively dirtier and more dangerous work of sanitation, not that sanitation workers even make that much more, contrary to your source which is outdated if not deliberately dishonest. So basically, in typical feminist fashion, they want to have their cake (working an objectively cleaner and safer job) and eat it too (get paid as if they were working the dirtier, more dangerous job).
"Starting salaries for day care workers are usually around $15,000 per year. The average day care worker salary is just over $19,000 per year."
ReplyDeleteThe supply of people willing and able to do daycare work greatly outstrips demand, therefore the pay is low.
"The average sanitation worker salary is approximately $34,000 per year, although this figure is expected to rise steadily over the next 10 years."
It will rise only because a higher population needs more sanitation workers, yet most people consider themselves above doing that kind of work. Therefore, as demand continues to rise faster than supply, wages go up. Only a moron would find this surprising.
"If both were paying the same wage, I'd choose sanitation any and every day of the week. Being around children all day??? Definitely not for me!!"
As would I, but you have to admit that the vast majority of women would prefer looking after children; this is simply biological programming at work. Also, if you actually did work in sanitation for even one day you would wonder how the hell the men who do it could stand doing it 50 weeks a year and then take the added insult of being paid less than many secretaries. Of course few of them have the option of being secretaries instead since women are preferred for that job.
"It's not simply a matter of choice. Sanitation workers, as with, say, firefighters, must meet a certain physical requirement that most women cannot meet."
This is reality; most women are not physically capable of doing certain jobs and no amount of legislation can ever change that. I'm a man and I also lack the necessary upper-body strength to be a firefighter, but I'm not such an entitlement princess as to think that reality should be ignored and the standards lowered just so I can have that job.
Pam
ReplyDeleteThe physical requirements are there for a reason, as are educational requirements for other jobs, and women chose not to go into these jobs that dont have the physical requirements in any great numbers anyway. When they do, they are very expensive and less efficient yet still get paid the same as those capable. Equal pay for less work.
There is no such thing as unpaid house work, there is house work that inst taxed directly but there is no such thing as unpaid house work. A man with a house wife and a taxable income of 500k pays tax for them both and she generally controls most of that and the will tend to spend more of that on herself than her partner will and is legally entitled to half of everything her partner make. Once you factor in non taxable male to female cash transfers and and subtract them from the mens wage and add them to the female wage you will see just how much money women actually have than men.
Also, if someone is choosing to do house work instead of a career in, its their choice.
End of the day, like gendered abuse the sexist wage gap doesn't exist, its just another feminist scam.
If you pay close attention to what you said you will your double standard, you point out the fact that the education system is letting men down, and suggest thats why women are making more than men, because these jobs have educational requirements, logical enough... but then you point to jobs that have physical requirements as if they are proof of discrimination when in fact, the discrimination is to be found in the education gap AA and quotas, not the physical strength gap.
So we have seen here that
ReplyDeleteChoice plays a large part in the wage "gap", women choosing child care over sanitation for example.
Women at the top are paid more than men. - Women receive more pay for equal work.
Feminists feel that at the bottom the physical requirements should be dropped to accommodate women - A request for equal pay for less work.
Feminists feel that society's worst and most hazardous jobs should be equalized with much more pleasant, safe and easier ones - Another request for equal pay for less work.
The wage gap of roughly .75/1 only exists if we pretend that house work is unpaid and that a family wage isn't divided in two. When we tell the truth about the family wage, the over all wage gap swings in the favour of women, which would explain where women get their extra disposable income that shows up in the spending gap. The time use survey shows that coupled women have more leisure time than the men they are coupled with. - More pay for less work.
The AAUW is another self perpetuating feminist business profiting from the dissemination of victim propaganda.
Cold said...
ReplyDeleteThe supply of people willing and able to do daycare work greatly outstrips demand, therefore the pay is low.
Correct! Excellent argument!
This can be said about any other job.
For example to show up with an academic background looking for a job teaching history or Latin does not mean automatically that you will earn more than an experienced electrician or mechanic.
There is no law, which says that a female with academic background MUST get a job and the employer MUST pay her an excellent salary under any circumstances. - Many women, after graduation, are pretty disappointed about available jobs and low salary offers.
A good salary has nothing to do with your gender, but solely with supply and demand.
This fact alone shows that the 'gender wage gap' is empty talk.
If a company needs a few employees and many applicants show up, the salary will be low for sure - regardless if you are a man or a woman.
David you published this
ReplyDelete"And those who pick male-dominated fields earn less than men too: female truck drivers ... earn just 76.5% of the weekly pay of their male counterparts".
You source is using a typical feminist trick and showing the over all average rather than the actual wages or else has chosen an exception in the category to mislead us.
Motor vehicle operators, all other
Average female wage $22,412
Average male wage $18,252
Female Motor vehicle operators, all/other are paid 23% more than their male counterparts.
*Data based on 2003 Bureau of Labor Statistics usual weekly median earnings.
Source here http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/28/commentary/everyday/sahadi_paytable/index.htm
Nice job of twisting what I said in order that it fit your agenda, and you accuse feminists of using bullshit tactics.
ReplyDeleteI did not point out the fact that the education system is letting men down, that is your take on the fact that there are more women graduating from college than men. Perhaps it's because more women than men have been enrolling at college/university for whatever reason, including men's "traditional" unskilled work being more highly paid than women's "traditional" unskilled work, whether or not the difference in pay is or seems to be justified.
I realize that the physical requirements are there for a reason, and that's not what I am disputing. What I am disputing is what you (and so many other MRAs) spout off as fact, that being that women choose not to be, for instance, sanitation workers, when the truth of the matter is that this is a choice that is not open to most women (and quite a few men, I might add) due to physical requirements for the job. And I am in no way, shape or form advocating for reality to be ignored and to have physical requirements lowered for those jobs in order that those who do not currently meet those requirements might obtain those jobs. What I said was, "If those requirements were lowered so that more women could meet them and obtain jobs in those fields, then that would cause quite a stir, wouldn't it", and obviously it would. So how are are you now going to twist that to say that I (and all feminists, as it seems that what I say is said to be speaking for all feminists) am championing something to which MRAs are opposed.
"As would I, but you have to admit that the vast majority of women would prefer looking after children; this is simply biological programming at work."
It's not just simply biological programming at work, it's an expectation that's been conditioned into women and men for YEARS. Being a man (I am assuming), saying that you would choose sanitation (for example) over working in child care wouldn't raise an eyebrow, people wouldn't be surprised at all, regardless of whether the wages were comparable or not...but try saying the reverse and you'd probably raise quite a few eyebrows. Being a woman, I have been on the receiving end of that opposite reaction. And do you not think that those expectations, chalked up to being biological programming, are a major force behind child custody being awarded more often than not to women when a marriage breaks down?
"The supply of people willing and able to do daycare work greatly outstrips demand, therefore the pay is low."
Actually, the demand for day care outstrips the supply, so the lower pay, at least in this particular case, is not a simple case of supply and demand.
"The time use survey shows that coupled women have more leisure time than the men they are coupled with. - More pay for less work."
And in a footnote to the published findings of that survey (offhand I cannot recall the name of the man who published those findings), which very few people tend to look at, what was counted as leisure time at home were activities such as:
bathing/showering
getting dressed
driving to and from medical appointments for self or children, and driving children to and from recreational activities
running errands
going to the bathroom
etc.
Yep, going to the bathroom while at home is considered leisure time.
Housework was deemed (and not by me!) "unpaid work" due to the fact that it doesn't bring earnings gained outside the home into the household economy, not just because it's not directly taxed. And yes, women did and some still do choose housework versus work outside the home because the daily household and child care tasks still largely default to women to perform even when they do work outside the home.
Pam
ReplyDeleteWhen you mentioned the fact that far more women complete the education system you are talking about education system letting boys down/discriminating against them in favour of girls. Thats not my take, thats the take of the experts and thats whats happening, feminist magical thinking reduces it to nothing but the imagination of mras, but feminist magical thinking is not reality.
The US time use survey shows that women have more leisure time, the European time use surveys show that american and Scandinavian women have more leisure time while most European countries show equality, same goes for developing world countries which busts another magical myth, women do not do 80% of the worlds work.
Redefining the family wage as one wage that belongs entirely to the male is a utterly misleading. House work is worth at least 50% of the husbands wage.
Click on my cnn link above to see that there are many jobs that women can chose in which they can out earn men, not just sanitation.
House hold tasks are not the default of women, they are mainly the choice of many women, over half of women chose to retire or semi retire 5 - 15 years into their career, if they can afford to, which highlights the mobility and choice that women have and ability to access resources without engaging with the wage slave system. When women chose to stick with their career, chances are they will be paid more than their male colleagues.
You need to stop looking at agenda driven feminist sources and thinking that they represent holy writ while dismissing genuine study to the contrary out of hand as a sort of heresy.
UK gov. feminists have been reprimanded in the UK for misleading the public on wage gap and rape, Australian gov. feminists have been reprimanded for misleading the public on domestic violence, a female German politician has recently publicly dismissed the feminist position of wage gap in favour of what David calls "mra myths" but is really better defined as "the reliable research", the world is waking up from the ideological fog of feminist magical thinking and ideology driven research.
And lowering physical requirements means that those that are capable end up carrying those that aren't. More work for men carrying the weaker ones, same pay for the weaker ones who are doing less work. Read Animal Farm and see the Boxer the work horse who worked himself to death for the illusion of the equality regime.
ReplyDeletePeople that cant pass the accountancy exams should be allowed to work in accountancy - thats same logic that feminist magical thinking
promotes.
The reality is women get more out and put less in than men, the whining from feminist ideologues about alleged victim-hood will only swing that even more in the favour of women.
A quote
ReplyDelete"Feminism is the theory that men and women are equal in every respect--except for those in which women are superior. The trick is to interpret every social indicator as though it demonstrates arbitrary male privilege or genuine female superiority. Fortunately, a little bit of ignorance is all it takes to accomplish this feat."
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"You need to stop looking at agenda driven feminist sources and thinking that they represent holy writ while dismissing genuine study to the contrary out of hand as a sort of heresy."
ReplyDeleteLOL!!! You who so readily and so easily misunderstands or miscontrues (as I don't know whether it's intentional or not) many things that I have said are an authority on what is genuine?
"And lowering physical requirements means that those that are capable end up carrying those that aren't. More work for men carrying the weaker ones, same pay for the weaker ones who are doing less work"
Why do you continue on about this as if I was advocating lowering physical requirements for jobs that have that have them as one of the criteria? Talk about not comprehending what I've said!!
I do hope you're not putting forth that quote as if it came from a feminist source.
David, have you read Warren Farrell's "Why Men Earn More"?
ReplyDeleteHe was once a chairman for NOW - that's the National Organization of Women - and walked off when their bigotry became too much to handle. Now he writes on behalf of men's and women's issues alike.
Here's a link, since you seem to have trouble finding things: http://www.amazon.com/Why-Men-Earn-More-Startling/dp/0814472109
Hopefully you won't find it too "patronizing" - just keep in mind that he used to be a lot like you.
So far neither PAM, nor David or any other feminist can tell us any company, which pays less for work done by women than done by men.
ReplyDeleteJust talking around the subject...
If you can prove what you say, do it. Let us know, who is paying less according to gender.
Otherwise you fail to verify your claim, that a gender wage gap exists.
Eoghan: a female German politician has recently publicly dismissed the feminist position of wage gap in favour of what David calls "mra myths"
Yes, this is true, the gender wage gap does not exist in Germany according to the Ministry of Family Affairs.
The gender gap was carefully checked in Germany and the result of all complaints was 'nothing'. Any difference of salaries could be explained and had nothing to do with the gender.
The findings were about as follows:
1 - Women are working about 12 hours less per week than men, but they retire 5 years earlier than men.
2 - Women are more frequently changing their jobs than men, and German companies often offer additional bonus-pay, if you work with them for many years.
Many companies appreciate long-term employment.
3 - Women are often overqualified, as they cannot find another job, in one case a female professor for Germanistik was complaining about her work in an elementary school, but there are no vacancies for such academics, regardless if they are men or women.
4 - Yes, true, electricians (who are not academics) and stay with their company for over 20 years are paid better than a female academic, who just graduated in 'women studies' and is looking for a job in government social services.
5 - There are also overtime payments, work on Sunday and banking holidays, nighttime work to consider. There are more men than women doing these jobs. Not every job is from Monday to Friday, from 9 AM to 5 PM.
Result: The salary gap does not exist, and if you think, it does, let us know the companies, which create the salary gap.
Different pay is about different choice, about what you are willing to work, about demand and supply, and not if you are a male or a female, at least this is the situation in Continental/Northern Europe.
"Being a man (I am assuming), saying that you would choose sanitation (for example) over working in child care wouldn't raise an eyebrow, people wouldn't be surprised at all, regardless of whether the wages were comparable or not...but try saying the reverse and you'd probably raise quite a few eyebrows."
ReplyDeleteI would do more than just raise eyebrows; many people would suspect me of being a pedophile and sexual predator and choosing that job because I wanted access to vulnerable children. On the other hand, if you expressed a desire to work in sanitation, nobody would suspect you of being up to anything criminal.
The amount of upper-body strength required to work in sanitation is nowhere near as much as what is required to be a firefighter; most women are capable of working in sanitation, yet feminists don't push for greater numbers of women in this field. That was my point, and it still stands no matter what you say about firefighters.
"Actually, the demand for day care outstrips the supply, so the lower pay, at least in this particular case, is not a simple case of supply and demand."
Absolutely not true where I live. Perhaps this is true where you live, but that would then translate to higher pay for daycare workers there, which then get lost in the average. Feminists love averages because they hide annoying details that contradict their arguments.
Thanks for that Yohan. Here in Ireland it was found that the best way to close the gap would be to give men the same flexibility and ability to take time off that women have.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think that the average wage gap is an illusion created by the fact that the family wage is counted as a male wage, when in fact its both a male and female wage.
Cold, I dont think child care and sanitation are comparable anyway. I've known a number of women that work with children that say that they love their jobs, sanitation is a lower order, unpleasant job that people generally only do to in order to survive.
IR: Warren Farrell was not the chair of NOW. He was for several years on the board of a local (NYC) chapter of NOW. His argument about "dangerous jobs" is discussed in one of the links I gave.
ReplyDeleteDavid, Farrell never said that dangerous jobs were the cause of wage gap, thats just something that you said he said so you could attack it.
ReplyDeleteHe said that its a contributing factor.
He points out some very obvious truths -
Ill use the corporate world as an example of what he is saying - that if women chose to work in the corporate world in the same numbers and for as long that men do that there would be no gap or ceiling, same goes for politics and so on.
And he pointed to lots of jobs that women are not choosing to do that pay better than the ones they tend to chose as well as many jobs that pay women much better than men that women tend not to do.
If a woman is enjoying working with children but is unhappy with her wage, she can chose a job that offers less personal reward and more dirt and drudgery but pays more.
Of course in order for feminism to seem relevant, these truths are relegated to the status of heresy because feminism needs the existence of some unseen hand / top down conspiracy to fear monger, money raise and rabble rouse with.
And you argued above that sanitation pays better than child care, so you are flip flopping between, there is no danger/dirt premium and there is depending on whichever position suits your agenda at the time.
Here is some progress, there is a drive to get men back into school teaching after feminist anti male propaganda drove them out to the detriment of boys and the education system, another evil mra myth driven agenda to you, no doubt.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1324905/Pupils-make-effort-male-teachers-seen-fair.html
Eoghan: I dont think child care and sanitation are comparable anyway
ReplyDeleteI agree, that's about the same with my example from Germany comparing the income of a female academic with a male electrician. These 2 people are doing 2 totally different jobs.
To claim gender discrimination, because the male electrician is earning more than the female academic is absurd.
About daycare, it is up to the person doing this job to decide about her (or his) future.
Why not to look for another job? Why not to study for higher qualification?
If you think, simple daycare is low paid, then what about to try elderly care, blind people or taking care of handicapped children?
Why not to study to become a certified nurse? Many do not like to do jobs with old confused people or with handicapped children, therefore payment is not bad at all and there are always vacancies.
There are so many vacancies that we in Europe need to look for contract workers as far as from Philippines.
Anyway, the salary gap does not exist. If you think, your pay is too low, look for another job or study for a higher qualification.
If you know companies which are paying you a lower salary because of your female gender, let us know.
Yeah Yohan, a friend of mine is an american child care worker, she says the money isnt great but that her job is "awesome". People working in sanitation will tend to say that their job is terrible but that it pays the bills. Equalizing these jobs implies greater levels of wage slavery/oppression for the sanitation workers and greater levels of privilege for women. My friend the child care worker's partner runs his own business, they have plenty of resources, but they contribute the "gap" only because their wage isnt counted as combined, which in reality it is.... and where are the female business owners partnered with low wage men? It doesn't happen.
ReplyDeleteSlightly off topic, as well as making these arguments about wages, feminists are the main supporters of the ruling class opening the doors so that they can access cheap labour at home as well as overseas, and so damaging hard fought workers rights.
It's funny reading all those MRA posts about how supposedly women "choose" to do less "difficult" jobs e.g. sanitation.
ReplyDeleteAnecdotally, one of my relatives' worked as a mechanic. He told me that his boss had said to him once that women should be paid less since they would probably start having babies soon and thus go on mat leave anyway. With regards to female mechanics, he also told me about the only one he had ever worked with who was viciously teased, berated, and targeted - e.g. having her tools painted pink, stolen, etc. to enduring sexist comments, pictures, cartoons, jokes, etc. (direct at her and in general at women) to the other guys refusing to work with her, etc.
Now, any one who's been around mechanics knows these guys play lots of pranks on each other and joke around a lot - this was different and went too far, in my relative's opinion, and it was completely related only to her gender and went way beyond what any male mechanic he knew had to go through as just "hazing" or joking around or "boys will be boys" pranking.
Some positions are genderized and most people just avoid the hassle. Just look at the way men are berated and subjected to jokes if they are nurses or they're suspected of being child molestors if they want to get an ECE degree and work at a daycare. Both positions are probably "cushy" to you MRAs (though I personally think they're pretty hard jobs) but men are socially barred from them due to their sex. Similar sexism occurs when women go into "masculine" jobs like mechanics, machining, engineering, etc.
Feminism has been instrumental in trying to break down sexist barriers for women so they can enter any industry and any job. MRAs and feminists ideally would do the same for men but for the latter, they're still working on women's rights, and some feminists simply feel feminism is a movement for women and it's masculinists/
MRAs/etc. that should be focusing on men's issues. Unfortunately, as for the former, it's hard for anti-feminists MRAs to be taken seriously because they're seen as the "abusers' lobby group". E.g the same men who argue to lower the age of sexual consent are going to have a hard time trying to campaign for men to be accepted as daycare workers.
Also, this has nothing to do with the gender gap. If even when you control for job position and hours worked, there's still a discrepancy. IMO, the idea that men work "dirty" jobs is completely off-topic and irrelevant to the OP- and a common troll tactic.
TEC: ... If even when you control for job position and hours worked, there's still a discrepancy. IMO, the idea that men work "dirty" jobs is completely off-topic and irrelevant to the OP- and a common troll tactic.
ReplyDeleteIf you think, there is a discrepancy between salaries of men and women, despite considering working hours and other differences for the SAME work, let us know the names of these companies - but it seems such companies do not exist.
Stop whining around!
So far in this thread you fail to name even one company for paying differently to men and women.
Yes, men are doing any dirty and heavy job and therefore often earn more than women.
It's not only about the military.
Maybe take a look to Chile and check out the recent mining incident. Not even one person trapped in the mine was a woman, and not even one person drilling on the surface to rescue them was a woman...
Or take a look at a certain offshore drilling platform, and let me know the gender of these victims of the explosion and the gender of those people who were working for months day and night to get the situation again under control.
Yes, men are earning more, because they do all these dirty, heavy, dangerous work which women refuse. Men are also working longer hours and retire later than women.
@Yohan
ReplyDeleteI thought you weren't going to troll here anymore?
"If you think, there is a discrepancy between salaries of men and women, despite considering working hours and other differences for the SAME work, let us know the names of these companies - but it seems such companies do not exist."
There is a discrepancy. Try reading, since I covered this in my last post.
TEC: There is a discrepancy.
ReplyDeleteProve it!
Name those companies, which pay less to women than to men for the SAME work.
Stop whining!
[i]There is a discrepancy.[/i]
ReplyDeleteWhy would a soulless, inhuman corporation which only cares about profits hire any men then?
Cite the figures. I want numbers - hours worked, years of experience, education level (and major), qualifications, etc.
Until you provide those, you're wrong.
"Now, any one who's been around mechanics knows these guys play lots of pranks on each other and joke around a lot - this was different and went too far, in my relative's opinion, and it was completely related only to her gender and went way beyond what any male mechanic he knew had to go through as just "hazing" or joking around or "boys will be boys" pranking."
Yeah, another unverifiable claim. You feminists already proved that you'll lie in order to forward your views, and this is no different. You'll lie to each other, to yourselves, and sure will lie to everyone else. Once again, keep your anecdotes to yourself and offer up some numerical statistics.
"Cite the figures."
ReplyDeleteYou know, you could actually try LOOKING AT THE STUDIES I CITED, which are full of figures on these sorts of issues. Given that you obviously haven't read any of them, I doubt you are actually interested in seriously discussing any of these issues rather than making ideological points.
The story about the mechanics...
ReplyDeleteI wonder why women do not open their own 'ladies-only' mechanic shop.
It could be a nice business-idea, as there are many feminist-minded women in USA who are driving their own cars.
That would be nice for a deep-in research too. Will these female mechanics under the supervision of a female boss be paid the same salary as male mechanics working in other shops? Or more? Or less?
you could actually try LOOKING AT THE STUDIES I CITED...
ReplyDeleteYOU should better look into comments by feminist-minded politicians beyond the US-territory.
The female Minister of Family affairs clearly said recently, that there is no gender wage gap in Germany existing.
How come the gender wage gap exists in USA, a country which is larger and even more productive than Germany?
It is said by feminist sources, differences are about 100 : 73 cent or so in USA.
This means EVERY company in USA is paying women about 25 percent less than men for the SAME work.
It's now up to you - prove it, name a few companies which are paying considerably less to women than to men in the USA for the SAME work.
So far, I fail to see even ONE company named in this blog. But there must be 1000s or 10000s of US-companies doing this all the time...
I doubt you are actually interested in seriously discussing any of these issues
I don't understand what means 'seriously discussing' for you.
David: For the entire full-time workforce, a typical woman earned $35,745 compared with $46,367 for a typical man, a pay difference of $10,622.
Show me one company in USA, which pays USD 35.745,- to female employees and USD 46.367,- to male employees for doing EXACTLY the SAME work.
I also do not understand what means a 'typical man' and a 'typical woman' in USA.
If you have questions about the numbers, look at the actual studies I mentioned. They explain where the numbers come from and what they mean.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this shit about "feminist sources" is again evidence that you didn't bother to look at any of the studies I posted. The AAUW survey is based on census data. The "glass ceiling" study is by an investment firm and relied on things like direct surveys of companies and SEC filings. Another study I mentioned is from the Government Accountability Office; it used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a large and widely used source of demographic and other data about American families.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidgreen/9666597/The_gender_pay_gap_does_not_exist/
ReplyDeleteThe gender pay gap does not exist. Nice article, enjoy to read it, David. Same in USA, same in UK, feminist statistics...
Can you offer any better reference than some biased 'studies' of the American Association of University Women?
According to ASHE, in 2007 a gender pay gap does not open up until women reach about 30 years of age. From ages 18-29 there is hardly any difference and, according to the Labour Force Survey (LFS), women aged 22-29 are paid on average slightly more per hour than men.
.....
The truth is that the vital difference is not between men and women but between women with dependent children and everyone else, whether male or female.
.....
Quite simply the Government’s emphasis on the gender pay gap of 22.6% is an abuse of official statistics.
"So far, I fail to see even ONE company named in this blog."
ReplyDeleteYou'll never see them name one because the people making this riduculous claim that employers pay women less than men for the same jobs know that they are lying. It's legal to tell a general lie like that, but the second they accuse a specific employer of doing this they face a libel suit. Of course, if they were telling the truth then they would have no reason to fear a libel suit since the truth is an absolute defense.
David
ReplyDeleteThe gender pay gap is explained logically by all independent sources, the only sources that point to a conspiracy are feminist sources.
If women chose the same career path as men, and worked as hard and as long in the these careers would be no gaps or celings, in taxable income.
Whats more, when the family wage is counted as what it is a shared male and female wage, women out earn men.
If that discrepancy in taxable income was fixed through coercion, women would be taking what? At least 1.50 for ever 1 a man does.
ReplyDeleteTec said...
ReplyDeleteIt's funny reading all those MRA posts about how supposedly women "choose" to do less "difficult" jobs
That's a wrong argument from you, as men are doing the same - I am getting older, have some savings and I am interested to change for a job with less working hours, not so many heavy items to carry all the time etc. but of course I expect to receive a smaller salary compared to my income now because the job will be easier.
What has this to do with the gender?
Easier job = less payment.
The tearmaking story ... waahh, men are earning so much more than women.
It's about your choice. About your education. About your working experience. About available vacancies. If you are willing to do difficult jobs etc.
It has nothing to do with your gender.
@Yohan - if it's not to do with gender, I suggest perhaps you try an "easy" job like daycare worker...
ReplyDeleteThe part of how women should start a women's only mechanics is so stupid it made me laugh. Mechanics have to do apprenticeships moron. How do you expect them to do that if they are discriminated? Amazing how dumb someone can be...
I also gotta love the logic - well wominz should just start there own wiminz only business/club/etc. if they don't like the "boys club" in that industry... nevermind the assumption that said women would be discriminatory towards men and that women are doing exactly as you say starting their own businesses, the point is women shouldn't have to start their own club. That's like saying, well if disabled don't get hired because of discrimination, they should start their own disabled-only businesses! Should they put up signs, "No abled allowed," too? It completely ignores that discrimination is wrong!
It's clear you didn't even take a cursory look at the sites cited by David if you keep toting that "difficult jobs = more pay" meme and there's no point to continue arguing with you since you, in spite of clear evidence to the contrary, aren't going to change your irrational beliefs...
Tec
ReplyDeleteMechanic apprenticeships dont discriminate against women in the first place so as usual your argument is based on saying things that aren't true, its just another area women can chose to go into in the same numbers that men do, but don't.
And when women go into auto body and related repairs they are paid more than men.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/28/commentary/everyday/sahadi_paytable/index.htm
I only related a specific instance of a company purposely paying women less, as Yohan requested. How is that not true? And how do you know that women are not discriminated in getting apprenticeships and in the actual workplace while doing their placement? Or "as usual your argument is based on saying things that aren't true"?
ReplyDeletePretending that discrimination against women in these "male" fields doesn't happen and isn't affecting women's choice in going into these fields is ridiculous and illogical. It can be easily disproved by speaking to women in a male dominated field. Fortunately, things are getting much better, but it's still an issue.
There are technical colleges and if you graduate, the apprenticeship for mechanic, electrician etc. is already included.
ReplyDeleteThere are also major car-companies, construction companies, which are authorized to carry out their own training programs and exams.
It's more about to cry discrimination, but being totally unwilling to try.
Interesting that men are always trying out typical 'female fields' and they are very successful. Indeed men are often excellent cooks, pastry cooks, tailors, designers and even pediatrics, gynaecologists...
And yes, I have seen here in Tokyo women, who are driving a big long-distance bus, are working for a construction company operating tower cranes and heavy trucks, delivering fuel with tank lorries...
And you know what? I was asking some of these women why they do this 'unusual' job, and they were laughing and ALL of them told me, they learnt that all from their father, who is doing the same job...
That's an interesting reply, isn't it?
We do not have a car at home, we like motorcycles, I am riding motorcycles since over 40 years now, my wife was working in a motorcycle accessory parts company and of course my daughter also wants her own big motorcycle.
Easy, if it's about a job and about a hobby related to 'male fields' and you are a young woman, ask your father ...
Very easy! No discrimination! Father does not discriminate against his own daughter....
Tec
ReplyDeleteShow some examples of discrimination in male fields or is this like your belief that "society treats women like scum" in which you know its happening but cant point to any examples of it?
Truths -
when we tell the truth about the family wage and count it as a combined wage women have more money than men do
Women get most of the education resources
Women are often paid more than men, when they do chose work in male dominated fields.
There are many programs to get women into male dominated fields but the up take is not there in the same numbers as is for men
More than half of all women women chose to retire or semi retire 5 to 15 years into their career to peruse more family orientated roles and this is the main cause of gaps and ceilings
Worlds largest technology company here with an article entitled "More women in Technology needed"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2010/apr10/04-26icwomenintech.mspx
The world has moved on and feminist rhetoric re. discrimination just sounds like outdated paranoiac, self pitying, delusional drivel and the credible research backs that up.
Consider the following two scenarios:
ReplyDeleteA) A woman is invited to a brunch where she'll make acquaintances with ten new women in an intimate setting. She tells them she's a garbage collector.
B) A woman is invited to a brunch where she'll make acquaintances with ten new women in an intimate setting. She tells them she's a garbage collector.
Which woman has far greater prestige at the brunch? Women don't choose between less pay and more pay. They choose between money and a host of other competing goods. It's really that simple.
Oh, and the feminist position is getting its collective ass kicked here.
What is the difference between sentence A + sentence B?
ReplyDelete'To work something' for your living can never be a shame. She can say openly, she is working as a garbage collector. Nothing wrong with that.
I really respect that.
This female garbage collecter should ask the same question in return to these ten new women, what are they doing all day? Nothing? A life out of alimony?