"Women make 77 cents for every dollar that a male makes" claim.

[Hitta]

There are few arguments that baffle my mind as much as this one. I see it thrown around rather persistently as an excuse for sexism in the world. It is an moronic argument though and I'm going to tell you why.

1. Of the top 10 highest payed college majors in the US, every single one of them are dominated by men. In most of them the majors are only filled by about 10% women.

The 10 bottom majors are dominated by women.

2. Women are less likely to be consistent workers than men due to pregnancy and child care. Salary is something that is built up consistently over time, and when you don't have consistent work, it makes it very difficult to have a consistent rise in salary. Men are twice as likely to work 40 hour weeks as women.




When you actually look at the statistics for single women who do not have children , women earn 96% of what men do. Holy shit

[marooned]

i think what bothers me the most about this "women make $0.77 for a man's $1.00" thing, is that is misses the point. the point is that there is still underlying cultural sexism that drives women to be "less productive" while at the same time insisting that you must be inhumanly productive because that's what "being a real man" is.

this is about the underlying attitudes pervasive in our culture.

try reading this: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/...ce-gap/359815/

as a sort-of aside, making babies is important for the human race. raising them well is important for our future. why should that be undervalued? (and i don't care which parent stays with the baby/toddler the most - at least one of them fucking has to.)

also writing off women in the work force as baby machines when society demands women not be only that - is silly. patriarchal societies have never ensured the well-being and happiness of every helpless woman who was not allowed to work for herself. then, later, the life of the working woman was denied from society's awareness. no one cared for her or helped her with her needs. she still had to fucking work several jobs, often as a single mother. the reality of those women of the 60s and 70s was seen as some anomaly. "no, patriarchal society provides for its women... women don't work piss poor jobs making barely anything just so their kids might make it. oh, unless they're not white. then they're like animals anyway."

what people often don't understand when they take this personally is that this is a systemic problem. it's programmed into your brain and mine. so make arguments about this wage discrepancy argument. but don't argue the inequality that underlies it.

[xerx]

Bit of a segue, but a lot of professions which predominantly employ women, like nurse or schoolteacher, should pay a lot more. Both are extremely important, even minus the years of schooling of a doctor or a college professor. Compared to places like Japan and Finland where teaching is a well-paid and respected profession that attracts some of the brightest people, American teachers get both the shaft from administrations and have to deal with young punks leading childish rebellions against the most accessible authorities in their lives.


I mean, you get diamond drillers up in Northern Canada making $20,000 / month starting wage... for, uh, drilling stuff. I know it's market demand for minerals & danger pay that make this shit possible, but yeesh... it's a job for meatheads who like spending six weeks at a time in total isolation with forty other meatheads. When they come back to town, their hobby is blowing all their money on meth and hookers. These people shouldn't even be the same species as Homo Sapiens, let alone raking in 20K.

I had a friend who worked as a mining assistant one season, and he told me that the best drillers did cocaine on the job to help them concentrate. His regular shift was 14 hrs / day, ostensibly maintaining mining equipment; all he really did was roll joints for the miners.

[Hitta]

i think what bothers me the most about this "women make $0.77 for a man's $1.00" thing, is that is misses the point. the point is that there is still underlying cultural sexism that drives women to be "less productive" while at the same time insisting that you must be inhumanly productive because that's what "being a real man" is.

this is about the underlying attitudes pervasive in our culture.

try reading this: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/...ce-gap/359815/

as a sort-of aside, making babies is important for the human race. raising them well is important for our future. why should that be undervalued? (and i don't care which parent stays with the baby/toddler the most - at least one of them fucking has to.)

also writing off women in the work force as baby machines when society demands women not be only that - is silly. patriarchal societies have never ensured the well-being and happiness of every helpless woman who was not allowed to work for herself. then, later, the life of the working woman was denied from society's awareness. no one cared for her or helped her with her needs. she still had to fucking work several jobs, often as a single mother. the reality of those women of the 60s and 70s was seen as some anomaly. "no, patriarchal society provides for its women... women don't work piss poor jobs making barely anything just so their kids might make it. oh, unless they're not white. then they're like animals anyway."

what people often don't understand when they take this personally is that this is a systemic problem. it's programmed into your brain and mine. so make arguments about this wage discrepancy argument. but don't argue the inequality that underlies it.

I think that is kind of a prevalent feature of the dominated belief system in place at the time. Christianity encourages the breeder mentality, and hence the entirety of society falls into a pattern of women trying to be breeders while the man goes out to provide for the family. Then you end up with a portion of the females trying to fight against the curve. That isn't an issue of women's rights though, that is more of an issue of women learning to stand on their own and not succumbing to the underlying currents of the establishment. Neither law or women's equality activism(feminism) is going to change that.

You also have to understand though that this is a very hard mentality to change, because reproduction and providing stable homes for upcoming kids is an important quality in society.

[Hitta]

Bit of a segue, but a lot of professions which predominantly employ women, like nurse or schoolteacher, should pay a lot more. Both are extremely important, even minus the years of schooling of a doctor or a college professor. Compared to places like Japan and Finland where teaching is a well-paid and respected profession that attracts some of the brightest people, American teachers get both the shaft from administrations and have to deal with young punks leading childish rebellions against the most accessible authorities in their lives.


I mean, you get diamond drillers up in Northern Canada making $20,000 / month starting wage... for, uh, drilling stuff. I know it's market demand for minerals & danger pay that make this shit possible, but yeesh... it's a job for meatheads who like spending six weeks at a time in total isolation with forty other meatheads. When they come back to town, their hobby is blowing all their money on meth and hookers. These people shouldn't even be the same species as Homo Sapiens, let alone raking in 20K.

I had a friend who worked as a mining assistant one season, and he told me that the best drillers did cocaine on the job to help them concentrate. His regular shift was 14 hrs / day, ostensibly maintaining mining equipment; all he really did was roll joints for the miners.

The business in the US is far more volatile than Japan and Finland. Most countries look at the US as having the currency of last resort. This means that resource exchanges within our currency... trades... etc... are globalized far more than Finland or Japan. In our economy you are never going to have education as valued as other things. Not going to happen anytime soon, sorry. In truth we need to reevaluate how we do education, privatize it more possibly.. more on the job training. The student loan bubble is going to splatter everywhere pretty soon as education is a very over-invested commodity.

[xerx]

In our economy you are never going to have education as valued as other things.

^ this needs to change if America wants to maintain an industrialized economy. Your supply of East Asian and Indian engineering students is running out.

[Hitta]

^ this needs to change if America wants to maintain an industrialized economy. Your supply of East Asian and Indian students is running out.

I agree, but it's not going to happen unless we change our reasoning on education. The whole students all over the map getting loans and going to universities to get a liberal arts degree things isn't going to work.

[wacey]

Bit of a segue, but a lot of professions which predominantly employ women, like nurse or schoolteacher, should pay a lot more. Both are extremely important, even minus the years of schooling of a doctor or a college professor. Compared to places like Japan and Finland where teaching is a well-paid and respected profession that attracts some of the brightest people, American teachers get both the shaft from administrations and have to deal with young punks leading childish rebellions against the most accessible authorities in their lives.


I mean, you get diamond drillers up in Northern Canada making $20,000 / month starting wage... for, uh, drilling stuff. I know it's market demand for minerals & danger pay that make this shit possible, but yeesh... it's a job for meatheads who like spending six weeks at a time in total isolation with forty other meatheads. When they come back to town, their hobby is blowing all their money on meth and hookers. These people shouldn't even be the same species as Homo Sapiens, let alone raking in 20K.

I had a friend who worked as a mining assistant one season, and he told me that the best drillers did cocaine on the job to help them concentrate. His regular shift was 14 hrs / day, ostensibly maintaining mining equipment; all he really did was roll joints for the miners.

Not at the camp I worked at, they had that shit more buttoned up then a Nazi concentration camp. Weekly visit from patrol dogs to sniff the dorms. Dry camps are different from those I agree. My roomate brought home a pack of Ephedra, said his boss gave it to him. He gave it to me...

[marooned]

You also have to understand though that this is a very hard mentality to change, because reproduction and providing stable homes for upcoming kids is an important quality in society.

it is. which is why patriarchal society should acknowledge it, rather than shoving it in the closet with the women who are expected to take on most of the burden (and it wouldn't be such a burden if it was simply acknowledged for the labor-inducive 20+ year long job that it is).

that said, i think that now that there is more equality between the sexes than before (in the US at least) that couples are more faced with how difficult it is to spend enough time with one's child, maybe something will change? fathers too like to spend time with their children.

so now maybe it's more family vs. corporation rather than just mother vs. corporation and father = corporation. so far from what i've seen, the corporations are winning... but i don't think it's gone on for long enough yet for people to say "enough of this overbearing corporate shit."

[xerx]

Not at the camp I worked at, they had that shit more buttoned up then a Nazi concentration camp. Weekly visit from patrol dogs to sniff the dorms. Dry camps are different from those I agree. My roomate brought home a pack of Ephedra, said his boss gave it to him. He gave it to me...

I'm glad places like that exist. I considered working in an Alberta oil field when I was desperate for cash a while back. I hear the oil sands are dead now because of the Saudis flooding the market with oil...

[wacey]

I'm glad places like that exist. I considered working in an Alberta oil field when I was desperate for cash a while back. I hear the oil sands are dead now because of the Saudis flooding the market with oil...

I heard some like 10-20 thousand people were laid off it was pretty bad. I was long gone. Money there is amazing, getting paid 24 baseline to do the most menial kinds of work. Its all about priorities I guess. My oldest brother is up there right now in Alberta working as a city firefighter, his wife a nurse. They made sacrifices for their daughters.

[marooned]

@Account i will be "the woman getting angry." *pulls out voodoo doll and wishes ill upon all mankind.*

wait, please don't call me a man hater. please. then you'll discount anything i say.

but please, disregard that last statement, because if you read it, it may occur to you that i might possibly be a man hater. otherwise, why would i have even bothered saying what i did?

wait. you must understand. i just got carried away in my words. none of it means anything important. just don't read things into it regarding my attitude about men, because if you did, you reveal your secret misogyny.

no wait. i posted this in the wrong thread. you're reading it all entirely out of context. don't you dare quote!

[Hitta]

@Account i will be "the woman getting angry." *pulls out voodoo doll and wishes ill upon all mankind.*

wait, please don't call me a man hater. please. then you'll discount anything i say.

but please, disregard that last statement, because if you read it, it may occur to you that i might possibly be a man hater. otherwise, why would i have even bothered saying what i did?

wait. you must understand. i just got carried away in my words. none of it means anything important. just don't read things into it regarding my attitude about men, because if you did, you reveal your secret misogyny.

no wait. i posted this in the wrong thread. you're reading it all entirely out of context. don't you dare quote!

I'm not saying you are a man hater, because I don't think that you are, but I do think there are a ton of man haters in the world that sit on their ass and do nothing and somehow think that men owe them something. At the same time I think there are a lot of guys that are just as full of shit, aka as the slut shamers of the world who has no self control: "Oh shit that girl in that skirt, god my dick is hard.... what a fucking slut". I think sexism goes both ways, which actually results in a lot of misplaced hatred.

It is the same exact issue I have with racism. I live in the south, I see real racism all the time. It exists. At the same time I think it also goes both ways. I think there is a ton of over-exaggeration, some things that were never done in the spirit of racism are enthusiastically condemned. Also if you think black people aren't capable of racism, I can guarantee you that you are wrong.

[marooned]

I'm not saying you are a man hater, because I don't think that you are, but I do think there are a ton of man haters in the world that sit on their ass and do nothing and somehow think that men owe them something. At the same time I think there are a lot of guys that are just as full of shit, aka as the slut shamers of the world who has no self control: "Oh shit that girl in that skirt, god my dick is hard.... what a fucking slut". I think sexism goes both ways, which actually results in a lot of misplaced hatred.

It is the same exact issue I have with racism. I live in the south, I see real racism all the time. It exists. At the same time I think it also goes both ways. I think there is a ton of over-exaggeration, some things that were never done in the spirit of racism are enthusiastically condemned. Also if you think black people aren't capable of racism, I can guarantee you that you are wrong.

i don't entirely disagree with everything you have said. i guess the main thing that comes to mind is that the system stacks the cards against non-whites (in the u.s.). it's not about the individual and whether individual black people or white people are racist per their experiences, learning, whatever. it's that on the whole there is systemic inequality. blacks for instance are often associated with being less educated, less intelligent, less articulate, less capable, etc. this creates inequality even when it's largely accepted that discrimination based upon race is unacceptable. even well meaning people who don't see a particular bias operating in their decision making processes can act in ways that reinforce the inequality. this really is something that is bigger than the individual. as much as racism is incredibly personal to those who have been affected by it, this topic is actually incredibly impersonal in a lot of ways. our society still teaches us that whites are "superior," but not because this is stated directly so much anymore. it's the subtle thoughts that arise in one's mind, and that are quickly brushed aside... such as "oh he's black, can he do this job?" or "oh, this is a person of color, they're here to be warm and take care of my feelings and matters of physical labor." these sorts of thoughts or biases can operate subconsciously... they are absorbed through the media, through culture, through how one was raised. the grand sum of them results in systemic discrimination. so this is very much a cultural and systemic issue rather than a question of if individual people are racist or not. it's easy to condemn an individual racist, but the mass of more subtle and nuanced racism won't be touched by that.

i guess i'd also add that individuals with racist attitudes just aren't the problem exactly. sure, anyone can be "racist" regardless of their "race," but that doesn't really matter on a larger scale. in the u.s. things are tipped towards white privilege even if you can find 1,000,000 + blacks in the u.s. who hate white people without a doubt. focusing on the backlash of racial inequality just seems a bit pointless.

the other thing i was going to qualify on is that i don't think condemning individual racists is necessarily a good solution anyway. for non-violent people, talking out ones thought distortions and issues with others can do a lot to improve things. keeping it bottled up because there's no one to talk to about it just keeps it around longer.

[Hitta]

i don't entirely disagree with everything you have said. i guess the main thing that comes to mind is that the system stacks the cards against non-whites (in the u.s.). it's not about the individual and whether individual black people or white people are racist per their experiences, learning, whatever. it's that on the whole there is systemic inequality. blacks for instance are often associated with being less educated, less intelligent, less articulate, less capable, etc. this creates inequality even when it's largely accepted that discrimination based upon race is unacceptable. even well meaning people who don't see a particular bias operating in their decision making processes can act in ways that reinforce the inequality. this really is something that is bigger than the individual. as much as racism is incredibly personal to those who have been affected by it, this topic is actually incredibly impersonal in a lot of ways. our society still teaches us that whites are "superior," but not because this is stated directly so much anymore. it's the subtle thoughts that arise in one's mind, and that are quickly brushed aside... such as "oh he's black, can he do this job?" or "oh, this is a person of color, they're here to be warm and take care of my feelings and matters of physical labor." these sorts of thoughts or biases can operate subconsciously... they are absorbed through the media, through culture, through how one was raised. the grand sum of them results in systemic discrimination. so this is very much a cultural and systemic issue rather than a question of if individual people are racist or not. it's easy to condemn an individual racist, but the mass of more subtle and nuanced racism won't be touched by that.

i guess i'd also add that individuals with racist attitudes just aren't the problem exactly. sure, anyone can be "racist" regardless of their "race," but that doesn't really matter on a larger scale. in the u.s. things are tipped towards white privilege even if you can find 1,000,000 + blacks in the u.s. who hate white people without a doubt. focusing on the backlash of racial inequality just seems a bit pointless.

the other thing i was going to qualify on is that i don't think condemning individual racists is necessarily a good solution anyway. for non-violent people, talking out ones thought distortions and issues with others can do a lot to improve things. keeping it bottled up because there's no one to talk to about it just keeps it around longer.

Well the system of actually helping the minorities (wealth redistribution, tough drug laws, etc) actually hurts minorities people more than it does help. And the system actually ends up getting the minorities to support their fucked up policies which restrict them.

[xerx]

I've been examining evolutionary psychology claims RE: dimorphism in male and female brains extruding into emotional disposition and career preferences. That women overwhelmingly go into fields with more human contact like medicine, as opposed to men, who tend to go into more mechanical subjects like engineering, could have an evolutionary explanation.

I don't think any serious evolutionary psychologist discounts the role of culture or circumstances though. One strong example (often brought up by evolutionary psychologists) is that women in poorer countries like China, India and the Muslim world tend to have enormous participation in technology fields. A possible explanation might be that such careers offer a "get out of poverty card," the irony being that richer, more egalitarian societies would engender more segregated work places.

[Computer Loser]

There are few arguments that baffle my mind as much as this one. I see it thrown around rather persistently as an excuse for sexism in the world. It is an moronic argument though and I'm going to tell you why.

1. Of the top 10 highest payed college majors in the US, every single one of them are dominated by men. In most of them the majors are only filled by about 10% women.

The 10 bottom majors are dominated by women.

2. Women are less likely to be consistent workers than men due to pregnancy and child care. Salary is something that is built up consistently over time, and when you don't have consistent work, it makes it very difficult to have a consistent rise in salary. Men are twice as likely to work 40 hour weeks as women.




When you actually look at the statistics for single women who do not have children , women earn 96% of what men do. Holy shit

Yup. My thoughts (Which overlap with yours):

1. Women work more part-time jobs than men do. Part time-jobs pay less.

2. Women usually have less seniority than men. Less seniority means less money. But why less seniority? By woman’s own choice: Women tend to take years off to take care of children.

3. Women tend to take on flexible jobs with flexible hours. This means the pay tends to be lower.

4. Men on average tend to work more over-time. More over time, more money.

These are the facts.

Don’t be fooled by the DECEPTION that woman are discriminated against in terms of pay, this is simply false.

[golden]

I think you guys are making the argument for equality. Women make less money and have less work seniority. And they are saddled with unpaid domestic labor. All of that information and more is acknowledged in this thread. These are problems.

Speaking from my own experience, I am simply expected to do far, far, far more than half of childcare and housework, and the men in my life blind themselves to the amount of work I do. It's not even real to them; they hardly notice it. When asked to do more, they will do one or two small things. I realize not every man is like this; I also realize that a lot of men who think they are not like this . . . actually are.

Right now I'm working in a job where I am indeed paid less than several men for equivalent work (I know what they're paid because my boss did a screenshare with me and happened to have an Excel doc open with everyone's salaries listed on it). Most of the work we do is exactly the same. But they have different job titles than I do, so if you were to measure our wages, we wouldn't be compared one-for-one because we are categorized differently even though we have such similar jobs. I'm not even earning 77 cents per their dollars, it's actually way, way less than that. And this is not the first time I've experienced this in a workplace where I'm employed.

Such as the big research company where I was the second woman they hired (the first was the girlfriend of a programmer) into a corps of between 50 and 100 researchers. Where every single person with any kind of managerial role was a man because when it was in startup they hired only men. Were they better? No. They had seniority, and it was built into the system. Or the job I took in a friend's restaurant, doing accounting work, in college. The man who had been there a couple of years longer and who had no direct oversight regarding my work, and largely did the same work as I did, was called a manager, and I wasn't, and he was paid twice what I was. (Again, because I worked in accounting it was perhaps inevitable that at some point I stumbled upon information regarding his pay rate.) And again, because our job titles differed and the work did not, we would not have been compared tit-for-tat in a study of wages.

Soon after seeing the pay difference, I lost my interest in doing that job. I also am losing interest in my present job, because it's a disheartening situation to see that I'm literally valued lower than other people doing the same work.

And I never took time off from working per se, in order to raise my kids. I have worked all this time, but even *having* kids means that unlike some people I work with, I get taken for someone who has split interests. Doesn't matter that I put in more than 40 hours a week. If at 5:30 everyone without kids is still grinding away on some project, and I need to go pick up my kid, then I am the one who appears less dedicated to the cause. And I can't help having noticed that when, for example, my ex-husband (rarely) said he needed to do something regarding my son rather than work, he was treated like a hero for it.

And in case you read this as an angry rant, which is pretty much how people hegemonically disenfranchised get read when they describe the effects of hegemony to the people it benefits, I'm actually just sad and fatigued as I write this. I don't really care about the 77 cents/dollar figure, it doesn't even begin to describe the scope of the issues involved.

[glam]

When you actually look at the statistics for single women who do not have children , women earn 96% of what men do. Holy shit

keywords: "single women who do not have children." so what are women supposed to do, forever remain unmarried and childless in order to be fairly paid? what about the women who are married with kids? why should women have to deal with taking a massive pay cut because they decide, like most people in America do, to get married and have children? men do not have to worry about this; on the contrary, fatherhood helps their careers and salary.

"The Motherhood Penalty vs. the Fatherhood Bonus"

Discrimination is embedded in the system, not only against women but especially against women with children.

One of the worst career moves a woman can make is to have children. Mothers are less likely to be hired for jobs, to be perceived as competent at work or to be paid as much as their male colleagues with the same qualifications. For men, meanwhile, having a child is good for their careers. They are more likely to be hired than childless men, and tend to be paid more after they have children. These differences persist even after controlling for factors like the hours people work, the types of jobs they choose and the salaries of their spouses. So the disparity is not because mothers actually become less productive employees and fathers work harder when they become parents — but because employers expect them to.

“Employers read fathers as more stable and committed to their work; they have a family to provide for, so they’re less likely to be flaky,” Ms. Budig said. “That is the opposite of how parenthood by women is interpreted by employers. The conventional story is they work less and they’re more distractible when on the job.”

Men with children are paid the most. Childless, unmarried women come close ($0.96 for every man's $1.00), but once they get married and have kids, the pay gap widens.

Ms. Budig found that on average, men’s earnings increased more than 6 percent when they had children (if they lived with them), while women’s decreased 4 percent for each child they had. Her study was based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth from 1979 to 2006, which tracked people’s labor market activities over time. Childless, unmarried women earn 96 cents for every dollar a man earns, while married mothers earn 76 cents, widening the gap.

Resumes/applications from men that imply fatherhood get called back more often, and offered much more pay than women whose resumes/applications imply motherhood.

Ms. Correll co-wrote a study at Cornell in which the researchers sent fake résumés to hundreds of employers. They were identical, except on some there was a line about being a member of the parent-teacher association, suggesting that the applicant was a parent. Mothers were half as likely to be called back, while fathers were called back slightly more often than the men whose résumés did not mention parenthood. In a similar study done in a laboratory, Ms. Correll asked participants how much they would pay job applicants if they were employers. Mothers were offered on average $11,000 less than childless women and $13,000 less than fathers.

Hierarchy of people that employers value: Fathers > Childless women > Childless men > Mothers.

In her research, Ms. Correll found that employers rate fathers as the most desirable employees, followed by childless women, childless men and finally mothers. They also hold mothers to harsher performance standards and are less lenient when they are late.

[Hitta]

keywords: "single women who do not have children." so what are women supposed to do, forever remain unmarried and childless in order to be fairly paid? what about the women who are married with kids? why should women have to deal with taking a massive pay cut because they decide, like most people in America do, to get married and have children? men do not have to worry about this; on the contrary, fatherhood helps their careers and salary.

"The Motherhood Penalty vs. the Fatherhood Bonus"

Discrimination is embedded in the system, not only against women but especially against women with children.



Men with children are paid the most. Childless, unmarried women come close ($0.96 for every man's $1.00), but once they get married and have kids, the pay gap widens.


Resumes/applications from men that imply fatherhood get called back more often, and offered much more pay than women whose resumes/applications imply motherhood.


Hierarchy of people that employers value: Fathers > Childless women > Childless men > Mothers.

Let me ask you, do you think it is more likely for a married woman to seek engineering jobs, or do you think it is more likely for an unmarried childless woman to seek engineering jobs? That is where the discrepancy is coming in. They aren't making less money, they are working easier jobs... working less consistent jobs. If a married woman with children was an engineer who was a consistent employee she'd make on par with a man.

[Hitta]

I think you guys are making the argument for equality. Women make less money and have less work seniority. And they are saddled with unpaid domestic labor. All of that information and more is acknowledged in this thread. These are problems.

Speaking from my own experience, I am simply expected to do far, far, far more than half of childcare and housework, and the men in my life blind themselves to the amount of work I do. It's not even real to them; they hardly notice it. When asked to do more, they will do one or two small things. I realize not every man is like this; I also realize that a lot of men who think they are not like this . . . actually are.

Right now I'm working in a job where I am indeed paid less than several men for equivalent work (I know what they're paid because my boss did a screenshare with me and happened to have an Excel doc open with everyone's salaries listed on it). Most of the work we do is exactly the same. But they have different job titles than I do, so if you were to measure our wages, we wouldn't be compared one-for-one because we are categorized differently even though we have such similar jobs. I'm not even earning 77 cents per their dollars, it's actually way, way less than that. And this is not the first time I've experienced this in a workplace where I'm employed.

Such as the big research company where I was the second woman they hired (the first was the girlfriend of a programmer) into a corps of between 50 and 100 researchers. Where every single person with any kind of managerial role was a man because when it was in startup they hired only men. Were they better? No. They had seniority, and it was built into the system. Or the job I took in a friend's restaurant, doing accounting work, in college. The man who had been there a couple of years longer and who had no direct oversight regarding my work, and largely did the same work as I did, was called a manager, and I wasn't, and he was paid twice what I was. (Again, because I worked in accounting it was perhaps inevitable that at some point I stumbled upon information regarding his pay rate.) And again, because our job titles differed and the work did not, we would not have been compared tit-for-tat in a study of wages.

Soon after seeing the pay difference, I lost my interest in doing that job. I also am losing interest in my present job, because it's a disheartening situation to see that I'm literally valued lower than other people doing the same work.

And I never took time off from working per se, in order to raise my kids. I have worked all this time, but even *having* kids means that unlike some people I work with, I get taken for someone who has split interests. Doesn't matter that I put in more than 40 hours a week. If at 5:30 everyone without kids is still grinding away on some project, and I need to go pick up my kid, then I am the one who appears less dedicated to the cause. And I can't help having noticed that when, for example, my ex-husband (rarely) said he needed to do something regarding my son rather than work, he was treated like a hero for it.

And in case you read this as an angry rant, which is pretty much how people hegemonically disenfranchised get read when they describe the effects of hegemony to the people it benefits, I'm actually just sad and fatigued as I write this. I don't really care about the 77 cents/dollar figure, it doesn't even begin to describe the scope of the issues involved.

I think discrimination does exist, I'm not arguing against that. I think there are places that have very backwards policies in place which prohibit certain groups to fully realize their potential. The problem I have with the whole 77 cent thing is it makes it sound like there are no opportunities in society at all for female workers and that's BS. It is possible that you just got hired by a misogynistic company.

In response to the men in your life. Why do you allow them to do that? Tell them to fuck off. Find someone that cares about you. I've seen men get into similar relationships as well where the female just kind of chills out and the guy tries really hard to take care of them all and pretty much runs himself to death. The people in these relationships convince themselves that things are going to get better, that things will change... but they never do. Eventually the person has to take control of their life or they will allow the leeches of the world to suck from them everything they have. This isn't a perfect world, fucked up things take place. There are no Disney endings.

[golden]

I think discrimination does exist, I'm not arguing against that. I think there are places that have very backwards policies in place which prohibit certain groups to fully realize their potential. The problem I have with the whole 77 cent thing is it makes it sound like there are no opportunities in society at all for female workers and that's BS. It is possible that you just got hired by a misogynistic company.

In response to the men in your life. Why do you allow them to do that? Tell them to fuck off. Find someone that cares about you. I've seen men get into similar relationships as well where the female just kind of chills out and the guy tries really hard to take care of them all and pretty much runs himself to death. The people in these relationships convince themselves that things are going to get better, that things will change... but they never do. Eventually the person has to take control of their life or they will allow the leeches of the world to suck from them everything they have. This isn't a perfect world, fucked up things take place. There are no Disney endings.

Because, for example, my husband is a decent person who does care about me and tries to be supportive. He just doesn't get it. He doesn't see what I see and so many women see, because that's the nature of the inequality beast, it acts semi-invisibly and sets things up to seem natural, and for those who are favored the world just looks different, it's like a different lens. And looking through that lens from Day One can make even a fundamentally good person behave selfishly. What it can enable an ill-intentioned person to do is a whole 'nother tale.

I haven't found a superhero guy who isn't affected by the way most human societies are structured, and I don't think such a person exists. And if I say, well, fuck this, regarding every man in my life, I'll be in even worse material condition.

In my experience and observation, there's nothing like raising kids to expose how little things have actually changed, at least in the United States.

[Eliza Thomason]

@GOLDEN, wow, that was a very moving and convincing account. Yes, you are right, those things @Hitta said are true, but you really made the picture clear. Also @glam had sobering points. Your story, Golden, brings to mind for me the the work world and what it was like for women depicted in the Mad Men series my husband and I watched this winter (Netflix). I imagine you've probably seen it; its popular. The 60's weren't so long ago, and in spite of superficial appearances to the contrary, things just haven't changed so much at core.

And something else came to mind. My neighbor who watches my Mom while we go to Mass is downsizing to move, and her house is like a library, and she keeps bringing me books (but my house is like a library too!). Among her offerings was an old 1980s faded paperback, Games Mother Never Taught You, by Betty Harragan. I read it because I had never read anything like it, and I found it fascinating, revealing aspects of truths of the work world that I never would have considered. It really stuck with me. It helps to know the unwritten "rules of the game" because apparently, our gut feelings, personal principles about how we think we should go about things are not always the things that work. There's something more there. Another thing I learned from this book is that our woman's intuition combined with knowing the unwritten rules can give us a leg up in the game . So I highly recommend it to you, in your situation! Many are in print, so you can get used ones for pennies plus shipping.

I agree completely with this reviewer on Amazon:

"Tells you the rules of business very clearly...... and if you weren't either a football player in high school or in the military you don't know them. It's written for women, but any men that weren't jocks or military need to read this too. I used to wonder why I got in trouble at work -- now I know and don't do it anymore. I'm getting well paid for my work, get along with my co-workers and management, and my career is on track. I recommend this book to everyone I know, the few who actually read it get the same results I got. It's a little dated, but don't let that stop you. The corporate culture (at least in the United States) hasn't changed much this century and it's not likely to change anytime soon. Some of the details she presents may be different, the general principles are still completely current. Also, she's a fun writer and it's a good read."

Golden, am I recalling correctly that you are married to your Dual? Even if he doesn't get this situation, I am sure he is peace to you, and that is something you need, and it seems to me as if God saw you needed that and blessed you with your Dual. Also I feel He urges me to pray for you, that you find satisfactory and rewarding work, so I am going to do that, by asking intercession of St. Joseph the worker and St. Dymphna.

[glam]

Let me ask you, do you think it is more likely for a married woman to seek engineering jobs, or do you think it is more likely for an unmarried childless woman to seek engineering jobs? That is where the discrepancy is coming in. They aren't making less money, they are working easier jobs... working less consistent jobs. If a married woman with children was an engineer who was a consistent employee she'd make on par with a man.

i don't know how you can argue that point when i've already shown you that isn't the case. i think you're totally missing the larger point here: the inequality women face is less about the "77 cents" statistic and more about systemic, built-in discrimination that is hard to qualify or address directly. equally qualified women doing the same jobs as men are usually paid less, especially women with children because they are automatically, unfairly perceived to be less dedicated to their jobs. men with children do not face this kind of discrimination. i quoted specific statistics and facts to show you how this systemic discrimination manifests in terms of salary and job opportunities, but you're just completely ignoring them. you are also dismissing cases of discrimination as outliers, but the truth is that this is an endemic, widespread issue and not something that is an exception to the rule.

to further address your last point, female engineers doing the same job as men don't get paid the same. specifically, they get paid 82% of what their male counterparts do: http://www.aauw.org/2015/04/14/women...anged-in-stem/

[Hitta]

i don't know how you can argue that point when i've already shown you that isn't the case. i think you're totally missing the larger point here: the inequality women face is less about the "77 cents" statistic and more about systemic, built-in discrimination that is hard to qualify or address directly. equally qualified women doing the same jobs as men are usually paid less, especially women with children because they are automatically, unfairly perceived to be less dedicated to their jobs. men with children do not face this kind of discrimination. i quoted specific statistics and facts to show you how this systemic discrimination manifests in terms of salary and job opportunities, but you're just completely ignoring them. you are also dismissing cases of discrimination as outliers, but the truth is that this is an endemic, widespread issue and not something that is an exception to the rule.

to further address your last point, female engineers doing the same job as men don't get paid the same. specifically, they get paid 82% of what their male counterparts do: http://www.aauw.org/2015/04/14/women...anged-in-stem/

The pay gap exists because the employer doesn't feel as though he can rely on married women with children as much as a woman that's unmarried without children. It is common sense as to why this would be the case. Married women with children are going to work less hours. Married women with children are going to be be less consistent employees on average. Salary increases occur with sustainability.

TBH we live in a society where everyone wants to breed, but only certain percentage should. We live in a world full of breeders, where someones happiness is linked to whether or not they have children. Religious institutions have pretty much implanted this idea into our heads that we must reproduce, and quite frankly it is a pretty ignorant philosophy. When the abortion rate became legal in the 70s, the crime rate went down substantially. One could actually make the argument that if you are a single pregnant girl, that not aborting the baby is murder as opposed to the other way around that religious institutions like to propose. Having children should be financially difficult to ward of people from the idea of having children. And maybe there's some semblance reasoning why when the education of women in a society goes up, the birth rate goes down.

Married women with children are never going to get paid as much as as their unimpeded counterparts. The reason is that employers are trying to make money. There is no way they can fix this without causing some other far more fucked up issue to occur in society. If they ever did some sort of alteration in the pay of women that have children, the birth rate would skyrocket.

[marooned]

The pay gap exists because the employer doesn't feel as though he can rely on married women with children as much as a woman that's unmarried without children. It is common sense as to why this would be the case. Married women with children are going to work less hours. Married women with children are going to be be less consistent employees on average. Salary increases occur with sustainability.

and that right there is discrimination. you don't know when hiring someone how long that person will stay. to make assumptions based upon gender and if that person has kids is discriminatory. really your post is kind of saying that employers find it more convenient to employ men with kids than women with kids. of course this will create a perpetuating cycle. in a couple, the parent earning more money will probably be the one who keeps the consistent f/t job. if it's possible for one of them to work less, the lower earning parent may then spend more time with the kids doing the domestic work. this lower paid parent is usually the mother.

inequality is not justifiable on the basis of what is more convenient according to the status quo. but the status quo often ends up being used in defense of discrimination as though it just isn't possible to run the system in a way that benefits everyone equally, not just those in privileged groups.

[Hitta]

and that right there is discrimination. you don't know when hiring someone how long that person will stay. to make assumptions based upon gender and if that person has kids is discriminatory. really your post is kind of saying that employers find it more convenient to employ men with kids than women with kids. of course this will create a perpetuating cycle. in a couple, the parent earning more money will probably be the one who keeps the consistent f/t job. if it's possible for one of them to work less, the lower earning parent may then spend more time with the kids doing the domestic work. this lower paid parent is usually the mother.

They don't really have to make any assumptions at all for the pay gap to exist. Married women with children work far fewer hours. This lowers their salary quite a bit. If you have the fewer hours being worked, or breaks being taken for childcare or whatever, they will be less likely to get raises in salary. While I'm not saying that legitimate discrimination doesn't exist in the workforce, because it probably does.... you don't need discrimination to get a pay gap. It's just common sense and practical for business owners.

[Hitta]

I would really love to see a statistic on female v.s. male salaries in companies that have female managers.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/585...r-men-earnings

[marooned]

They don't really have to make any assumptions at all for the pay gap to exist.

if this is in consideration in the hiring process it certainly is an assumption and it is discrimination. the individual applicant is being judged on the basis of a group that applicant belongs to.

Married women with children work far fewer hours. This lowers their salary quite a bit. If you have the fewer hours being worked, or breaks being taken for childcare or whatever, they will be less likely to get raises in salary.

right. because childcare is woman's work in our society. paying mothers less than fathers basically keeps it that way. there are two parents, yet only one of them is considered the child rearing one, and all the work involved in that is discounted anyway. women are just inconsistent baby machines who should stay at home with the kids. the end.

While I'm not saying that legitimate discrimination doesn't exist in the workforce, because it probably does.... you don't need discrimination to get a pay gap. It's just common sense and practical for business owners.

i love how you don't even see how this is discrimination! for one, if this thinking is in the hiring process like i said, there is no question it's discrimination. for two, perhaps the very practice of increasing salary over time and rewarding consistent employment is itself something to call into question. eta: or perhaps the grind of work should be looked at... why is it that we all need to work 8 hour chunks or whatever? is it possible to still run society and be more flexible? (pretty sure it is!)

seriously you can apply your style of argumentation to why women weren't allowed in certain college programs in the past. "well, all the students are men and there are only men's bathrooms so like there just isn't anywhere to house a woman in this environment." i've seriously read college rejection letters to women from the 50s saying shit like this. basically society doesn't *want* to accommodate for those who do not belong to privileged groups. change is necessary for equality and a lot of people in a lot of systems don't wanna change, often simply because it just isn't "feasible" aka convenient.

[Hitta]

if this is in consideration in the hiring process it certainly is an assumption and it is discrimination. the individual applicant is being judged on the basis of a group that applicant belongs to.

right. because childcare is woman's work in our society. paying mothers less than fathers basically keeps it that way. there are two parents, yet only one of them is considered the child rearing one, and all the work involved in that is discounted anyway. women are just inconsistent baby machines who should stay at home with the kids. the end.

i love how you don't even see how this is discrimination! for one, if this thinking is in the hiring process like i said, there is no question it's discrimination. for two, perhaps the very practice of increasing salary over time and rewarding consistent employment is itself something to call into question.

seriously you can apply your style of argumentation to why women weren't allowed in certain college programs in the past. "well, all the students are men and there are only men's bathrooms so like there just isn't anywhere to house a woman in this environment." i've seriously read college rejection letters to women from the 50s saying shit like this. basically society doesn't *want* to accommodate for those who do not belong to privileged groups. change is necessary for equality and a lot of people in a lot of systems don't wanna change, often simply because it just isn't "feasible" aka convenient.

You act as though I told women to get into relationships with men and become the dominate child raising parent. What people do in their own homes is their business, if the majority of the world wants to run their household like that then who am I to judge. It is a pretty common technique to raising children in K selected species. There are quite a few exceptions though, so I mean it's not written in stone. It doesn't have to be that way. It is probable though that there is some value to the family model that we currently have in society.

Also you are right, I don't see discrimination, I see businessmen that want to make as much money as possible. The only thing they are discriminate against is low earnings. Even with female CEOs and managers, for some reason the pay didn't spike among female employees. You'd think they'd be less discriminate.

[xerx]

I like the idea of education being accessible enough so that mothers (even people who've been laid off / working for a chauvinist boss) can quickly get back in the game. The US is really bad at education, lol.

Also, cheap daycare.

[Hitta]

I like the idea of education being accessible enough so that mothers (even people who've been laid off / working for a chauvinist boss) can quickly get back in the game. The US is really bad at education, lol.

Also, cheap daycare.

See now that is actually a positive suggestion. That would help quite a bit, and is a much better suggestion than blanketing everything by calling it discrimination.

[marooned]

Also you are right, I don't see discrimination, I see businessmen that want to make as much money as possible. The only thing they are discriminate against is low earnings. Even with female CEOs and managers, for some reason the pay didn't spike among female employees. You'd think they'd be less discriminate.

women aren't necessarily less discriminatory towards women than men are. i think the main thing i'm seeing is that you don't really see a systemic problem. the system creates these issues... the individuals within it learn the system and perpetuate it. although the privileged benefit most on average, that doesn't mean everyone with more privileged status is an evil discriminator and everyone with less privileged status is free of all possible bias. really, most people are just people, and i think a good 2/3 of them at least are probably well meaning. as i was trying to point out earlier, this problem is a lot bigger than the individual.

also @Hitta, if the stuff you mentioned is considered in the hiring process and used to reject an applicant it's actually illegal because it is discrimination based on sex. so it's not just that i'm saying it's discrimination.

see http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/ and http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/i...tal_status.cfm

[xerx]

See now that is actually a positive suggestion.

All my suggestions are good suggestions.

[Hitta]

women aren't necessarily less discriminatory towards women than men are. i think the main thing i'm seeing is that you don't really see a systemic problem. the system creates these issues... the individuals within it learn the system and perpetuate it. although the privileged benefit most on average, that doesn't mean everyone with more privileged status is an evil discriminator and everyone with less privileged status is free of all possible bias. really, most people are just people, and i think a good 2/3 of them at least are probably well meaning. as i was trying to point out earlier, this problem is a lot bigger than the individual.

also @Hitta, if the stuff you mentioned is considered in the hiring process and used to reject an applicant it's actually illegal because it is discrimination based on gender. so it's not just that i'm saying it's discrimination.

see http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/ and http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/i...tal_status.cfm

If you could change something, legally speaking... what would you change? What do you want the system to do differently? Do you want laws passed or something that prohibits these "discriminatory" policies? I can promise you the repercussions of doing this would be substantial.

I'm going to flat out say that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, imo, was the worst possible thing that could have happened for African Americans, and I actually think it's one of the reasons that they have been pigeon holed into poverty.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

It's not just what money you give people but also the products they have to spend that money on.

http://www.businessinsider.com/women...an-mens-2015-4

Like women razors are more money then men's razors cuz ... why? It's ridiculous how we genderize things so much, the girl razors are pink and the men's razors are blue. It's a fucking razor. The important thing is you use it to shave your body with....

I'm sure of course we can all list the many reasons men suffer as well in society (this was never a race to see who can be the world's biggest victim like unhealthy social justice warriors do - but still, there is shitty unfair things that happen in the world with people unable/unwilling to seeing how they are playing a part in it), the point is it's all unfair and sucky... men don't talk about their struggles as much only cuz we say that feelings and vulnerability are weaknesses in men. But men are much more likeable people when we are strong enough to share our struggles (w/o being whiney and silly and making up untrue stuff...)

and LoL, people can support traditional family relationships without being misogynistic/homophobic douchebags.

[Hitta]

It's not just what money you give people but also the products they have to spend that money on.

http://www.businessinsider.com/women...an-mens-2015-4

Like women razors are more money then men's razors cuz ... why? It's ridiculous how we genderize things so much, the girl razors are pink and the men's razors are blue. It's a fucking razor. The important thing is you use it to shave your body with....

I'm sure of course we can all list the many reasons men suffer as well in society (this was never a race to see who can be the world's biggest victim like unhealthy social justice warriors do - but still, there is shitty unfair things that happen in the world with people unable/unwilling to seeing how they are playing a part in it), the point is it's all unfair and sucky... men don't talk about their struggles as much only cuz we say that feelings and vulnerability are weaknesses in men. But men are much more likeable people when we are strong enough to share our struggles (w/o being whiney and silly and making up untrue stuff...)

and LoL, people can support traditional family relationships without being misogynistic/homophobic douchebags.

So basically you are saying that women buy the one that is more expensive even though the male one is the same exact thing?

Gender roles are limiting, not going to dispute that one. I don't think passing laws to prevent them from developing in the marketplace is the right way to go about it. It doesn't solve the central problem and will cause more problems than it should in the long run.

[Eliza Thomason]

TBH we live in a society where everyone wants to breed, but only certain percentage should. We live in a world full of breeders, where someones happiness is linked to whether or not they have children. Religious institutions have pretty much implanted this idea into our heads that we must reproduce, and quite frankly it is a pretty ignorant philosophy. When the abortion rate became legal in the 70s, the crime rate went down substantially. One could actually make the argument that if you are a single pregnant girl, that not aborting the baby is murder as opposed to the other way around that religious institutions like to propose. Having children should be financially difficult to ward of people from the idea of having children. And maybe there's some semblance reasoning why when the education of women in a society goes up, the birth rate goes down. .

... It is a pretty common technique to raising children in K selected species....

[Hitta]

[Eliza Thomason]

Good analysis. Pretty much sums it up.

Having said this so late in the discussion, I wonder if you then read GOLDEN's and glam's posts, and if that affected your view of how it sums up?