Unfortunately, while discrimination has become a bad word, just because women are paid less does not necessarily mean it is unfair.
Okay, you can stop throwing things at me now. No, really, stop it. Bear with me.
The NCoPE linked to a study by the AAUW Educational Foundation entitled “Behind the Pay Gap”. This 40+ page document sets out to show us the enormity of the problem we face. What it actually does, if you take the time to do something silly like actually read it, is show that the sound bite wisdom of Sen. Dodd and the NCoPE dramatically exaggerates the issue. According to the one liner statistics we are supposed to believe that a man and a woman who make identical choices will have a 23% difference in their wages, and that this disparity is due to the grossly unjust discrimination against women by corporate fat cats. Now, I understand it may be a little silly of me to expect Sen. Dodd to take the time to skim through a 40 page study when he, and the other great men and women of Congress, can’t be bothered to read the legislation they vote on. I mean, it’s only their job and all. It’s not like we’re paying them to be informed.
Page 10 of the study plays up the fact that many women go to four year colleges, and in fact perform just as well or better than their male peers in every way imaginable. This may seem to support Sen. Dodd’s argument…unless of course you keep reading all the way to page 11, which says in big, bold letters: ”Women and Men choose different majors”.
”…the average full-time employed
female education major earns just 60 percent as
much as the average full-time-employed female engineering
major earns ($520 versus $872 per week). Men who majored
in education also earned only 60 percent as much as men
who majored in engineering ($547 versus $915 per week).
THIS JUST IN from the desk of Captain Obvious: Engineers make more than teachers, regardless of gender!
Page 12 of the study breaks down majors by gender percentages, which reveals an obvious trend: Men tend to gravitate towards business and technical majors, while women gravitate more towards majors such as education, nursing, and more social majors.
This of course does not explain the data on page 14, which Sen. Dodd and friends clearly read. This is another bar graph which shows the wage gap of multiple professions. We’ll disregard the examples like education (Women make 95% of men’s wages) or history (women make 112% of men’s wages) and move right to Mathematics and Other Sciences. Here, women make 76% as much as men. The Justice League has their proof!...Right? Actually, what they appear to have is a severe case of narcolepsy, because if they had just managed to tough it out to page 15, they would’ve seen yet another big, bold headline: “ Men report working more hours than women
report working.” Page 17 shows that men are far, far more likely to work 41+ hours than women, who are most likely to be employed for less than a 40 hr work week.
On page 20 of “Behind the Pay Gap”, we see that “Women are more likely than men to take time off to care for children”.
”Ten years after graduation, 81 percent of men are employed full time, while only 61 percent of women are employed full time. When parents are considered, the gender difference is stark. About one-fifth (23 percent) of mothers are out of the work force and another 17 percent work part time, while only 1 percent of fathers are out of the work force and only 2 percent work part time.”
It also alludes to the fact that women are more likely to leave the workforce and then reenter it later. Because they have been gone and not gathered experience and tenure they are paid far less than their male peers upon reentry.
According to the study:
“ after controlling for all the factors known to affect earnings college-educated women earn about 5 percent less than college-educated men earn”
Maybe I’m naïve for thinking that little things like facts will get in the way of spirited rhetoric, but if the Sen. Dodd and the NCoPE wants to remain intellectually honest they ought to read their own published studies and realize that the pay inequality they are trumpeting is 80% explained away simply by career choices.
What about the last 5 cents on the dollar? Isn’t that discrimination? Aren’t women being paid less than men, even it is just 5% less? Shouldn’t Congress act!?
I agree that if two employees are exactly the same in every way excepting their genitalia, they ought to be paid the same. Doing this only makes good business sense. Paying employees competitive wages is an incentive get and to keep good employees. I disagree that Congress has the authority or the capability to do anything about it.
Men and women are different. They excel in different areas. Consequently, they are paid differently. If there is any “problem” it is a societal one, not a legislative one. Women are the primary caregivers in our society. Men are the primary breadwinners. If proponents of supposed “wage equity” truly wish to fix the “problem”, they need to target this fact and look to change it through education and convincing women to make different choices. They would have to convince women to choose careers that require longer hours, more time away from their family, and possibly not raising the family at all. In short, they would need to change the traditionally societal role of women as caregivers into a more masculine role.
Personally, I believe this would be a mistake. It seems to me that of the two roles, caregiver or breadwinner, women have one that is just as important, if not much more so. The work I do in the office is temporary and fleeting. I do it to put bread on the table to feed my family. I do it to fuel the engine, because that is my place as a man.
The work women do in the home is to raise the next generation of humanity.
Ponder that for a moment.
They are entrusted with making sure that the fate of our entire race is kept in good hands. They are responsible with teaching our children, our only true lasting legacy, how to be productive members of our society. Such a job is not valued in dollars and cents, and to attempt to frame it as such is demeaning.
I would say to women at large, fulfilling the traditional societal role of a mother: Keep on. The future of the planet rests in your hands, and feeds at your bosom.
11 comments:
I hope a feminist comes and vomits on you. ;)
They just might, after this. Do you have any constructive, informed debate to employ in order to counter my use of strange, foreign things like "facts" and "logic", or are we going to go with the vomit-only route?
mostly vomit.
I'm going to go ahead and call the score as Conservative Capitalists, 1, Femi-nazis, -1 (Penalty for non-regulation vomit)
It's really not the facts that are a problem. They make sense. We all know that the role of a woman has traditionally been caretaker, and her career would suffer because of that, ergo pay gaps etc. Truthfully, you didn't present anything new (as per your style of blog :P), it's simply a regurgitation of someone else's research in a Rush Limbaugh styled rhetoric. So, high five on that one.
But, the reason that I hope you are soon a victim of a feminist puking is because of your pitiful pandering at the end to the hard-working, stay-at-home mom.
So thanks for your empathy, but you can keep your hand outs and I'll keep my job. I'll get paid more too. ... See More
:)
Wow, coming out swinging are we?
Since I lack the funds, capabilities, and time to do any truly "unique" research (and I am in good company with nearly every other citizen here), I must resort to doing something silly: Using the internet and other sources to find the research of others who do, read it, examine it logically, and then comment on it. I call it being informed.
I suppose, if my blog is a regurgitation of someone else's research in a Rush Limbaugh style, would that make your comment the failed attempt at wit by attacking presentation and style rather than the substance of my argument in a Huffington Post/Classic Liberal style? High five back at you. :P If you can argue with my facts, premises, assumption, etc., then by all means do it!
For the rest, I hardly see my extolling of virtue as a "pitiful pandering". What it was was a genuine recognition of the enormously important and highly undervalued job that women, both those who stay at home full time and those who work part of the time outside the home, perform. The idea that a women must have a paycheck in order to be contributing is vile and demeaning.
How, pray tell, is this a handout? It is merely a recognition of a job well done. I ask you, would it be better if this function continued to be ridiculed and slapped down by chauvinists and feminists alike?
If you can get paid more than I doing a job, then as a capitalist, I applaud you.
The so called wage discrepancy is a non-issue. You're right, most of the differences can be explained away by career choices.
The real issue is the glass ceiling for women, minorities, and the lower classes. A woman who finds satisfaction in engineering or a high corporate position often feels societal pressure from friends and family to conform to the ideals of home and hearth and motherhood. Not every woman was born to be the ideal mother or should have to be to find satisfaction. Yet the woman who focuses on her career will have to constantly have to answer the question of when they'll marry and settle down and have children.
Even worse, because of the natural xenophobic nature of humanity it becomes very difficult for a woman to achieve the highest levels of leadership. The number of female and minority CEOs is still pitifully low. I don't think the established white male upper class (always) consciously excludes others but the other provides a fundamental barrier to communication. The majority can't count on the minority having the same frame of reference. With social networking so important, this can be deadly to the success of the minority. They lack the ties that majority maintain simply through their being.
Even if a minority does achieve success and "break through," they risk becoming a token. The majority can either write the token off by claiming their the exception to their group or oversimplify the minority by naming the token the representative of all the minority. Either way, the token still isn't fully part of the group. This is why I've recently changed position on Affirmative Action. As much as I hate the necessity for it, minorities have better chance of success if placed into positions in groups. That way the majority can't simply token the one or two others they're forced to interact with.
I would suggest that anyone truly interested in this topic take a look at "Men and Women of the Corporation" by Kanter.
Wait...Let me get this straight: In order to allow stop discrimination and racism in the workplace, your solution is to...introduce discrimination and racism in the workplace via Affirmative Action?
Who are you, and what did you do with Gottberg?
Alright...Immediately following Earth Day, which is already spoken for as a part of my blog, I will have to do one on Affirmative Action so I can bring you back from the intellectual pit you've stumbled into. Don't worry buddy: Help is on the way.
You're a DEAD man. Just saying... I know you forwarned me. but WTF? Do you remember the discussion at SCorp where you, and Trey told me that I would not understand what I was missing until I was a mother. Question: Do you believe women belong in the workplace. I was and am STILL offended. But I still love you. Keep preaching brother. Even thouth I f'ing hate this anti-woman venomous shit. :P ***grabbing my cape and tiara to save the world from men like you***
Oh and this is for Kimberly...VOMIT. :P
I don't believe I said anything to say that women do not belong in the workplace...In fact, if you read my opinion, you'll see what I said was that I believe that men and women who do the same job ought to be paid equally.
Nowhere did I suggest, and nor do I believe, that a woman is incapable of working effectively in the private sector, particularly in professions that tailor to her natural strengths as a woman, namely emotional processing, empathy, and social networking. It is not sexist to call these generally feminine strengths, any more than it is sexist to state that men are, generally, physically stronger than women. It is simply a fact, and does not lower the place of either gender.
Perhaps what confused you was my glowing praise for the under appreciated profession of our culture, that of the mother. I asked Kimberly, and I'll ask you: How is recognizing the incredible sacrifice and hard work of the "traditional" woman in any way anti-woman? I fail to see any logic whatsoever behind your position.
In fact, if any position is anti-woman, it is yours. Yours is the philosophy that tells a woman that she must make a paycheck to have worth. Yours is the position that tells a woman that the role she is traditionally cast in is worthless, or at the very least, not as worthwhile as a man's. Yours is the position that tells a woman that if she really wants to make something of herself, she has to go get a "job".
That is demeaning to women.
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