Alceste
Vagabond
Is a five percent gap a gap, or isn't it?
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Difference in wages between men and women's jobs
- Thread starter Me Myself
- Start date
Is a five percent gap a gap, or isn't it?
Alceste
Vagabond
Fair enough, it is a slight exaggeration to call him an "advocate", but I think we're splitting hairs. The man thinks it's ok to rape your own kids, and exciting to rape your dates.
dust1n
Zindīq
I was actively looking for a debunk of his studies... and come across this protest video on YouTube...
I read "The Myth of Male Power", and he takes great issue with sexual harassment on the job, which was one of the topics of discussion of a local men's group that I was invited to be a part of the discussion that day. They were well aware of my involvement in feminist issues, and after I made it clear I was always willing to listen to others, they invited me after they suggested his book.
So, I read it. To summarize (if memory serves me correctly...this was 5 or 6 years ago)
What the group as a whole had issues with regarding sexual harassment was that they felt a double standard was at play. There were men in the group who didn't know how to handle advances by females when there was a mutual attraction between the two. When I asked about their thoughts about rape/sexual abuse in general, they hands down felt that no means no, and that all parties need to be considered across the board.
They did feel that there were more false rape accusations than the figures suggests, but they also agreed that enduring a false rape accusation wasn't as bad as actually surviving a rape.
They were most passionate about fathers getting custody more. If there was something I was passionate about with them, it was that. Seeing more men wanting to be an active part of their children's lives isn't anything I as a feminist would want to dismiss or, worse, try to prevent.
And when it came to the wage gap, these men on the whole felt there were still disparities between the genders, but that the gap wasn't as large as some think, that more females with higher degrees at a rate that is overwhelming compared with males in the younger age groups, worries these men who averaged 50-55ish that I talked with.
It was a pretty good discussion, if I may say so myself. If that brings some perspective into this thread. The guys were concerned about what they truly felt were points of powerlessness. But mostly it was office romances that caused confusion and worry, as well as the future of wage earnings based on who's getting the highest degrees in education (they're concerned of seeing the pendulum swinging wildly in the other direction in a generation or two). They were most concerned, however, with father's custodial rights, and felt most passionate about working together to solve that.
They, as a whole, didn't feel much about the wage gap except that it isn't as bad as we think. But they do admit that it exists, just that we've made progress and we should acknowledge how far we've come.
What we focused on in the discussion was where the common ground existed. It's a good start. I was very happy they didn't invite me just to start complaining about feminists as a whole.
So, I read it. To summarize (if memory serves me correctly...this was 5 or 6 years ago)
What the group as a whole had issues with regarding sexual harassment was that they felt a double standard was at play. There were men in the group who didn't know how to handle advances by females when there was a mutual attraction between the two. When I asked about their thoughts about rape/sexual abuse in general, they hands down felt that no means no, and that all parties need to be considered across the board.
They did feel that there were more false rape accusations than the figures suggests, but they also agreed that enduring a false rape accusation wasn't as bad as actually surviving a rape.
They were most passionate about fathers getting custody more. If there was something I was passionate about with them, it was that. Seeing more men wanting to be an active part of their children's lives isn't anything I as a feminist would want to dismiss or, worse, try to prevent.
And when it came to the wage gap, these men on the whole felt there were still disparities between the genders, but that the gap wasn't as large as some think, that more females with higher degrees at a rate that is overwhelming compared with males in the younger age groups, worries these men who averaged 50-55ish that I talked with.
It was a pretty good discussion, if I may say so myself. If that brings some perspective into this thread. The guys were concerned about what they truly felt were points of powerlessness. But mostly it was office romances that caused confusion and worry, as well as the future of wage earnings based on who's getting the highest degrees in education (they're concerned of seeing the pendulum swinging wildly in the other direction in a generation or two). They were most concerned, however, with father's custodial rights, and felt most passionate about working together to solve that.
They, as a whole, didn't feel much about the wage gap except that it isn't as bad as we think. But they do admit that it exists, just that we've made progress and we should acknowledge how far we've come.
What we focused on in the discussion was where the common ground existed. It's a good start. I was very happy they didn't invite me just to start complaining about feminists as a whole.
Alceste
Vagabond
Sounds like a positive experience overall, and I share your support of fathers getting a fairer deal in custody battles. I've known a lot of heart broken dads whose partners just skedaddled one day with the kids, and I find that genuinely unfair. I've also known dads who basically had to pay to see their kids. Of course I recognize their financial burden does not compare to that of a single mother and they should be providing support, I just don't think kids should be used as leverage.
Alceste
Vagabond
Lol I know!
"Hey look, these feminists don't want to let a guy who thinks date rape is exciting win converts for his movement on a coed college campus. Talk about intolerant!"
If it's any consolation, Anne Coulter got a similar reception.
dust1n
Zindīq
I suspect people in Toronto can, and will, protest just about anything.
I just can't believe I'm suppose to take seriously the notion that I need to refute a claim made in the 80's/90's, whatever, (as opposed to having that claim validated by the person claiming it,) by refuting 'these studies' that I have no access to, are not mentioned, and are obviously unknown entities to all parties involved.
I wish this one was free:
49 Industrial and Labor Relations Review 1995-1996 Interindustry Wage Differentials and the Gender Wage Gap
Our study compiled the largest research sample on the gender gap in compensation at the 200 largest law firms by combining two large databases to examine why women partners are compensated less: because they are less productive than men partners or because they are women. The AmLaw 100 and 200 studies include gross revenue, profits, number of equity and non-equity partners, and the total number of lawyers at each firm. The Vault/MCCA Law Firm Diversity Programs study (Vault/MCCA) includes the gender ratios at each AmLaw 200 firm. Our study covers the years 2002 to 2007.
The ratio of women equity partners to women non-equity partners is 2.546 compared to a ratio of 4.759 for their men counterparts over the six year period studied. An increase of 1% in the proportion of women partners at a law firm is associated with 1.112% lowering of the overall compensation for all partners at the firm. This disparity in compensation between women and men partners exists even after controlling for the lower compensation of non-equity partners and the greater likelihood for women to remain non-equity partners. Women partners are paid less than men partners despite the fact that they are not less productive in generating RPL for their firms.
The average gross revenue of firms with the highest percentages of women lawyers was approximately $20 million dollars higher than firms with the lowest percentage of women lawyers, but the revenue per lawyer (RPL) of these firms dropped by approximately $120,000 per lawyer. The average compensation for the lawyers at the firm goes down as the proportion of women at a firm rises, indicating that women in all positions at a firm are paid less than their male counterparts.
Since 1988, a low of 40.6% and a high of 50.4% of first year J.D. students have been women. The proportion of women in positions of power at the AmLaw 200 firms should have increased over the ensuing twenty-six years. Women represented approximately 50% of the associate hires during the eighteen years prior to 2001 but only 15-16% of partners. The women who make it to partner are paid less than their men counterparts.
Our paper examines the gender gap problem in law firm compensation through an empirical lens. The results have important implications for economic discrimination research. Our statistical analysis concludes that women partners are compensated less than men on average at the AMLAW 200 law firms regardless of whether they are equity partners or non-equity partners. This gender disparity is not due to lower productivity of women partners. It is attributable to discriminatory practices under both disparate treatment and disparate impact analyses.
"Statistical Evidence on the Gender Gap in Law Firm Partner Compensatio" by Marina Angel, et al.
Or this one:
"This study was designed to investigate gender differences in the USA, in anticipated professional income. Participants were 5314 medical students (3880 men, 1434 women) who entered Jefferson Medical College between 1970 and 1997. The annual peak professional income estimated at the beginning of medical school was the dependent variable and gender within selected time periods was the independent variable. Results showed significant differences between men and women on their anticipated future incomes in different time periods. Women generally expected 23% less income than men. The effect size estimates of the differences were moderately high. The gender gap in income expectations was more pronounced for those who planned to pursue surgery than their counterparts who planned to practice family medicine or pediatrics. A unique feature of this study is that its outcomes could not be confounded by active factors such as experience, working hours, age and productivity. Findings suggest that social learning may contribute to gender gap in anticipated income."
ScienceDirect.com - Social Science & Medicine - Gender comparisons of income expectations in the USA at the beginning of medical school during the past 28 years
Or this...
https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/553830
Thesis (M.P.P.)--Georgetown University, 2009.; Includes bibliographical references. The goal of this paper is to examine the extent to which the clustering of female faculty in particular academic disciplines helps to explain the persistent wage gap observed between women and men in academe. Men are over-represented in disciplines with higher market value, more abundant resources, and additional opportunities for scholarly research. Additionally, it appears that their female counterparts face significant barriers to entry in fields ascribed with the highest external market value. These barriers to entry may include unobservable variables such as gender socialization, social expectations prioritizing family roles, and historical discrimination.; Using data from the 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSPF:04), a large-scale nationally representative sample, the analysis focuses on the earnings of full-time tenured professors who have obtained doctorate degrees. A series of Ordinary Least Squares regression models are estimated to isolate the effect of academic discipline on salary levels, net of other human capital, family, institutional, and professional factors correlated with earnings.; This research began with the assumption that the gender wage gap may be attributed to society placing higher value on fields that are more male dominated. While wage disparities may be attributed to different disciplines being valued more highly than others (e.g., society may value engineering, a field with higher percentages of men, more highly than fields such as women's studies) results of this study suggest that the women are still at a pay disadvantage even when equally represented in a specific discipline.
dust1n
Zindīq
Which is so sad, that a claim doesn't even have to be backed up, but just asserted it's legitimacy even though we have no access to what information that claim comes from, despite claims such as:
What "his studies"? He hasn't authored any study in the field of gender income. I literally can not find one. There are just his books, and I have no access to those.
The US census just shows that the income gap is but doesn't take into account any factor in determining what causes the income gaps. On the other hand, studies do take into account as many measurable factors as they can. So just citing the US census and then talking about how that doesn't consider any factors is essentially ignoring all the actual studies to go into evaluation gender wage gaps, occupational segregation, etc. etc.
It's like responding to the first post all again, about the girl who had a shallow view of how gender wage gaps are determined.
"I think other sources as well." Why, did he say?
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100% agreed.
Thank goodness, however, the more these things are brought up, and more advocacy of father's having at least shared custody if both parents live in the same state, the more I've seen men having their kids living under the same roof as they live for a chunk of the time. And not thinking they have to play catch up over a weekend's time....which is Friday night, all day Saturday, and only up to Sunday at 12 noon.
And because I tend to be a little ornery with these discussions, I just wonder how much Second Wave feminism had to do with pushing the father-child relationship more and emphasizing that not only women are capable at raising children.
Alceste
Vagabond
100% agreed.
Thank goodness, however, the more these things are brought up, and more advocacy of father's having at least shared custody if both parents live in the same state, the more I've seen men having their kids living under the same roof as they live for a chunk of the time. And not thinking they have to play catch up over a weekend's time....which is Friday night, all day Saturday, and only up to Sunday at 12 noon.
And because I tend to be a little ornery with these discussions, I just wonder how much Second Wave feminism had to do with pushing the father-child relationship more and emphasizing that not only women are capable at raising children.
Yes, bless their little hearts.
I'm simply amazed at the progress made by all these fine feminists when I talk to my grandmother about how much things have changed in her life.
Even in my own life, things have noticeably changed. I'm half considering becoming a software engineer, which simply wouldn't have been an option 20 years ago unless I wanted to be a trail blazer. (I tried that. It sucks.)
I hear ya. 20 years ago, I was still considered the equivalent of an abandoned whore. I started adopting that label like a rebellious badge of honor, but it's amazing how younger generations are so much more accepting of what I do in the privacy of my bedroom.
Our generation has been trailblazers in the expansion of gender equality to include trans-rights, but I still from time to time give my mother a kiss on the cheek for what she and all her "angry-feminists" friends went through with fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment (which still needs to be passed...amazing).
I'd love for my mother to be in this debate. Closing the wage gap and breaking through the glass ceiling was what she was most passionate about back in the '70s and still to this day. She used to follow all the debates between Gloria Steinem and Phyllis Schlafly (she still vomits in her mouth at the mention of Schlafly, btw), and I remember tagging along with her to her meetings with other activists while hearing story after story after story of women getting fired, demoted, harassed, passed over for promotions, and on and on and on. A few times here and there isn't worthy of investigation, but every single woman they'd meet had a story of gender discrimination, and when it's over 95% of the women in the workforce reporting something of note, red flags popped up everywhere.
I still remember my mother in her government job inviting over an 18 year old female high school dropout, who had difficulty reading and writing, and my mother helping her get a job at what used to be the Farmers Home Administration, which merged with other departments to become the USDA. This young woman was immediately promoted to a higher position than my mother's, in spite of my mom holding a degree in business administration and had experience training others in her field. This young woman was found having an affair with a higher up, which was not pursued by any internal affairs investigators to see if the affair was within ethical bounds of if any coercion was involved. But in spite of this young woman's sudden success within the department, she never got a higher grade than the men did.
My mother came home in tears one day when I was in high school because another promotion was given to a young man, passing her up and all other women in her pay grade, because - she was told - he held a business degree. Remember, my mother had not only her business degree, but 10 years experience in the field, a stellar attendance record, and no blemishes in her work. She also revamped some of the bureaucratic red tape that people were always complaining about and had all credit to that improvement solely given to her. In her 30 years in government work, she never was promoted to anything higher than what would be considered upper-middle management.....along with the majority of women that she was working with.
I hated seeing my mom go through that. She used to tell me that one of her life's missions was to make sure I would never have to go through something like that. And so she'd wipe her tears, get on the phone, and start crafting letters to our Congress.
She's still highly involved with Second Wave concerns, so she's aware of the disparities occurring in industry and the public sector. Her opinion is that the wage gap and the glass ceiling is still there, and that - she tells me - still ****es her off.
I'll say, "Remember mom, people will say you're being an angry feminist."
She always responds, "The wage gap exists, hon. You're either angry or an idiot. Which would you rather be?"
Alceste
Vagabond
Thanks for sharing your mother's story. That sums up the one of the reasons I'm so irritated by this "women are doing different jobs, so there's no discrimination" argument. Not only is it false (women are still paid less for the exact same job, as all those lawyer studies illustrate), but it also misses the point completely. Your mother was passed over for promotions - that's absolutely typical. I was sexually harassed and laughed it off as a joke when I worked as a grip. Eventually the all male grip division of the union conspired to end my career behind closed doors, telling me it's because I'm a "tease". In fact it was because the key grip on a major feature wanted to promote me to "best boy" because I did good work. That was the best paying job I ever had. I spent the next decade or so as a low-paid office administrator and nobody questioned my right to be there, harassed me or interfered with my business.
I usually ask questions from detractors about women receiving less pay because of maternity leave like:
What do men earn after being stay-at-home dads? Or after taking a chunk of time off due to medical reasons?
Are the wage disparities the same for post-menopausal women and men of the same age?
If women are earning less than men at the same job at 95 cents to the dollar, rather than 73 cents to the dollar, are we supposed to be happy with that?
If we are told that women tend not to take jobs that are high-risk (such as, say, the front lines in the military), but that when women challenge the status quo by applying for such positions en masse, why is it that we suddenly hear the argument change from "women don't want that" to "women's presence would de-moralize the team"?
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I'm happy to share stories of what my mother has been doing her whole life. My grandmother's stories would make some people shiver for what she had to endure. And it's fun to sometimes hear both my mother and my grandmother debate reproductive rights (generation differences and all), while my mother has a difficult time wrapping her head around polyamory and the need for SlutWalks. But if we all agree on something, it's that when there's gender inequality that's legislated and mandated, we all take action and make a fuss until change occurs.
Ever since my grandmother, after moving out from her family's farm at 14 years old when her father gave her the ultimatum of farm work or no roof over her head, and after moving out worked for a family so she could earn her high school diploma, and then working full time as a secretary for an insurance company, and then being accepted into college to earn her English degree so she could become a teacher.....suddenly finding herself due to social custom giving that all up when she got married....planted seeds in our heads that we should never have to see her daughters or granddaughters be barred from reaching our full potentials.
Which is why when all three of her daughters wanted to go to college, and my grandfather and a couple of these women's husbands objected, my grandmother told all the daughters to never ever ever let anybody prevent a woman from earning her degree.
Then she'd tell all the guys who had the gall to object where to stick it.
Alceste
Vagabond
Your grandma's stories sound similar to mine in some ways. She also had to move to town to finish school, working for her room and board. Although in her case, her father was a huge supporter of education. Even was instrumental in getting a school built in the first place. They had 16 kids, 13 of them girls. In those days women could be either a secretary, a nurse or a teacher. That's it.
She had three daughters and a son. All the daughters were put through university by my grandfather, enthusiastically. He was a good guy.
She had three daughters and a son. All the daughters were put through university by my grandfather, enthusiastically. He was a good guy.
Your grandma's stories sound similar to mine in some ways. She also had to move to town to finish school, working for her room and board. Although in her case, her father was a huge supporter of education. Even was instrumental in getting a school built in the first place. They had 16 kids, 13 of them girls. In those days women could be either a secretary, a nurse or a teacher. That's it.
She had three daughters and a son. All the daughters were put through university by my grandfather, enthusiastically. He was a good guy.
That's awesome.