Tags
anti-feminism, equal pay?, gender roles, opinion, politics, women
One thing that has really changed in our society is the cultural support for marriage,
mothering, and wife-dom. These days it is practically sacrilege to let little girls dream of
becoming wives and mothers. Today it is all about the education and the making of money, and
pushing girls into careers. Not long ago there was a big fuss over some toys, easy bake ovens
for example, became the symbolic evidence of girls selling themselves short. No more little
dishes, dolls, and tea parties, you are destined to go into the STEM fields.
Being a wife and even a mother, is now perceived as a bit of a failure, something uneducated,
unenlightened women do because we don’t know better and no-one has taught us we have choices.
To even suggest that we might be making a valid choice, an intelligent choice even, is met with
huge resistance. Marriage and motherhood is perceived as being the path of those incapable of
doing anything useful with their lives. This is such a huge dishonoring of women, it
simply takes my breath away.
So “equal pay for equal work,” sounds reasonable on the surface, but those of us who have been wives
and mothers are more familiar with, “no pay for lots of work.” See, it turns out that there are many
things in life worth pursuing that don’t involve pay at all, in fact just the opposite. Sacrificial
things that are far from cost effective. So, this idea that women should receive equal pay for equal
work, completely ignores the existence and value of women’s unpaid work. It dismisses the fact that
many of us take time off to become wives, mothers, that we often need flex time to address the concerns
of children and families, that we wrestle to balance careers and families, and that anyone with a lick of
sense, prioritizes their families over their jobs.
There is no “equal” anywhere in the world. There is lots of difference and diversity, but this idea
that we can level the playing field, balance the scales, and create something called equality, is a
false ideology.
This will sound like a bit of female chauvinism, but I say it a rather tongue in cheek to make a point,
mostly to some of the men who think “equal pay for equal work” is some great gift they offer women in
our march towards equality. If you really want to know what “equal pay for equal work” would genuinely
look like, you owe women your very lives. Every dime you are capable of earning, your health, your time,
even a willingness to lay down your life protecting a family. That is the biological reality and it
certainly doesn’t look fair or equal. Men’s value in the biological equation is closely entwined with
their very expendability. That is a cold and clinical look at the harsh reality of biological “equality.”
Your very lives.
Those who promote “equal pay for equal work,” actually cheapen the contributions of women and sell us
short, implying that women’s value in the world can have a price tag, a monetary value assigned, as if
we can be defined in a very male-dominated way, by the results of our paid economic labor. The truth is,
women’s genuine value lays in the sacrificial nature of all our unpaid work, as wives, mothers, teachers, caregivers, servers of the community.
Before any men get their hackles up and think I’m launching a demand for compensation for being female,
it’s a debt that’s already been paid. For centuries men and women have participated in this biological
exchange, this metaphorical kind of transaction between the genders. It isn’t just women who have given
their all, it’s men too. Sometimes their very lives.
As to which gender got the short end of the stick in the biological deal, that’s the subject of endless
debate. Intelligent women however, have never had to waste a moment demanding “equality,” because we know
the game we got going on is already rigged in our favor.
For those women who claim they don’t want husbands, families, children, of course you don’t. You want a
STEM degree, a bunch of student debt, and 9 cats. In the Western world in 2014 you have the freedom to
pursue just that, but the fact that you are so eager to attack those of us living a different dream,
doesn’t convince me that you’ve found the path to fulfillment.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Blogging is unpaid work. In fact, nearly all writing by nearly everyone is unpaid work if the writer chooses to let other people read it and they get something from reading it (which nearly always happens with unpublished writing). Same with music, painting, sculpture, even drama and dance. In fact, nearly everything people truly enjoy and do because they enjoy it is a hobby they don’t get paid for and that usually costs them money. “Value” is almost the complete opposite of “money,” because money comes from things ranging from being a call center drone to manipulating bare numbers at the currency exchange. Of course women don’t get paid for your true value because nobody does!
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Great post 🙂
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I have nominated you for a One Lovely Blog Award. Please see my post at silverthreading.com ❤
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Ok IB, I think I’m gonna have to try and throw you a bit of a curve ball here…
I totally get your point at how society has cheapened and almost demonized the idea of women actually choosing to be stay at home mothers, and what a stupid thing that is. I could not agree more with your point that “there are many
things in life worth pursuing that don’t involve pay at all, in fact just the opposite. Sacrificial
things that are far from cost effective…” Yet I honestly don’t quite get how you go from these points to then concluding that the women who ARE spending 40+ hours a week on the job, shouldn’t be getting paid the same compensation as men for doing the exact same work. Do you really believe that women in the work place need a great deal more ” flex time to address the concerns of children and families”, and that this actually justifies paying women less for doing the exact same job?
I say this from the perspective of having now been a stay-at-home-Dad for the past ten years. 🙂
I would say I fully appreciate the prejudices that can be leaned towards women in our day age if they should choose to stay at home and raise their kids instead of having a career. I totally agree that those who look down their noses at the decision to be a “stay-at-home-parent” don’t appreciate the values of “unpaid work”. Been there. In fact, sometimes I’m tempted to go a little further and remind all those “persecuted” stay at home ladies that they themselves don’t quite appreciate how even MORE difficult it can be for a man to be in that same position, because not only do they receive that same kind of patronizing, judgmental treatment from other working men, but we ALSO actually deal with a lot of judgment and overall weirdness from other stay-at-home-Moms, who almost seem to act like we’re not worthy of being regarded as capable of the whole stay-at-home gig as them, as thought their very identities as women are totally wrapped up in their “stay-at-homeness”…,
So, yeah… I feel like I kinda see both sides. Because as much as I empathize with and totally champion a woman’s (or a man’s….) choice to stay and be a parent, and do all the unappreciated, unpaid stuff that you’ll never be able to put on a resume or entertain people with stories about at cocktail parties, but is totally rewarding nonetheless, I ALSO totally empathize with the simple matter of “equal pay for equal work”, having a wife who works in the business world, a woman who is NOT at all some radical feminist or absentee mother or someone’s whose identity is wrapped up in her job, and yeah, when she works her bunz off every day from the time she gets into the office to the time she leaves, why would it be ok for her to get paid less than a man doing the exact same work? It’s NOT ok, but yet it still happens, all the time! Those proverbial glass ceilings are still very much in place in many companies today, (although I’d say the good ol’ boy’s clubs who are running things have often enough learned that it’s in their interest to be generous with the windex, and keep that glass as clear and invisible as possible…)
I mean, really… Isn’t suggesting that professional women are justified in receiving lower pay because they need more “flex time” to still be attentive mothers also sort of a slap against working fathers? Why don’t working dad’s need the same kind of “flex time” to take kid’s to doctor’s appts or go to baseball games, etc.?
Overall, I guess my point is that just because the uber-feminists might “equal pay for equal work” into another one of their fight-the-man battle cries doesn’t necessarily mean it’s still not a valid thing. (But like you said, actually achieving it is probably a LOT more difficult than it is to just talk about it! :-)) Nor do I think equal pay for equal work should be viewed as another underhanded slap against those of us who have elected to stay home. I see no need for bizarre “biological equality” arguments and such. And while actually truly achieving equal pay for equal work might prove to be somewhat of a pipedream due to the fact that we live in a fallen, corrupt world, I don’t know that this means that it itself is a “false ideology”….
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“I ALSO totally empathize with the simple matter of “equal pay for equal work…”
One problem with the idea is that you are offering us something very few of us will ever be able to achieve. Equal to what? Equal to the work men do. In order for us to truly be equal and competitive with men in the job world, we have to sacrifice the nature of who we are as women. We simply cannot compete fairly if we have to take time off for pregnancy, for sick kids, for motherhood. Women tend to not stay with a company for 20 years nonstop because we often to want to focus on other priorities. So, most of us simply haven’t got the same amount of time to invest.
Physically we can’t compete, at least it’s very rare you’re going to find a whole lot of women working blue color physical jobs at the same level as men. In many traditionally female jobs, we’re already getting paid equally or even higher than most men.
In marriage situations where men pitch in a look out for the home and children, the vast majority of us are already getting equal pay for equal work, and the added support of our husbands.
So who is this legislation intended for? What is it’s purpose? Do we have a whole lot of childless women working in traditionally male dominated fields at the same competitive level as men who are being paid unfairly? I sure don’t see it when I look at the statistics.
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(I was wondering if you were gonna chime in!)
‘In order for us to truly be equal and competitive with men in the job world, we have to sacrifice the nature of who we are as women. We simply cannot compete fairly if we have to take time off for pregnancy, for sick kids, for motherhood.”
I would say that is a gross false assumption, if for no other reason than it takes something as vast and varied as the “job world” and attempts to reduce it to a singular, simplistic thing!
I am not talking about the “physically women can’t compete” issue. That’s something wholly separate. My own wife would be the first one to argue that no, women are NOT as physically strong as men (on average, there ARE of course, a certain few women who could dead lift me over their own heads…) I am not one of these people trying to argue that women should be fire-fighters and Green Berets and NFL linebacker or “blue-collar workers”, just like men. (I’m not vehemently against those ideas either, but the point is that the question of physical strength/ability is not the issue in question here. That is a separate debate altogether.)
Because again, the issue in question is equal pay for EQUAL WORK… I don’t know what your husband does for a living, but my spouse certainly falls into the “white-collar” category, and so unless someone is trying to make some argument that men have more physical stamina in their ability to type on a computer or something, then NO, the physical question is quite moot, and the “playing field” is quite even, in the sense that it a purely “cerebral” arena. (unless you think women can’t quite keep up with men in that way either? I know you don’t!)
Now, as to your point about women not being able to balance motherhood and a job:
If (like our family) you already have one of the spouses staying home to do things like take care of sick kids, then where is this alleged disparity found between my wife and her male co-workers? Yes, she took off time for maternity leave for all three kids. It was mostly paid, and as far as I can see, in no way inhibited her ability to “compete” in the workplace…
But you’re right, they don’t let you take time off just for “motherhood” in general. 🙂 I don’t quite understand why that would be an expectation… (?) Or, I guess I don’t understand why that’s relevant. Again, it’s a CHOICE. right? And so I guess I’m curious if you would actually think that true “motherhood” should actually entail not being at a job for an average 40 hours a week?
Of course, again, I could ALSO argue that it’s almost impossible to debate much of these things to any depth on a generic level, because it really does vary greatly depending on which company you’re working for, and which position in that company, etc. Some companies are very “old school” and super concerned with you being at your desk from 8-5, other companies (especially if you are working in a more “tech-centric” company or environment, like my wife) are WAY more laid back and probably a lot more flexible in terms of expectations re: hours at the actual office than you would inclined to believe. We live in the internet age after all, and a lot of companies are beginning to understand that sitting in a cubicle doesn’t necessarily equate to accomplishing actual WORK! 🙂
So… after all is said and done, (and assuming that all else is even-Stephen, so time and physical arguments aside…) what is so inherently wrong with the idea of getting paid the same wage as someone else who is doing the exact same job?
Wouldn’t you and your husband feel a little miffed if you discovered that someone doing the exact same job as him was getting paid almost twice as much, because they were say, the owner’s kid, or a woman having an affair with the manager, or whatever else? Sometimes fairness is really not a ridiculous ideal, or just another feminist plot….
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I’ll try to flip this around so it makes more sense. I actually have always worked traditionally female jobs and I don’t earn the same as my male co-workers, I earn far more. That’s simply because I’m way better at it. With a few exceptions, most of the men who wind up working with me, hate the job and don’t want to be there and it really starts to show.
Below, Doobster said, “compensation should be gender-blind.” How are you going to document that in a situation like mine? Those guys have clearly not gotten the same compensation as I have and it is pretty much tied to the fact that they don’t want to be there. However, it’s also recognizable as falling right down gender lines. Under equal pay for equal work, they could in theory, claim since they are doing the same job, they are entitled to the same compensation. But are they truly?
A couple of problems with equal pay for equal work, it presumes women are the ones being discriminated against. It presumes there are all these women out there not being paid fairly, of which there is no statistical evidence. It presumes wage disparities along gender lines are always a matter of discrimination, and it puts a huge burden on employers to constantly document and evaluate job performance so they can defend their position on compensation.
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ok, but now you’re talking about documentation and implementation, which seems slightly different to me than discussing the issue a more “theoretical” sense. I won’t argue the massive challenges in actually ACHIEVING this kind of equality, as experience has shown that you hardly EVER encounter male bosses/owners/co-workers who OPENLY discriminate against women in a proven, or documentable way. The discrimination (not just against women, but also against race, or sexuality, etc.) has largely just gone underground. I mean, if you work in a “at-will-employment” state, then yeah, you fire someone whenever you want, and conceal whatever prejudices you might have quite easily and legally…
But I guess that’s just it. I’m not talking here from a platform of objective “statistics” or anything, I’m coming from my own subjective, anecdotal perspective, for what it’s worth (and let’s face it, so are you…) And having said that, I’d say we’re actually really arguing the same point, just from opposite angles. Because, you’re right! The guys getting paid less than you don’t do as good of a job, don’t work as hard, and thus, DESERVE less pay. Isn’t that an example of somehow it being possible to document work output in a manner that was at least somewhat accurate? (I say that because earlier you inferred that this was like totally impossble…) Simply having the same job description doesn’t imply you are doing the same WORK, and again, that is the whole point!
I’m not “presuming” that women are the ones being discriminated against, I’m just speaking from what I’ve personally SEEN, time and time again! And let me tell you, it has been a serious of wake-up calls over the years, in the sense that when my wife first went back to work, I never would have believed that so much disparity could be going on in our “progressive” era, in a “progressive” city such as the one we were living in… We were both quite naïve, to be honest. But hey, remember that article you wrote a little while back, where someone was commenting about “latent homosexuality” and all of that? Man… I had NO idea how prevalent this was. Ever worked as a woman for a guy who had his totally incompetent fraternity brothers “managing” your branch, but who doesn’t even have a clue what anyone’s doing or what’s going on? Oh man, I could tell you guys some stories!
I guess that’s the irony, the sad irony. Cuz you talk about how women need more “flex time” to be moms, etc., yet I’ve seen so many executives and totally superfluous management types (men….) who get paid RIDICULOUS sums of money and yet get all kinds of “flex time” to go play golf in the middle of the day, or go get totally smashed on a “business dinner”, or whatever, and yet my wife has had to work so hard to prove that she actually accomplishes TWICE what they are so much of the time, while not receiving that kind of “flex time” to either be a parent, or play all those foolish corporate games…
Anyways, sorry for the rant, but I’m just talking about what I’ve seen! Doesn’t mean it’s an everyone/no one kind of thing. There are fair people out there, and there are some real class-A douchebags too. Sometimes the ones you never saw coming were really the worst, but you never knew it till you actually took the job. You can’t “legislate it away”, so please don’t think I’m arguing for THAT. I don’t know. I guess I just think that overall the whole conversation is a great deal more complex and nuanced that just making broad, blanket statements, yeah..?
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I think it’s awesome that you consider the fact that the whole conversation is a lot more complex and nuanced then it appears at first glance. That really is all I ever hope for.
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Thanks IB… I admit this topic is one that can really get me “fired up” more than most, since I’ve not only seen my wife have to deal with and overcome a very real and ridiculous amount of obstacles in the workplace simply because she is a woman (and beyond that, of mixed racial background, which only adds to the fun!) but I’ve ALSO seen her have to deal with a fair amount of indirect judgmentallyness from other Mom’s who DON’T work, and (presumably) have felt the need to undergird their own existence as homemakers? Sadly this seems to have occurred most often in “churchy” circles, where personally I have found that so often, stay-at-home Christian moms tend to go a little TOO far in embracing their identity of God-given-Mommyhood, and can actually prove to be rather self-righteous or even a tad “elitist” in their own ways! So yeah, I’d say the conversation goes far beyond just the issue of equality of pay, cuz it’s really so much bigger than even that….
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I’d like to chime in just a bit here. I’ve made certain observations in my long career in politics, athletics, the performing arts, and corporate America. Let me put a BIG umbrella statement over this entire comment: I think that women have a generally healthier outlook toward work-life-family than men.
With that said, women definitely do less work and are less productive in the workplace. Not in all instances, but on average. And the difference is not small. Women tend to exhibit the following characteristics (again, in general, not in all instances):
1) Women work 40 hours (or their scheduled time). Not 30.85, and not 40.15. 40. In fact, yesterday I observed the following: I was meeting with a woman who was scheduled to leave at 3:30. She got up at 3:25 to go, and I said, “Hey, don’t I get your time until 3:30?” Her delightful reply: “Nope. It takes me about 5 minutes to log out, get my stuff together and get ready to go.” much to her credit she expected the company to pay for her time to prepare to leave! She’s salaried, so there was no ,i>requirement that she leave exactly at 3:30 on the dot.
2) Women do less work than men for the simple reason that when it comes time to pull together an ad hoc group of people to move something heavy, no one ever gets a woman involved in it. Furthermore, no one ever complains about that. First off, the women are rarely dressed appropriately to do the heavy lifting. I mentioned a colleague of mine — I’ll call her “Beth” (not her name) — who always dresses in quite revealing attire. Again, no one would ever consider asking her to do anything that might involve heavy lifting, or climbing under desks or anything like that. There are variations of this, of course. I have heard of instances where supervisors have asked women to pitch in to help on a dirty job. I’ve then got no end of earful about how that task was not part of the job description. Even as I was hearing it! I who also did the dirty task, while it was not part of my job description either! I found it funny.
3) I’ve worked in Information Technology — computers — for some time now. When I was younger, we used to have to install networks involving anywhere from two to five server computers and 20 to 120 desktop computers. And we needed to run wiring. We assigned three to five man travel teams to get up super early one morning, travel to the new location and work from dawn to however late it took. We never asked any women to go with us. Not that we thought they wouldn’t give it a good effort, but they’d really just get in the way, and end up doing something like printing up labels of dusting. Again, there is no disrespect or disparagement in what I’m saying — just a recognition of what IB has been saying: “See there’s this thing called biology…” In the more than forty corporations where I’ve worked as a consultant and employee an executive or some other function, no company has ever asked women to do the work I just described above. And it was salaried work. We guys received no extra pay for it. No extra bonus. If it took through the weekend, it took through the weekend, Again, no extra pay or other consideration. Generally, if it took through the weekend, that meant that something had gone wrong, as we sometimes took heat for it, after having worked through the weekend.
4) Women are better focused at certain things in the office. I’ve seen them do close-in work in scrutinizing figures and part numbers and manufacturer names between two 15-page documents, that would have made my eyes — and other guys’ eyes — go buggy after one page. That’s why the guys tend to write programs to do that work…they’re just not as good at it as the women.
5) Women take their time off. Scrupulously. I’v never met a woman who didn’t take all the time off — break, vacation, comp time to which she was entitled. We guys used to joke about things like breaks and comp time. Regardless of whether we were legally or otherwise entitled, we simply tended not to take ’em. I work with a guy who has accumulated over six months of vacation. He’s taken a total of three one-week vacations in nearly 20 years with the company where we work. I’ve gone stretches of five years without taking a vacation. I’ve never seen a woman do anything like that. And, again, let me re-state: I believe that the women, overall, have a healthier attitude toward the work-life-family relationship. However, under no circumstances do they do as much work as men in America.
There is an old saying that goes something like: “A man works from sun-to-sun, but woman’s work is never done.” It’s meant to give the vague impression that women were always doing at least as much work as, if not more work than, the dudes. However, if they were to switch the roles, then the man’s work wouldn’t get done, because when that expression was coined the world was much more agrarian, and the man’s work generally involved the brutish moving of tons and tons and tons of whatever from here to there. He worked from sun-to-sun, and at the end of the day had done foot-tons more work than the woman. Men vastly more frequently were, and still are, killed, maimed, mauled, horribly injured at work than women. Yet, they on average, also take less time off. These facts are all publicly available.
By the way, don’t by any means read into this the idea that I’m disparaging women’s work — ie the work that women do, since we no longer can politely say the phrase: “Woman’s work.” To the contrary, the simple truth is that allthe work that used to be logically gender-assigned when the world was a lot less tamed, was equally vital. All of it was absolutely essential. It’s just that before there was no ability to do any social experimentation. The work had to get done — both in and out of the house — or the family’s very life was in jeopardy.
Bottom line: if we absolutely were to pay equal pay for equal work, the feminists would be up in arms, because a lot of women would take quite a pay cut.
And again — to re-iterate — I truly believe that women who definitely work less than men, have a healthier attitude toward work than men. I truly believe also that men’s attitude toward their work contributes to their shorter lifespan. Frankly, we guys should be more like women as regards the workplace. I know that I have personally worked man years of overtime, all for no pay and no other form of compensation, and frequently only to get laid off when the company was bought, thereby losing even the possibility of advancement in the company!
That just ain’t right. Or healthy
Best,
— x
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Wow. Kudos to your masterful use of asteism and back-handed compliments…
Unfortunately, I have to say that your overall assertion that women “on average” are less productive and do less work in the workplace is simply asinine.
“Women do less work than men for the simple reason that when it comes time to pull together an ad hoc group of people to move something heavy, no one ever gets a woman involved in it.”
I don’t even know where to begin with that one! Talk about reaching… That is nothing less than male, macho pride talking out of it’s own ignorant butt! I mean, really?? You’ve had to crawl on the ground under desks and connect wires, and lift heavy objects with the other manly men in the office? Wow… I guess you do work harder…. 😉
Except…. Hmmmm. What would you say to a paraplegic man in your office sitting in his wheelchair, who can’t crawl on the floor or lift heavy objects, do you tell him he isn’t as hard of a worker or as productive as you are…?
What about the short guy in the office who can’t reach the top shelf in the supply room? Would you classify him as not being as productive or hard working as the guy who is 6’2″? After all, shorty is wasting valuable company time when he has to go find a stepstool just to grab more ink cartridges for the printer….
I mean come ON… Do we really have to take the time to dispel all such childish objections…?? No CRAP there is a difference in the biology of men and women!!! So, yeah fellas, that means that by whatever divine or natural forces are behind it all, this means that we just ARE going to end up crawling around on the floor under desks more than the ladies, and lifting heavy junk, and getting dirty more often, and sure, even getting hurt or even dying on the job more often. It’s called being a man. (These aren’t burdens, but privileges, but no matter….)
The thing is, all of these sorts of ticky-tack little “examples” (getting ready to leave at 3:25? really….?) are still very much besides the point, especially when the conversation is moved away cubicly-myopic nit-picking and allowed to focus on questions that are actually quite easy to make value assessments about…
There are plenty of positions out there in the “work world” which can be, and actually ARE, measured by one simple statistic. How much revenue that person is actually generating for the company. For years my wife worked as an Escrow closer (which interestingly enough, is a sector of white-collardom that is actually VERY dominated by women…) both in residential and commercial real estate, and an escrow closer makes more money for the company they work for by closing more escrow transactions, (and not making any costly mistakes in the process!) So both the efficiency of work, and quality of work, directly factor into how much revenue you generate over time. Thus, it is something that can quite easily be measured, and let’s face it, in the long run, the boss really doesn’t care if you were the one crawling under desks to plug in some new computers, or lifting the heavy stuff that one Tuesday afternoon, etc., what the boss cares about is if you are actually making them MONEY!
I mean, if you’re in sales, and not meeting your quotas, or bringing in any new clients, and your boss brings you in for a “talk”, are you seriously gonna try telling him about how you’re more willing to do the dirty “man work” than the women in the office, or chose not to use all of your vacation time, or that you sometimes work through the weekend as a salaried employee (ooh!) (Hey, newsflash. That’s why companies put employees on salary, so they don’t have to pay them for every hour they put in!)
But the question still remains, what salary IS being paid to each individual, when the revenue they are generating can be clearly tabulated and compared… (and when we are able to set aside such purely ridiculous comments about women “only getting in the way and probably just doing labels or dusting”… (oh no you DIDN’T!))
ALL of those little “biological arguments” and anecdotes about people “taking more time off” etc., end up still just being completely besides the point, and just DUMB, if we were simply to hold up two people, who can be demonstrated to be generating the SAME amount of revenue for the company (or what the heck, let’s say the woman is actually generating $20,000/yr more) and yet the dude is receiving a salary that is like 25% higher than the woman….
You still gonna tell me that in a situation like that, “equal pay for equal work” is some impossible, ethereal, unrealistic, unnatural thing to want to ask for….????
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@truth… your defensiveness is showing. So, I think, are your years as a stay at home dad. 🙂 Lucky dude!
You Wrote:
Wow. Kudos to your masterful use of asteism and back-handed compliments…
My response:
Thanks! Though the compliments were not back-handed in any way. However, thanks for the new word! And it’s a good’un.
You Wrote:Unfortunately, I have to say that your overall assertion that women “on average” are less productive and do less work in the workplace is simply asinine.
My response:
Ok. You have to say it, but your’re wrong. And it ain’t even close. Again, no disrespect whatsoever intended. I continue to assert that women have a healthier outlook toward work than men.
You Wrote:“Women do less work than men for the simple reason that when it comes time to pull together an ad hoc group of people to move something heavy, no one ever gets a woman involved in it.” I don’t even know where to begin with that one! Talk about reaching… That is nothing less than male, macho pride talking out of it’s own ignorant butt! I mean, really?? You’ve had to crawl on the ground under desks and connect wires, and lift heavy objects with the other manly men in the office? Wow… I guess you do work harder…. 😉
My response:
And your disagreement with this stems from what? It’s simply true. In my life, hundreds of IT(Hello! White collar jobs!) jobs, and every time, the guys did the dirty, heavy work of server wrassling, wiring, crawling under desktops to terminate connections, and tone out wires and the like. The women, if they were present at all, did organizing type tasks. Again, there is no disparagement intended here. You can call it asteism all you like, but it ain’t asteism if it’s true. Simple as that.
So, yep. I have had to do all that, and I have had to put in the overtime to do the dirty wiring jobs and all that it takes to install a network infrastructure. I did all that even when I was supposedly in the whitest of white collar positions: the webmaster for a major national mortgage company. I’m also 6’4″ tall and — at that time — a well-muscled 250 pounds. Yes I did the heavy work. And it was purely because I was physically configured as I was. Oh, my friends Phil, Pat, Jeff, Mike and Steve helped a lot. I remember one time when we did a stint of three days straight on a location, to make sure that a data copy happened successfully. All of us then married, all of us had children. No women were there. Again, as I’ve said several times, I do believe the women have the healthier outlook regarding this. That’s not just whistling asteism! If I hadn’t seen this hundreds of times in dozens of positions (I was an consultant for a dozen and a half years or so) at many dozens of companies, of all sizes, 100% of the time, I’d credit your objection. Another point: some of these things were not manly things, just dirty — like crawling under the desk. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve seen a woman crawl under her desk to re-connect a cat-5 cable. Just the way it is.
You Wrote:Except…. Hmmmm. What would you say to a paraplegic man in your office sitting in his wheelchair, who can’t crawl on the floor or lift heavy objects, do you tell him he isn’t as hard of a worker or as productive as you are…?
My response:
Look, the truth is the truth is the truth is the truth. If the paraplegic works in my department, he will not be an optimally productive employee — through no fault of his own. At this point, I’m a database developer, a network technician, a web developer, a disaster recovery consultant and I need to do some heavy lifting and moving of things from here to there in a manufacturing setting. I’m officially a database developer. If the paraplegic were a really whizbang coder, he might be ok… He’d have been perfectly useless in my wiring project though, where I had to (1) write the inventory system, (2) load the 10- to 50-lb spools of wire and cable into the wiring carousel, and put the surplus on the extra shelving. Yes, I did all the heavy lifting. That was what made me valuable to that project. The simple fact that I could fill several roles in the project. I had two women helping me. They did the typing of the inventory entries and labeled the spools of wire that I brought them for labeling.
You Wrote:What about the short guy in the office who can’t reach the top shelf in the supply room? Would you classify him as not being as productive or hard working as the guy who is 6’2″? After all, shorty is wasting valuable company time when he has to go find a stepstool just to grab more ink cartridges for the printer….
My response:
I’m 6’4″. I very frequently am called upon to help mostly women get something from higher up. When I was in retail, in much younger days, yes, I took care of (1) all the heavy things, and (2) the top shelves. Do you really think, with all your dyspeptic indignation, that things have changed all that much in the world? We’ve had a half-century of feminism’s insisting that women are every bit as strong, rugged, durable, and rough and tough as men, and I’m sorry, I’ve never seen it. Trust me, I’ve looked for it. I’ve also been a full-time employee and full-time single dad for about 10 years now, and I’ll take the fatherhood over the rat race any day of the week. Maybe I’ve just been blessed with wonderful children, but I can tell you that being a daddy is the best, easiest, most rewarding, hardest, most challenging thing in the world. Probably tied with motherhood, but I can’t speak for moms. 🙂
You Wrote:I mean come ON… Do we really have to take the time to dispel all such childish objections…?? No CRAP there is a difference in the biology of men and women!!! So, yeah fellas, that means that by whatever divine or natural forces are behind it all, this means that we just ARE going to end up crawling around on the floor under desks more than the ladies, and lifting heavy junk, and getting dirty more often, and sure, even getting hurt or even dying on the job more often. It’s called being a man. (These aren’t burdens, but privileges, but no matter….)
My response:
Sorry…dying and being maimed and mauled on the job are not privileges, especially when that particular aspect of the story of men is then completely discounted by (some like you) nitwit feminists who say things like “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” 🙂 Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many desks Gloria Steinem or Irina Dunn crawled under to get their computer systems set up. I wonder how many women built their spacious abodes. Or could have built their spacious abodes (on time and within budget, etc.) You say it’s all part of being a man, but guess what, it’s a part of being a man that — generally at least — is outside the general scope of women’s activities, and frequently even their awareness. My colleague, Beth — the one who dresses in the very revealing attire — never ever ever ever would even think of going under her desk for anything. She’d ask someone else — generally me. Every time. It’s completely pervasive. It shows up in attire as well. A dress or skirt says several things, one of which is, “I won’t be under any desks today.” Every professional man’s jeans, or chinos, or khakis and polo shirt say, “I just might find myself under a desk today.” You discount this, but try to get along without it in corporate America. It’s as much a part of the corporate infrastructure as the walls and routers, the cabling and the conduits. Look, I have no problem with your disagreement … but a feminist woman’s? At that point, I get my dander up. Maybe I should just tell her what a snap it is to be a woman!
@TISTF: I never said that it was not a great thing to be a man, as you seem to insist. You, however, speak like a guy who’s never been asked to help a friend move. Again, just because of the fact of my size, and my muscles, I have been asked to move friends dozens of times, and saved them many thousands of dollars in moving expenses. I was happy (and even a bit flattered) to do it. However, feminists and lots of women, for whom that is a completely foreign experience, say that it’s just a breeze to be a man. Why? Because they are simply unaware. It’s completely outside the scope of their awareness. When the friends needed to move, I was the first one they called. When the next door neighbor needed to be shoveled out, they didn’t call my then wife. When my then wife and I passed the guy on the highway in the rain with the flat tire, I got out and helped him, not my then wife. Just you watch how the next big job in which you participate is organized. The next time, say, your neighbor’s, or your, septic tank overflows, or a tree limb crashes on your neighbor’s house, or, heaven forfend, a fire breaks out. It’ll all happen just naturally, as the guys go to stabilize the situation, while the women organize, make phone calls to insurance companies, prepare refreshments and the like. And nobody’ll complain. Both sets of activities are absolutely vital.
You Wrote:The thing is, all of these sorts of ticky-tack little “examples” (getting ready to leave at 3:25? really….?) [My note: Yep. Really] are still very much besides the point, especially when the conversation is moved away cubicly-myopic nit-picking and allowed to focus on questions that are actually quite easy to make value assessments about…
My response:
Oh? I just told you about serious value and serious time that I take to help others that is (1) unpaid, (2) taken away from my (and other guys’) productivity, that over the years has all amounted to at least a man-year — or two — of unpaid time that should have been mine. And you just crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash can, as if it were nothing. Well, excuuuuuuse me! My time just happens to be worth something. All that unpaid time was supposed to be an investment in good will with my managers, so that when promotion and raise time came around, I’d be a shoo-in. And it all got tossed away in the many corporate mergers and layoffs and down-sizings and right-sizings and outsourcings that have made it so that I’ve had to look for work way too many times. All I got from those months and months of and finally years of “sweat equity” was a stack of glowing references. I love the references, but I’d have preferred the promotions and the raises — and some free time, thank you! If I were the easily offended type, I’d say a bad word or two to you now! Is your wife ready to give up the equivalent of a year or two of pay, as I’ve done by taking on all the extra unpaid stuff? If she did, would that be just a little “ticky-tack” thing?
You Wrote:There are plenty of positions out there in the “work world” which can be, and actually ARE, measured by one simple statistic. How much revenue that person is actually generating for the company. For years my wife worked as an Escrow closer (which interestingly enough, is a sector of white-collardom that is actually VERY dominated by women…) both in residential and commercial real estate, and an escrow closer makes more money for the company they work for by closing more escrow transactions, (and not making any costly mistakes in the process!) So both the efficiency of work, and quality of work, directly factor into how much revenue you generate over time. Thus, it is something that can quite easily be measured, and let’s face it, in the long run, the boss really doesn’t care if you were the one crawling under desks to plug in some new computers, or lifting the heavy stuff that one Tuesday afternoon, etc., what the boss cares about is if you are actually making them MONEY!
My response:
And I just gave you some of the extra, real work behind the statistic, that the statistic never shows.
I agree that the boss doesn’t care about the guy crawling under the desk. He (or she) cares only about who makes them money. But, when your wife’s computer slowed down, or crashed, or hiccupped, she and the boss hollered something like, “Fix this quick! I can’t make any money when it’s like this!!!” And when the dude crawled under the desk to plug in or re-terminate the cat-5 cable that the cleaning crew had kicked loose the previous evening, your wife and the boss said, “Whew! I can make money now!” How efficient are those escrow closers when their computer is down?
You Wrote:I mean, if you’re in sales, and not meeting your quotas, or bringing in any new clients, and your boss brings you in for a “talk”, are you seriously gonna try telling him about how you’re more willing to do the dirty “man work” than the women in the office, or chose not to use all of your vacation time, or that you sometimes work through the weekend as a salaried employee (ooh!) (Hey, newsflash. That’s why companies put employees on salary, so they don’t have to pay them for every hour they put in!)
My response:
Nope. I’m not going to tell him that, and thanks for proving my point perfectly. All this — my two years of unpaid stuff, for example — though it’s perfectly vital to the functioning of the company, is completely under the radar. And it’s definitely under the radar of feminism!
You Wrote:But the question still remains, what salary IS being paid to each individual, when the revenue they are generating can be clearly tabulated and compared… (and when we are able to set aside such purely ridiculous comments about women “only getting in the way and probably just doing labels or dusting”… (oh no you DIDN’T!))
My response:
Yes, I did. But it’s only from personal experience and years of observation that I said that. We never, ever, ever, ever brought women along on network installs for my first mortgage company, because, yes, they got in the way. And they never did as we often did — worked 18-20-hour days. On weekends. As we did many, many times.
You Wrote:ALL of those little “biological arguments” and anecdotes about people “taking more time off” etc., end up still just being completely besides the point, and just DUMB, if we were simply to hold up two people, who can be demonstrated to be generating the SAME amount of revenue for the company (or what the heck, let’s say the woman is actually generating $20,000/yr more) and yet the dude is receiving a salary that is like 25% higher than the woman….
My response:
They are not beside the point… therefore not DUMB. 🙂 Because, here’s the rest of it: when you do make all factors equal — the job description, the time in the job, the experience of the person, then there is no pay gap. There’s just none. In answer to your other question. Something in biology makes it — still! — so that women have shorter careers. I wonder what that could be. 🙂 In further answer to your question: if a dude has ten years in the position, and a woman only five and they do roughly the same work, the dude should, and usually does, make more. And vice versa. And that, it turns out, is what happens. However, since women are still much more able and prone to opt out of the work force entirely for a while, they tend to average less tenure and less experience. This is all available publicly.
You Wrote:You still gonna tell me that in a situation like that, “equal pay for equal work” is some impossible, ethereal, unrealistic, unnatural thing to want to ask for….????
My response:
No, I’m not going to tell you that; I’m going to tell you we already have equal pay for equal work, and it’s unfair. Men should make more. Because they do more. 🙂 Furthermore, if they stopped doing the more that I described, computer networks at least would fall apart all around the country. I presume this type of hidden, vital labor is present in other disciplines as well, so there would be nationwide calamity.
By the way, the only metric that counts is income to the family. Set about artificially raising women’s compensation, you automatically leave less for men, but the only compensation that really counts — the family’s — remains on average the same. If, that is, the family unit consists of a husband, wife and children. So, @TISTF, what’s your story?!? You sound like someone who wants the primary family breadwinner — your wife — to make more money! I can’t fault you for that, but maybe it’s time for you to get off your backside and get a job! 🙂 Just kidding! I have no idea what your circumstances are, just that I’d love to be a stay-at-home dad, but I can’t because I support two children and a drunken ex-wife.
However, you would be within your rights to accuse me — the full-time daddy, full-time employee — of the same thing. And I have to admit I do have a bit of that in me.
Best,
— x
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@Praetorius…
Perhaps I did not explain my point well enough.
I did not mean to infer that your individual grievances about unpaid work, unfairness of having to crawl under desks, or your unpaid “sweat equity” etc. I did intend to suggest that there are not in fact plenty of women out there who exhibit laziness, or leave work early, or use their gender as an excuse to not get dirty or uncomfortable, or use their sexuality to try and persuade men in the office, and so on and so forth.
My only point was that as real as all those points may be, and as much as you might have many legitimate complaints about the equality of your job experiences, all of these put together still do not at all constitute valid reasoning for asserting that (quote…) “Men are more productive”…
again, and again, and again, you are missing the point, (and I would say that your statements towards the end of your comment would indeed reveal much about your own internal motivating factors). I would have to argue that to speak in generalities, whether towards the pro OR the con, is itself just rather nonsensical, because that ALONE is to resort to generic statements about men and women, and yeah, it amounts to sheer sexism in a number of the things you said. I know I’m probably not going to make much of a dent trying to reason with a guy who thinks “men should get paid more, because men do more…”
Finally, I will ignore your pitiful attempt to make a stab at me needing to “get off my backside and get a job” (and then your clumsy attempt to pretend to retract it…) to simply say this. Your angst is misplaced. To focus your ire at the “feminists” and their all-too-often ridiculous arguments is to completely overlook the ones who are FAR more responsible for any unfairness or unpaid work you may have done!
“Set about artificially raising women’s compensation, you automatically leave less for men”
REALLY? You don’t think there could be something to be said about “lost compensation for men” stemming from, oh I don’t know… CEO’s paying themselves massive million dollar bonuses? Corporations that care far more about making their stock price go up than they do about paying their “regular” employees (men or women) decent salaries?
This idea that basically there isn’t “enough money to go around” in order to pay women the same as a man for doing the same job is just so incredibly pathetic. Oh, and we again would be comparing people having the SAME experience, so again, your argument that “on average men have more job experience so they should be paid more” is just nonsensical, and basically an attempt to circumvent the basic premise of “equal pay for equal work”! It’s just an attempt to avoid the real point. You can’t talk about “averages”. Who cares if men have more job experience “on average” than woman!? I’m sure they do! But do you (as a man) get evaluated based on the combined average experience of all men everywhere? Or do you simply get evaluated on YOUR personal experience and YOUR personal performance? “on average”… Good grief.
Why stop at just evaluating men and women based on “averages”…? I mean, heck, why not race? After all, I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to show statistically that “on average”, (even in the year 2014) people with African-American descent are less educated than white people… right? I mean, that’s just a statistical average. It’s just a fact. On average, there are less college-educated people out there than whites.
So, hey, since that’s just the way it is according to the “law of averages”, I guess you shouldn’t have any problem standing up and saying that black people shouldn’t get paid as much a white person for doing the same job….? After all, if we “artificially raised their compensation” too, there will be even LESS left for you… 😉
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(oops, several typos in my first paragraph. Hardly makes sense. Just meant to say that your individual examples of unfairness experienced in your past jobs were not invalid in their own, individual context, but they cannot hardly be applied in such a sweeping and assumptive manner over millions of people and thousands of different job scenarios…)
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You wrote:@Praetorius… Perhaps I did not explain my point well enough.
I did not mean to infer [Quick note: I’m assuming you meant “imply?”] that your individual grievances about unpaid work, unfairness of having to crawl under desks, or your unpaid “sweat equity” etc. I did intend to suggest that there are not in fact plenty of women out there who exhibit laziness, or leave work early, or use their gender as an excuse to not get dirty or uncomfortable, or use their sexuality to try and persuade men in the office, and so on and so forth.
[My reply:]
And you’ll notice that I never said any of those things. I said that women leave on time and that men often do overtime. You’ll note also, if you’re honest, that I suggested that this characteristic of women’s is a healthier one. I never said women are lazy. You don’t get to read my mind, dude, or put words in my mouth. And, I never said that women use their sex as an excuse not to get dirty. They don’t. However, they do — all the time — assume that the guy will be the one crawling under the desk. That’s really not debatable.
@tistf: you and I are not going to be able to have a civil conversation, if you are constantly going to try to put words in my mouth. Don’t do it. And I won’t do it to you, okay?
You wrote:My only point was that as real as all those points may be, and as much as you might have many legitimate complaints about the equality of your job experiences, all of these put together still do not at all constitute valid reasoning for asserting that (quote…) “Men are more productive”…
[My reply:]
It’s mathematical, my dear tistf. Men work longer hours and more years, and they do the vast majority of the heavy, dirty, lifting laborious work out there. Over the source of a career, a man will — again on average — have done a certain fairly large quantity more work than a woman. Men are more productive. And, again, women probably have a healthier attitude toward work in general.
You wrote:again, and again, and again, you are missing the point, (and I would say that your statements towards the end of your comment would indeed reveal much about your own internal motivating factors). I would have to argue that to speak in generalities, whether towards the pro OR the con, is itself just rather nonsensical, because that ALONE is to resort to generic statements about men and women, and yeah, it amounts to sheer sexism in a number of the things you said. I know I’m probably not going to make much of a dent trying to reason with a guy who thinks “men should get paid more, because men do more…”
[My reply:]
This is a serious problem of feminists and the rest of the left. One can’t simply disagree with them without meeting a steady stream of “You’re a sexist!” And: “Your internal motives are bad!” And on and on and on and on and, ever so drearily on. I had some debates with the Race Grievance Industry recently, and yep, you guessed it. The knee-jerk accusation of “Racist!” came out at the very first hint that I had a disagreement. @TISTF, at least you waited a post or two before you questioned my character and integrity. To your great discredit you were unable to refrain from it though. I’ll allow the one slip-up, but if you repeat it, I’ll know not to treat anything you say with any credibility. Always remember: you can’t read anyone’s mind. You can’t possibly know their motivations. You can’t know nearly enough about a person’s character, integrity, truthfulness, education level, experience, history, life story or anything else meaningful about him in brief on-line exchanges. So, anytime you are ever tempted to draw conclusions, as you just did about me above, you should refrain, because you are wrong. You are justified only in arguing against what a person writes or says. Are we clear?
Now, if, indeed, men do more, then they should be paid more. Why is this such a radical concept for you? If, as I suspect, that you take an employee’s sex out of it, then you and I probably agree that “a person who does more in a position, should be paid more than a person who does less.” Furthermore, it’s hardly a radical thing to suggest that when two people work in the same position, but one has more years of experience in the job, he should make more than the less experienced person, from the simple fact that he’s been in the same annual raise structure for more years. If you’re suggesting that a kid coming straight out of college should be paid the same as the guy who has been earning annual raises for ten years, then you are making no sense. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.
Now to your assertion that again and again and again I miss the point. No, you missed the point. When you control for all other things, ie when you compare apples to apples — there is no pay gap between men and women. The entire fictitious assertion that men make more than women is itself based on a meaningless premise: total pay over a career for men and women. Yes, over a career, men tend to make about a dollar for every 77 cents a woman makes. And, yes, women’s careers in the workforce tend to be about 75% the length of a man’s career. And, yes, women tend to live 5-7 years longer than men on average. Remember what I said about women having a healthier outlook toward work and home and family? I wasn’t just whistlin’ Dixie.
You wrote:Finally, I will ignore your pitiful attempt to make a stab at me needing to “get off my backside and get a job” (and then your clumsy attempt to pretend to retract it…) to simply say this. Your angst is misplaced. To focus your ire at the “feminists” and their all-too-often ridiculous arguments is to completely overlook the ones who are FAR more responsible for any unfairness or unpaid work you may have done!
[My reply:]
My “attempt” to retract it was no “attempt.” It was perfectly successful. What part of “Just kidding! I have no idea what your circumstances are” was unclear? That you didn’t consider my tweak retracted speaks poorly only of you. I was suffering from no angst. I’m absolutely impossible to offend… especially if you’re trying to!
You wrote:“Set about artificially raising women’s compensation, you automatically leave less for men”
REALLY? You don’t think there could be something to be said about “lost compensation for men” stemming from, oh I don’t know… CEO’s paying themselves massive million dollar bonuses? Corporations that care far more about making their stock price go up than they do about paying their “regular” employees (men or women) decent salaries?
[My reply:]
I thought this was about the relative rates of compensation between men and women. This is another serious problem of the left. Out of ammo? Change the subject. You will note that I said “artificially” raising women’s salaries. If it’s not done artificially, (artificially: ie due to political pressure or ill-conceived legislation or some such nonsense) then that will mean that the market will have, as it always does, rewarded those who work hard and are productive. Pure and simple.
You wrote:This idea that basically there isn’t “enough money to go around” in order to pay women the same as a man for doing the same job is just so incredibly pathetic. [My comment: As Mike said in another post. I tend to think about what I write, you don’t have to do it for me. You’ll note that I never said “there isn’t enough money to go around.” If I never said it, it’s even likely I never thought it. Don’t try to put words into my mouth. Use your own, please.] Oh, and we again would be comparing people having the SAME experience, so again, your argument that “on average men have more job experience so they should be paid more” is just nonsensical, [My comment. Not nonsensical at all. The entire premise of the 77 cents on the dollar myth hinges on ignoring the fact that women — on average — work fewer years than men. You can’t ignore it when I use it, and then pretend it’s gospel when you use it. Sorry.] and basically an attempt to circumvent the basic premise of “equal pay for equal work”! It’s just an attempt to avoid the real point. You can’t talk about “averages”. Who cares if men have more job experience “on average” than woman!? I’m sure they do! But do you (as a man) get evaluated based on the combined average experience of all men everywhere? Or do you simply get evaluated on YOUR personal experience and YOUR personal performance? “on average”… Good grief.
[My reply:]
See my point above. When you compare apples to apples, there simply is no pay gap. By the way, even feminist leaders admit this. I forget who said it recently, but she said perfectly sincerely that she knew that the 77 cents on the dollar thing was false, but that it made such a good rallying cry that she still used it. You can google it. Awww… I’ll do it for you. Here’s one in the Huffington Post. Read the whole thing — it’s eye-opening. Especially because the Huffington Post is a very liberal on-line site. Some of us knew all this compensation stuff a long time ago.
You wrote:Why stop at just evaluating men and women based on “averages”…? I mean, heck, why not race? After all, I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to show statistically that “on average”, (even in the year 2014) people with African-American descent are less educated than white people… right? I mean, that’s just a statistical average. It’s just a fact. On average, there are less college-educated people out there than whites.
[My reply:]
Ummmmmmm… I’m sorry… was I just participating in a back-and-forth about the relative rates of pay between women and men?!? Why, yes! Yes … I was! Sometimes it seems as though I’m not! 🙂
You wrote:So, hey, since that’s just the way it is according to the “law of averages”, I guess you shouldn’t have any problem standing up and saying that black people shouldn’t get paid as much a white person for doing the same job….? After all, if we “artificially raised their compensation” too, there will be even LESS left for you… 😉
[My reply:]
Ummmmmmm… Whooooaaa there, big fella! What happened to my conversation about the relative compensation rates of men and women?!? It was around here just a minute ago! Oh…oops. I found it. It was in my back pocket. 🙂
Best,
— x
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Pray tell, Praetorius, why do you keep asserting that I am “putting words in your mouth”? I am simply trying to interpret the points you are making in your comments, and yes, that is all I have to go by. So if I am misunderstanding things, or reading into them, I apologize. I can only respond to what all that comes across from another person’s writing, and while I was fully aware of the fact that you tried to describe women’s overall work ethic as a “healthier” one, when taken in the broader context of everything else you are saying, it simply doesn’t add up to being quite the compliment you seem to think it does. That is essentially how “back-handed compliments” work, after all. Hence, my asteism remark.
As I look back over the last several exchanges now, I have to admit that we are largely talking past each other due to the underlying fact that I am simply not even trying to argue against hardly any of the points that are so central to your view. I do not care about “averages”. It is central to the topic in your thinking, but wholly irrelevant in mine. That is why I used the example of race to prove a point, NOT to accuse you of being a racist. It was merely to show how talking about generalities and averages in terms of race WOULD be instantly recognized by most people as completely inappropriate, and to beg the question as to why it’s suddenly so different when it comes to men/women… I assumed you would be able determine this was what I was doing.
My ENTIRE premise is built around examining the issue on an individual, case by case basis, as I believe that is honestly the only way the issue of fair pay can be addressed in any realistic or intelligent manner. All the nonsense about what some feminist said, or what our perceptions might be about the “healthiness” of women’s perspectives on work, etc., are all neither here nor there.
I am not even trying to argue that “on average” women earn less than men! It’s not even the issue! The question is, is it WRONG to try and justify paying someone less simply because they happen to be a woman (or a certain race, or a certain age, etc…)?
If it IS wrong, (and thus, would fall under the category of “discrimination”…..) then does it matter if that particular brand of discrimination is widespread, or only occurring in isolated situations? No, it doesn’t. If it’s wrong, then it’s wrong. And it DOES happen, that’s my only point. I would in no way feel confident enough in my own ability to perceive everything going on in our economy to determine just how widespread it still is, but again, that seems besides the point to me. I know that there are still sexists in the world, just like their are still racists in the world, and “agists”, and homo-phobes, etc. etc. I’m not in the position of believing that we can “legislate” it all away, since you can’t simply pass a law and affect a change to the inner, human heart. I’m not arguing for most of the things that you probably assume that I am, when you start talking about “feminists and the Left”. I am about as far from the “Left” as I am from the “Right”, but I’m not going to exhaust myself trying to explain to you why the whole Left/Right paradigm is itself an artificial construct designed to pigeon-hole people and restrict their thinking into preconceived little channels, and thus something I reject altogether.
Perhaps at the end of this exchange, all we can really say we accomplished was getting under each other’s skin, since that seems to be all we’re really trying to do at this point, and I’m inclined to bow out here before we get tempted to throw the gloves off altogether. I WAS actually attempting to be civil, even if yes, I was admittedly contesting the magnanimous nature of your comments about women in the workplace.
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Thanks, @TISTF for this much more cordial salvo! I have some slight quibbles. And, yes, they are slight.
You wrote: Pray tell, Praetorius, why do you keep asserting that I am “putting words in your mouth”? I am simply trying to interpret the points you are making in your comments, and yes, that is all I have to go by. So if I am misunderstanding things, or reading into them, I apologize. I can only respond to what all that comes across from another person’s writing, and while I was fully aware of the fact that you tried to describe women’s overall work ethic as a “healthier” one, when taken in the broader context of everything else you are saying, it simply doesn’t add up to being quite the compliment you seem to think it does. That is essentially how “back-handed compliments” work, after all. Hence, my asteism remark.
My Response:
You were trying to put words in my mouth when you came questioned my “inner motivations,” and trotted out the ol’ “sexism” accusation. One other important quibble: the compliment that I gave to women in general was precisely what I meant for it to be. Nothing more, nor less. I kind of own that. If it’s based on certain premises with which you disagree, that doesn’t change the validity of of the compliment one jot. If I say something like women have a healthier outlook on work than men in general, that’s what I mean. Look, men and women have different approaches to everything — it would be indeed odd if their approaches to work were somehow identical. Since their approaches are different, I have made a long-running project of discerning how they are different. I have made extensive observations and concluded that women’s outlook toward work is more healthy. That means it’s also different, ie displaying different quantitative metrics and qualitative characteristics. That’s all automatically built into the assertion that women’s outlook is healthier.
Thank you for the word, “asteism.”
If you were to re-read our back-and-forth, you’d be able to deduce another thing. Yes, I believe that men are overall more productive than woman, but frankly sometimes it’s just nuts! I think I told you of a period of time for about five years in which I took no vacation at all. No sick days, no time off except holidays. I know I also told you of a current colleague who has taken a total of three weeks off over 19 years at the company where we both work now. I’m all about loyalty to a company that treats you well, but that’s just nuts! I used to tell others of my five-year vacation-less stretch with some pride. Then I realized, they must have thought I was perfectly out of my mind! There is such a thing as having a life! Women have generally made it a point to “have a life.” That is gigantically to their credit. It’s a sane, healthy, balanced perspective, and it is not one shared by men. Between you and me, the world could slow down just a tad, and let people — men in particular — step off the rat-race merry-go-round and have a life.
You wrote: As I look back over the last several exchanges now, I have to admit that we are largely talking past each other due to the underlying fact that I am simply not even trying to argue against hardly any of the points that are so central to your view. I do not care about “averages”. It is central to the topic in your thinking, but wholly irrelevant in mine. That is why I used the example of race to prove a point, NOT to accuse you of being a racist. It was merely to show how talking about generalities and averages in terms of race WOULD be instantly recognized by most people as completely inappropriate, and to beg the question as to why it’s suddenly so different when it comes to men/women… I assumed you would be able determine this was what I was doing.
My Response:
I agree, except that at least three times I said that there is no pay gap in America, which addressed your point directly. In individual cases, there are always injustices here and there, and those are wrong (and they’re generally the result of oversight or accident, but not malfeasance or discrimination or some other perfidy) but overall there’s just no pay gap.
Race is its own gigantic topic, sadly, but another one that I have studied extensively. When you study “Current Events in America” extensively for a number of decades, you can’t help but delve deeply into many things, such as discrimination, be it by race, sex, sexual preference, whatever.
You wrote: My ENTIRE premise is built around examining the issue on an individual, case by case basis, as I believe that is honestly the only way the issue of fair pay can be addressed in any realistic or intelligent manner. All the nonsense about what some feminist said, or what our perceptions might be about the “healthiness” of women’s perspectives on work, etc., are all neither here nor there.
My Response:
Ok. See my previous response. If we were to do as you suggest, then we would, indeed, smoke out some odd instances where there might be a difference in pay resulting from some dude’s dislike of, or disrespect for, women, but that would be so rare, and the criteria so subjective, that there would be almost no point in it. Yes, it happens, and yes it’s wrong, but it’s wrong only because it’s so stupid. If an employer is paying productive people less, then he is going to lose them, and they will help his competitors eat his lunch.
You wrote: I am not even trying to argue that “on average” women earn less than men! It’s not even the issue! The question is, is it WRONG to try and justify paying someone less simply because they happen to be a woman (or a certain race, or a certain age, etc…)?
My Response:
Okay. Yes it’s wrong to pay someone less just because she’s a woman. I don’t think that anyone ever tries to justify paying a woman less based simply on the fact that she’s a woman. Leastaways not publicly. However, if you are going to try to read people’s minds, you open the door to all sorts of mischief that generally results in bloodshed.
We have only statistics to go by. Statistics tell us things like the dreaded “averages.” The “77 cents on the dollar” myth is a statistic. It gives an average — a meaningless average, it turns out, but an average — and it’s the entire basis for the entire “equal pay for equal work” hoo hah. Without that statistic, and without averages in general, we’re then reduced to, “Well, John and Mary do the same thing and have the same experience and the same education level and the same review scores and have been doing the same thing for the same time and John makes more money than Mary!” Ok, if the difference is unreasonable, and Mary can show that the reason is because she’s a woman and not, say, a lousy negotiator, then that’s what the courts ought to be for. Between you and me, I think any employer should be able to pay any employee any ol’ thing he (or she) wants to pay. It’s like anything: if the employer lowballs salaries, then he’ll get what he pays for and he will self-select, Darwin-style, right the heck out of the market, while the better-compensated employees — as mentioned above — help his competitor eat his lunch.
Yes, there are times — like the current era, with a ruthless job-killer in the Oval Office — when employers take advantage of their employees. They sometimes say openly — as at the last company where I worked: “they’ll do the overtime, they should consider themselves lucky to have a job.” A couple of his star employees heard of that, and left to start their own business in direct competition with the former employer. The market can be a ruthless punisher — even in employer-friendly times — of those who abuse the greatest capital of all: human capital.
You wrote: If it IS wrong, (and thus, would fall under the category of “discrimination”…..) then does it matter if that particular brand of discrimination is widespread, or only occurring in isolated situations? No, it doesn’t. If it’s wrong, then it’s wrong. And it DOES happen, that’s my only point. I would in no way feel confident enough in my own ability to perceive everything going on in our economy to determine just how widespread it still is, but again, that seems besides the point to me. I know that there are still sexists in the world, just like their are still racists in the world, and “agists”, and homo-phobes, etc. etc. I’m not in the position of believing that we can “legislate” it all away, since you can’t simply pass a law and affect a change to the inner, human heart. I’m not arguing for most of the things that you probably assume that I am, when you start talking about “feminists and the Left”. I am about as far from the “Left” as I am from the “Right”, but I’m not going to exhaust myself trying to explain to you why the whole Left/Right paradigm is itself an artificial construct designed to pigeon-hole people and restrict their thinking into preconceived little channels, and thus something I reject altogether.
My Response:
Yes discrimination is wrong, as I said above. However, I think that another conclusion we can reasonably come to is that there is no widespread pay discrimination based on sex.
As to the accusations you mentioned: “racist,” “sexist,” “homphoobe,” “ageist” … One thing you should keep in mind is that all these accusations are just like the simplistic left-right model you so scorn in your next paragraph: simplistic, unable to capture needed nuance, and entirely subjective. After all, you’ll rarely get people to admit that they are any of these “-ists” you listed. Therefore, you have to be able to say credibly that you know what a person is thinking or feeling better than he does. A risky business in the best of circumstances. I say abandon the toxic accusations altogether as a bad idea.
I agree and disagree with your left-right thinking — such as you’ve outlined it here. Of course it’s an abstraction, so by definition an artificial construct. It is not, however, designed to pigeon-hole anyone, but rather to do that quintessentially human thing: classify and name. It is the one activity that all humans do, bar none, and it is (among other things) what makes language possible. It’s also the fundamental goal of language.
The left-right axis is nothing more, nor less, than a fairly convenient way to categorize those who — in a loose definition — on the left support greater government, and on the extreme left vast government involvement in and control over people’s lives, and on the right a reduction of the size, scope and reach of the government, and on the extreme right, a near elimination of any central government authority.
The feminist, for example, who says something like “there oughta be a law!” sits on the left — for that issue — because the additional law implies an expansion of government power. The feminist who says, however, something like, “Yes, discrimination is wrong, but the marketplace will punish abusers,” would sit on the right — for that issue — because he or she would be advocating keeping the power in the hands of the people.
I too used to be frustrated with the right-left model, so I came up with my own, which I’ll call the “Praetori scale.” It’s taught in some colleges to this day,and adds in both scoring, time, issues and the element of the general trajectory of the country, relative to an easily understood anchor point. Don’t bother googling the “Praetori scale,” because that’s not its real name. If you were to find it and associate it correctly with me, you’d find out who I am, and I can’t have that, because you have heard of me. 🙂
You wrote: Perhaps at the end of this exchange, all we can really say we accomplished was getting under each other’s skin, since that seems to be all we’re really trying to do at this point, and I’m inclined to bow out here before we get tempted to throw the gloves off altogether. I WAS actually attempting to be civil, even if yes, I was admittedly contesting the magnanimous nature of your comments about women in the workplace.
My Response:
My apologies for getting under your skin. You didn’t get under my skin though, so no apology from your side is necessary. Not to worry, again, I’m impossible to offend, and nearly impossible to anger. I really am. I’d never be tempted to take off the gloves. Not even close.
@TISTF, you have the makings of a great interlocutor. You do have to watch the tendency to question others’ motives or character or what have you. But, that’s really good news. Liberated from the tedious and irrelevant need to insult, or discredit, or impugn the motives of the person with whom you have a disagreement, you can address the things that really have the chance to make things better on earth: ideas.
Finally, can we put to rest at least one thing? There simply is no widespread pay gap based on sex in the United States. The feminists have admitted as much, and they have based that admission on statistics provided by the government, so the government is admitting it. There are feminists who are still flogging the long-dead “77 cents” horse, but that’s only because a sizable portion of low-information people are still listening to it, and it’s still worth a few points in some Congressional races.
Best to you and yours,
— x
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There is a lot more to this… I always like to look at how the numbers are arrived at. Regarding equal pay you can arrive at very different conclusions if you look simply at Men vs. Women or drill down to occupations. Same with factoring in hazardous geography/posting etc. And what is fascinating is when you have a Female CEO it seems to make no difference as to how they handle their expectations of those that work for them. In other words, they appropriately expect their employees to stay on the job full-time and focus on what they are doing. This ‘prejudice’ is what is blamed for much of the pay ‘inequality’, while always overlooking the job segments which offer greater flexibility and often slightly less pay which ‘moms’ and some ‘dads’ choose to perform allowing them greater ability to spend time with their kids… family… pets… whatever. Equal Pay for Equal Work is yet another way for Government is the Answer Types to stick their nose into the private sector. It’s built on the premise that you have no choice in the what you do. You want increased ‘equality’? Apply sunlight… and the internet has supplied that. To your point IB, there will always be a discrepancy simply because of biological imperatives. Men are indeed expendable, which is why you put us out front. Women are not… Seems to have worked for millennia.
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“men are expendable”…? some huh?
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I’m willing to explain… it’s pretty much Biology 101 but some folks don’t get it. So what part of the male being expendable in regard to the overall health of the Species do you not understand? And following up that question, what part of the evolutionary roles the genders have adopted because of the above fact also doesn’t register? While there will always be exceptions to the rule, the norm will remain or modify itself only as evolution intends. The Finest Social Designers be damned. Think bigger.
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“So what part of the male being expendable in regard to the overall health of the Species do you not understand?”
What part? I guess, all of it… Are you making some sort of point about how traditional male “roles” or “jobs” or whatever have gone by the way-side in our modern industrialized era? Maybe I’m just really thick, but I suppose I’m just curious what you mean more specifically. There seem to be a hundred different ways I could interpret your comments.
I’m willing to “think bigger” if you will tell me more specifically just what you are getting at…
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The Gender Roles have been arrived at through millennia of trial and error. There have been countless different configurations of societal structure employed by humans and yet here we are again, as is always the case, where women are the caretakers of our progeny. Men are the defenders… the more hazardous roles, those being ‘out front’ are typically occupied by Men. Not because Men are superior, but exactly because Men are expendable. Women do not need all that many of us in order to reproduce. We can ‘Feel’ however we want about that fact, it will never change the Universe’s ceaseless disregard for our thoughts on the matter.
The default position of society has been and will always keep the Females in the most important roles with the Males ‘out front’ save some temporary distortion… man made or otherwise.
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I think Marlboro Mike is a proponent of sexual cannibalism where, as with some insects (e.g., the praying mantis), the female cannibalizes her mate after copulation. If men are, indeed, expendable in our society, why not? The positive outcome of that approach would be that more men would insist on using condoms. After all, if the female becomes pregnant, it would doom the man. And that would reduce the number of abortions as well. So in the end. It’s a win-win. Men would survive and there would be fewer abortions. Oh, it also might spell the end of humanity, since if men didn’t want to have sex with women for fear of getting them pregnant, which would cause women to kill the fathers, as they are totally expendable, men might stop having sex altogether. Hey, it’s time for another species to take over the planet anyway.
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They’re Chesterfields.
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hmmmm, so you think there is some sort of conspiratorial angle to the fact that men have typically occupied the more “hazardous” roles…? Some sort of “master plan” by the scheming women-folk who have cunningly pushed men to the dangerous forefront? Or are you saying that it is merely “nature” which pushes this alleged expendability of men…?
I’m still not following your overall point I suppose. Do you seriously think that childbirth throughout most of history (and even through our modern era) is without it’s hazards?(!)
“The default position of society has been and will always keep the Females in the most important roles with the Males ‘out front’ save some temporary distortion… man made or otherwise.”
So the “most important roles” in your view is the position of home-making and serving men? I must say, I’ve not heard a perspective quite like this one before. I’m still confused dude!
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Evolution is not a synonym for Conspiracy. I also think about what I write… so please don’t assist. If you would like to take offense at my assertion that the most important gender role found in our species is having and subsequently caring for our young then feel free. As far as your desire to insert ‘serving men’ into my reply someone might think you have an agenda. I’m sure that’s not the case…
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I wasn’t trying to “insert” anything Mr. Mike, I was simply trying to understand what the heck you were getting at. If you had just come out and said “the most important gender role found in our species is having and subsequently caring for our young” from the get go, then I think I would’ve understood what you were saying a lot sooner!
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I am always my worst enemy. Always. I will try harder.
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Yeah, well I’d say it’s probably just an issue of your masterful prose being a bit too transcendent for dummies like myself to follow (I’m actually not being sarcastic here, I’m admitting that it’s probably my own fault that I couldn’t get your point sooner, my bad…)
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I highly doubt that, but you’re kind. Let’s see if IB can gin up another post where we can go back and forth. I often think the comments have the ability to be a profit center. Until then, Cheers – Mike
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Mike is completely correct, you know. It’s just simple biology, the way we were designed. Those who are pre-occupied with pregnancy, childbirth, feeding the young, can only do so if there is somebody else providing the food, defending the turf, keeping away the carnivores.
Traditionally men have gone off to war, gone off to hunt, basically risky ventures that can result in death, because if women went instead, we wouldn’t be able to produce as many children. We would risk our pregnancies, the lives of our nursing infants,
our future chances of having more pregnancies.
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Correct about what? The biological differences between men and women? What does that actually have to do with the issue in question though? We aren’t living back in the days of the men having to go out and hunt and gather, while the women hang out in the cave or treehouse… (thought I truly wish we were, sigh…) We live in 2014, where’d I’d at LEAST half (probably a lot more?) of the jobs in the entire job market aren’t impacted whatsoever by the gender of the person doing them, but rather by their work ethic, intelligence, etc.
You said, “Do we have a whole lot of childless women working in traditionally male dominated fields at the same competitive level as men who are being paid unfairly”. I don’t know what “statistics” you’re looking at, but YES, the answer is actually yes! But childless or not childless, is again, besides the point! Do MEN get graded by their employers and have their work evaluated and pay determined whilest considering the fact that they have children or not? Should single Dads, or divorced dads, get paid differently than men without children at all…? Wouldn’t you think that was total nonsense?
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“You said, “Do we have a whole lot of childless women working in traditionally male dominated fields at the same competitive level as men who are being paid unfairly”. I don’t know what “statistics” you’re looking at, but YES, the answer is actually yes!”
The answer is actually “No.” When you remove children and motherhood from the equation, statistics prove that the alleged gender gap completely disappears. Today we have numerous career driven women earning far more than men while working in the same fields.
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About men’s expendability:
So much in life is all about mathematics — and simple biology. Men are indeed “expendable,” due to their own astonishingly productive physiology. Yes, men are the “victims,” if you will of their own status as a biological and engineering masterpiece.
The “man” is an absolute astonishingly, jaw-droppingly spectacular masterwork of engineering in support of the species. First of all, he produces enough sperm each day to re-populate the United States entirely in about a week. If, that is, each viable sperm could be delivered successfully to each of 150 million or so American women. 🙂 Women produce ummm…. one egg a month. And that egg — along with all her eggs — was long ready before it was released. Men churn out these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of sperm each day on an “as needed” basis!
Do a little thought exercise with me: Imagine a hypothetical terrible natural disaster in which, say, 99% of all the world’s men are wiped out in a very brief time. (Feminists would call this a “miracle.” 🙂 ). This would do two things: (1) cut the world’s population nearly in half overnight, and (2) have no effect whatsoever on the ability of the species to continue to reproduce and restore its numbers. The world’s population would start to increase nearly immediately, as the man-less women began to demand the attentions of the very few remaining men.
Imagine the reverse: a hypothetical terrible disaster in which 99% of the world’s women were wiped out. This would do several things too. (1) Cut the world’s population nearly in half overnight. (2) Over the next three generations, the world’s population would decline precipitously until it (3) reached rough stability at maximum about twice the number of women of child-bearing age. Less than 1% of its current number. (Environmentalists would call this a “miracle.” 🙂 ) Then, (4) the world’s population might begin to increase. In other words: lose women and you risk losing the species entirely. Lose men, even a whole lot of ’em, and there is no risk whatsoever to the long-term survival — numerically speaking only, of course of the species.
Again, this is simply because the man is such a marvel of fecund productivity.
Not only that, but the man is built like a tank. His upper body strength dwarfs that of the woman of the species and his ability to endure discomfort and pain — sometimes for decades without surcease — is preternatural.
There is a joke that one hears regularly on the men-women pain topic. It goes something like this: if a man had to bear children, then every family would have only one child. Everyone chuckles, but the premise is preposterous. If a man had to bear children, then he’d be architected with all the necessary plumbing and inner workings to facilitate the task, along with, presumably, all that is necessary to nurture that child physically after the birth. In other words, he’d be like a woman, and then men wouldn’t — really need women at all. The reality of the “joke” — if one were to think it through (as with so much in life, by the way) is precisely the opposite of its intent — which is to pay tribute to the ability of women to withstand pain.
There’s another saying “out there,” that’s turns the above “joke” on its head, but it kinda sorta sums up the “deal” that men and women have worked out over the ages, primarily because men can’t bear children and because men are such marvels of biological engineering. The saying is: “Women carry the child for nine months, then men carry them both for the rest of their lives.” Cynical? Sure… but America’s family law system is entirely organized around the idea that it is not only true, but just and desirable.
The actual making and nurturing of a baby before birth is an incredibly complex, demanding, transformative experience for a woman. It requires the devotion of incredible amounts of the woman’s attention and all her intellectual and emotional resources to pull it off successfully… for upwards of twenty months! Yet, women have done that throughout history, some (estimated) 105 billion total times! Usually in near complete anonymity, in wretched conditions and at great peril to their own lives and safety. Women are biological and engineering masterpieces too!
Needless to say that process works a whole lot better for all concerned if both men and women are bending their efforts to support it together, during the 20 or so months while the woman’s attention is required elsewhere.
Lest you feminists say, “See? See? Women risk their very lives for their families and the species! At least several times in their lives.” I agree. But, up until only very recently, and only in very select places in the world, that is how men have led their entire adult lives; whether it be war, or the bear at the door, or farming, mining or other accident, the vast, vast majority of men throughout history have lived all their adult (post age 13) lives in either some kind of severe pain, or risk to their lives and safety or, usually, both. It’s only with the advent of Western Civilization that all that changed — for both men and women.
The point is that men are expendable, and it’s only because they are such incredibly well-made sources of productivity, strength, endurance, as well as all the intellectual and emotional characteristics that support these things. It’s the reason we throw men at the invading army, and the bear at the door, and the onrushing fire, and the tree leaning over the house, and the coming flood. Men are wonderful and their stupendous, but there’re a just a whole lot of ’em, and you can lose a bunch, and they’ll just replenish themselves. (Look for instance at sex ratios in birth rates in countries which have actively killed off many of their men — the Soviet Union, for example. Astonishingly, after the state-sponsored culling of men subsided, the ratio of male births to female births was significantly higher! Astonishing!)
Yes, men are expendable, but we really should top “expending” them so recklessly, as societies have since time immemorial.
Best,
— x
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Agreed, X… as always brilliant and well written.
BUT… the idea “It’s only with the advent of Western Civilization that all that changed — for both men and women.” might be a bit of a stretch. Matriarchal Societies have existed well before what we could agree to be the advent of Western Civilization. Women occupying positions of power, as well as in full control have been around for a very long time. (Frankly I believe Women in control is the natural state of society which is the point I’ve been arguing from the beginning. It works… but the ‘trappings’ of control have been redefined and symbolism which has been elevated to the position of more importance than substance.)
Anyway, There is nothing new under the sun… It’s wonderful for us to think about these things as long as we respect how we got here and how the journey has had very little to do with how we feel about it. That’s the ‘bigger thinking’ many choose to ignore because it doesn’t necessarily advance some Tribe’s desire of Power, Influence and Control. (aka Agenda)
Yes… ‘we really should stop “expending” them so recklessly.’ It’s hard to disagree, or find anyone who would openly, with such a statement.
Humanity is stunning. It is resilient. It is brilliant when looked at as a species. And so far we’ve had very, very little to do with it. It’s our Collective Ego that desperately wants to believe differently. We need to feel important… smarter than history… smarter than each other.
Enter the social experiments.
This has clearly been a great post IB. Well done!
I look forward to the next one!
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Thank you, Mike. Your comments are always much appreciated. Humanity really is stunning. The fact that we are so stunning is a good argument for the existence of God. I can’t imagine how we could possibly have survived this long without some Divine intervention.
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“The point is that men are expendable, and it’s only because they are such incredibly well-made sources of productivity, strength, endurance, as well as all the intellectual and emotional characteristics that support these things. It’s the reason we throw men at the invading army, and the bear at the door, and the onrushing fire, and the tree leaning over the house, and the coming flood. Men are wonderful and their stupendous, but there’re a just a whole lot of ‘em, and you can lose a bunch, and they’ll just replenish themselves. (Look for instance at sex ratios in birth rates in countries which have actively killed off many of their men — the Soviet Union, for example. Astonishingly, after the state-sponsored culling of men subsided, the ratio of male births to female births was significantly higher! Astonishing!)
Yes, men are expendable, but we really should top “expending” them so recklessly, as societies have since time immemorial.”
I would have to say that I believe the reason men are “thrown at the invading armies” is because they have been so brainwashed their entire lives by blind patriotic nationalism that they charge off to war thinking they are “protecting” freedom, their families, the country etc., when in reality all they are doing is being the willing pawn of the select few bankers and military industrialists who are the only ones who truly profit from all such wars.
“Masterpieces” indeed… The vast majority of us are so ruled by our egos, our sex drives, our pride and our insecurities that we have no idea how easily we are manipulated (and ironically enough, NOT mainly by women, but by a clique of elite “men” who themselves would NEVER fight a war, face down the bear, rush into the fire, at the fallen tree, the flood, etc., because they’ve already figured out how to get all of us “pawns” to do it for em!)
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@TTISTF, you wrote: I would have to say that I believe the reason men are “thrown at the invading armies” is because they have been so brainwashed their entire lives by blind patriotic nationalism that they charge off to war thinking they are “protecting” freedom, their families, the country etc., when in reality all they are doing is being the willing pawn of the select few bankers and military industrialists who are the only ones who truly profit from all such wars.
[Response]
This is the bleak, and erroneous, message of feminism. What you say has been true — in other countries, in other times, but in America, this very conversation proves the contrary point. Plainly, either you or I have not been brainwashed. It’s equally fair to say, since your current of thought has been the dominant one for at least the past 60 years, that you are the brainwashed one. With that said, again the free flow of this conversation really argues in favor of a conclusion that in America, brainwashing doesn’t actually occur (Persuasion? Sure. Manipulation? Absolutely!) and free speech and thought are possible.
Really, the only reason we throw men at invading armies, etc. is because we want to win. If there were women fighting women in war, it would take only a very brief time for some strategist to figure out that if they were to use men instead, they’d win in a cakewalk.
However, the feminist message does stroke that base desire to which humanity is so prone: the wish for a scapegoat. Someone to blame. Men are perfect scapegoats, because by far their most common modus vivendi is to shut up and to go to work — again, since the days of the family cave. Men reliably could be counted on not to put up a fuss if the world’s troubles were laid at their doorstep. And they didn’t. Feminism’s march through the old régime has been unchecked by all but the most token of resistance, though that appears to be less true nowadays, thank goodness!
Nowadays, by way of interesting comparison, we’ve decided that we’re so powerful as a country, that we don’t actually have to win wars. We can just do some kind of “proportional response” thing and that’ll be enough. (Dumb idea! Vietnam, Iraq I, etc… Dumb ideas! Get in it to win it, or don’t get in it.) We’re also allowing the military to be used — At the same time…Imagine that! — for all sorts of social experimentation. Women in combat (well, really behind a joystick — because women in real hand-to-hand situations just will never work. Sadly, some very good men and women will have to die to prove that.), gays, political correctness and all… In other words, at precisely the same time as we decided that actually winning wars was not what we wanted to do, we also stopped using exclusively men in the militarily. Coincidence? I don’t <bthink so! 🙂
@TTISTF, you wrote: “Masterpieces” indeed… The vast majority of us are so ruled by our egos, our sex drives, our pride and our insecurities that we have no idea how easily we are manipulated (and ironically enough, NOT mainly by women, but by a clique of elite “men” who themselves would NEVER fight a war, face down the bear, rush into the fire, at the fallen tree, the flood, etc., because they’ve already figured out how to get all of us “pawns” to do it for em!)
[Response]
Sorry, TTISTF — I just had to laugh at this one. Presumably you’ve met lots of men like that? You know, the ones “ruled by their egos, their sex drives, their pride and their insecurities?” I guess I’ve met –maybe — three or four such men in my life. Hardly the vast majority of men meet your description. At the very most a really tiny minority do. Furthermore, I’ve met easily just as many women who meet your description as men. Actually, I’ve met a lot more, but that may be due to the fact that I usually have my antennae directed more toward woman than men.
As to your point that it’s men higher-up pulling the strings of other men, that’s just not remotely true. It may be so in extreme situations, like war. And yes, of course, it’s the people in power pulling everyone’s strings, but if one honestly looks around, one sees that in the homes, it’s the women exercising the “power” generally. In day-to-day life, it’s women pulling men’s strings, and that’s probably just fine. But, it would be silly to think that doesn’t extend to the pinnacles of power as well. It’s women who have ordered and configured this world as it is. Please note: I make no value judgment about this, but I do think it’s pretty obvious. Women throw bones to us men… they call us the “head of the household,” (though not much of that anymore) and “Mr. President” and things like that, but this is a world ordered around the thoughts, desires, inclinations and foibles of women.
“Whuuuuhhh?!?” I hear you say. In easy answer to your upcoming sputtering denial: who has charge of the children? If “the children are the future,” as Whitney Houston so prosaically, but correctly, put it, then women have molded “the future” for millennia, and they continue to this day.
Best,
— x
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@Mike: I think we’ve said largely the same thing. You just said it better.
To illustrate this further, we need look only at a brief description of Family Law in America: Everyone is aware of the divorce stereotype — the woman gets the kids. The guy gets to see the kids once in a while but, really, it ends up that the dude is paying for the kids to be raised — often in ways with which he disagrees — by the woman, while the aforementioned dude is kept at a distance.
Well, the stereotype has proven accurate in tens of millions of cases over the past several decades.
This is in no way possible in any society ordered around men as the holders of power.
Best,
— x
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IB, I encouraged my daughter to go to college and to get an education for two reasons. First, because I believe in education. Second, because I wanted her to have a choice as to how she spent her life. I didn’t want her to have to rely on finding and marrying a man in order to survive. If that’s what she wanted to do, that’s her choice. But if she didn’t want to do that right away…or even at all…I wanted her to have an education that, if necessary, she could leverage into a career.
And now, here’s a real shocker. I totally agree with what “thetruthisstrangerthanfiction” wrote. “Yet I honestly don’t quite get how you go from these points to then concluding that the women who ARE spending 40+ hours a week on the job, shouldn’t be getting paid the same compensation as men for doing the exact same work.”
Equal pay for equal work is just that. Compensation should be gender-blind. It is not, as Marlboro Mike claimed, “yet another way for Government is the Answer Types to stick their nose into the private sector.” Some people choose to work, some people have to work. But regardless of why someone is in the workplace, pay should not be lower for one person than for another person in the same job, doing the same work, simply because one is a female and the other is a male.
I’m sorry, but you have totally missed the point of equal pay for equal work. It has nothing to do with “which gender got the short end of the stick in the biological deal.” It has everything to do with which gender is getting the short end of the stick in the workplace.
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“Some people choose to work, some people have to work. But regardless of why someone is in the workplace, pay should not be lower for one person than for another person in the same job, doing the same work, simply because one is a female and the other is a male.”
Well said Doob. (shocker indeed…) 😉
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“I’m sorry, but you have totally missed the point of equal pay for equal work.”
LOL, it’s kind of funny here, doobster, look at the women commenting on this thread. They get it. It’s a couple of men who are like “hey wait, you just don’t understand what equal pay for equal work is!”.
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yes, the irony hasn’t been lost on me either. (But what I have to wonder is, are these women commenting in agreement people who have been in the workplace themselves, or are they also in this position of possibly feeling the need to validate their own stay-at-homeness as well…? Hope that doesn’t offend, but honestly that’s what it feels like, and I’ve walked more than a mile or two in those shoes myself, so I don’t feel like I’m speaking too far out of turn in that respect)
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IB, you wrote, “Equal to what? Equal to the work men do. In order for us to truly be equal and competitive with men in the job world, we have to sacrifice the nature of who we are as women.” I think this is the root of the disconnect. You are referring to equality in life. But the “equal pay for equal work” refers to equality in the workplace. There are women who have decided to not take time off for pregnancy, have no children, and are not mothers. There are women who are as dedicated to their careers as men are. But the real issue is that many of these women are not being compensated equally with men.
And for the women who do take time off for pregnancy, who do have children, and who are mothers, why shouldn’t they be paid the same as men who are doing the same job? I work with a lot of women in my same role who are married and have kids, and they are receiving comparable compensation as I am. As they should.
As to women not being able to physically compete, that may be a fair statement in the blue collar world, but most white collar jobs do not require women to physically compete. And I find your statement that “in many traditionally female jobs, we’re already getting paid equally or even higher than most men” kind of telling. I’m not sure what you mean by “traditionally female jobs.” Maybe you’re talking about teaching or nursing. But are you suggesting that in these “traditionally female jobs,” it might be appropriate for women to be compensated “even higher than most men”? Why do you feel that way?
“Do we have a whole lot of childless women working in traditionally male dominated fields at the same competitive level as men who are being paid unfairly?” Yes, we do. Most women who are working in the same jobs as men are and at the same level of competence are being paid less than men.
“LOL, it’s kind of funny here, doobster, look at the women commenting on this thread. They get it.” For the record, of the 20 comments made so far as I post this, 4 commenters are women (other than you), and 4 are men. As to women “getting it,” that is probably due to the nature of the women who read your blog than it is for a proxy to how most women feel about equal pay for equal work.
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“Yes, we do. Most women who are working in the same jobs as men are and at the same level of competence are being paid less than men.”
Do you have statistics, studies, something to prove this, doobster? Because this is actually a funny bit of distorted propaganda not based on the facts at all. The wage gap all but disappears in jobs with women working at the same level as men, in fact, women tend to pull in a bit more.
Women in general earn less than men, but a big part of that has to do with the types of jobs we choose and the priorities we have. When our careers become our priority and we enter fields dominated by men, we not only get equal pay, we often exceed men.
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“When our careers become our priority and we enter fields dominated by men, we not only get equal pay, we often exceed men.”
(I guess I’d throw the ball back in your court and ask YOU what your “statistical basis” is for making such claims? I too am curious about what your “traditional woman job” is as well, as I think one’s vantage point in the strata of careers does have bearing on how one might view the conversation….)
Don’t misunderstand, I DO believe that women all too often totally DO exceed men in their performance of the job, but exceed them in pay….? I’m SUPER skeptical on that one!
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Time did a fairly good article on some recent trends a few years back
http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
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A study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research — which you may dismiss solely because of the name of the group that did the study — showed women doing the “same work” (that is, within the same occupational groupings) often make much more than 77 percent of their male counterparts’ median weekly earnings (the popular number bandied about).
For the most part, the gap for “the same work” is not as wide is often reported. Of the 36 different occupational categories in the study, in only seven were women paid 77 percent of the pay of men or less.
Female bookkeeping clerks and stock clerks actually made slightly more than their male counterparts, for example. Registered nurses made nearly 96 percent, elementary and middle school teachers made 91 percent, secondary school teachers made 94 percent, and police officers made 99 percent.
Female chief executives still make only 69 percent, and female financial managers make just 66 percent, of their male counterparts’ earnings.
But whether it’s 66% or 99% it’s not equal.
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AMEN!!!
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Beautiful post and so true! Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. 🙂
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Interesting discussion IB. I enjoyed the initial post and then the extention with the comments. It seems that there are a number of points of view. I lean towards your interpretation – the puttting of things and actions and jobs into boxes and then valuing those boxes with money seems far too simple to categorize the real value added to humanity. The flaw lies in the assunption that all value can be represented by money and it can’t. Well done.
Oh, by the way I did a guest post over at Cordelia’s Mom today http://cordeliasmomstill.com/2014/09/04/red-stars-guest-post-by-paul-curran/comment-page-1/#comment-3275 I’d be honored if your have a few minutes to drop by and have aread. Thank You.
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Exactly. Feminism isn’t just about giving women the liberation to have a career, but to also honor and nurture their true, biological selves. Oh, it’s the message I’ve been trying to raise awareness about too. Keep it up!
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Reblogged this on Holly T. Ashley and commented:
Beautifully said!
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The killing of men has left major scars in the modern day family- let alone God’s perfect design. It’s time for women to wash, iron and fold their man’s pants and put on their best little black dress, cook a fabulous meal and initiate some great sex- without any strings attached!
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LOL! That should go over well. Thanks for the reblog;)
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Lol!
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