Men and Women... Equals in Society and the Workplace?

Remove all ads!

Quite interesting. I followed up the links and did a bit more reading. Again quite interesting. Following up the above links still lead to statements that gender discrimination exists. There are jobs that discriminate against men. I am against that just as much as I am against discrimination against women. The qualification of the person are what should count not whether they are male, female, black, white, yellow, red, green or purple.

I am still disappointed that the the focus is on the jobs which require advanced education. If a job is considered a woman's job it is usually (not always) but usually considered a lesser job. The grade school teacher (again generally) does not get the same respect as the college professor. Yet if you stop and think about it the most important schooling a child will receive is in the grade school. Teach them the three R's and they can teach themselves.

Many women prefer flexible jobs which make it possible for them to spend time with their families. Now what could be the reason for that? Being a homemaker, a wife and mother, is a job and women are still considered the primary care givers. In my opinion it is the most important job a woman can have.

These articles also show that large strides forward have been made since the 60;s and 70;s but these strides were made because your mothers and grandmothers went out and protested. They said enough is enough we are fed up with this wage disparity and we are fed up with sexual harassment.

Male children and female children are not (generally speaking) raised the same way. This is going to affect adult behavior. Biologically men and women are not the same. All these things factor into how people handle themselves in the job force.

As for blaming men, certainly. Men have ruled the world for millenniums. They wrote the history, they wrote the laws. It is only withing the last 40 to 50 years that women have in large numbers and various lands fought for the right to be treated as equals.

The Seneca conference was only 150 years ago. Women in the USA didn't get to vote until the 20's and it took a world ward and 40 years to really get things going.

If you are a woman with a high paying job thank your mother or grandmother. If you are a man who is paid less than a woman in the same job blame your mother or grandmother. I'm proud of my generation even if I don't agree with what was done 100%.

We did a lot of good and now it is the younger generation's turn to keep those bond fires burning until ture equality exists. One word of warning: Learn from our mistakes as well as our achievements.

 

Of couse there's gender equality in our society. That's why the overwhelming majority of fiction passes Bechdel's Test.

Oh. Wait. That's right...

Oh well, I'm sure that failing isn't representative of anything at all.

 

Why should women be equal to men? When they can piss their name in snow, then maybe!

You know why women have smaller feet than men, don't you? So they can stand closer to the cooker! It's genetics, you can't argue with the facts.

 

Yo, Barmey And when I have been given valid, scientific proof that a man has given birth to a child I might start believing that men are equal to women. However in this thread at the moment anyway I'm concentrating on parity in the work plac.

Despite the Founding Fathers rehetoric human beings are not created equal. If they were I'd be able to sing opera. I do have an equal right to try though.

 

I'm developing a pretty impressive beer belly that may or may not be home to a young Barmy. I guess I'll find out in about 9 months time.

'Women have every right to play a part in our movement.'
'It's symbolic, of our struggle against oppression!'
'Symbolic of Stan's struggle against reality...'

 

Why would this be discrimination? The employer offered the female the job and offered her a salary. If she doesn't think it is sufficient she can decide to not take the job or negotiate a higher pay. You are exactly right, that is why salary is supposed to be confidential. However, everyone knows how to use the internet to find out average salaries, or they can find out in books. The last time I looked at the salary figures in the Haft book it didn't break out salaries based on sex. It only does it based on region and experience.

I'm predisposed to not believe anything published by NOW. They clearly are not impartial. However, I was stunned to see at this link that they want Congress to pass laws mandating what women get paid. I can't believe that NOW believes women are too weak and defenseless to negotiate their own pay.

So you were recruited. Do you honestly believe that if you had ovaries your employer wouldn't have offered you the job or the same salary? Since they recruited you, I'm assuming you had the upper hand in the negotiations. Why would or should this be any different with a woman. If you believe this, I can't believe you of all people would continue to work at such an establishment.

I also don't believe using the exception to try to prove a rule makes sense. Should I tell you the story about the butch lesbian who wouldn't hire men?

You may be correct about teachers. I only have a middle schooler so he hasn't made it to the high school yet. So far from what we have seen in elementary and middle school is they are at least 90% female.

If two people make two different wages then that is between the employer and the employee. Since rarely do two people make the same amount, I'm sure there are plenty of men who also make the $23.50.

You have to realize that salary is nothing but a game. The employer is trying to pay the employee the minimum amount that they can to have the employee do a good job and stay. The employee is trying to maximize the amount of pay they can get without having the employer look for someone cheaper. The relationship has nothing to do with fairness or equality.

The sad thing is that Barmy can get away with saying things like that, because he is Barmy.

 

It's discrimination because you have two people identical in every respect other than gender, but the woman is offered less money. Yes, the employer does so because he thinks the woman is more likely to accept the lower salary than is the man, but that pretty much sums up what discrimination is all about.

Actually, Barmy can get away with it because we know he's using irony to make a point. With you, we're usually less certain.

 

A game perhaps that is the biggest difference between men and women. You pushed a button there because after almost 50 years I can still vividly see my mother sitting at her desk with a man sitting at the desk next to hers. No one even pretended to believe in equity then. She had been told point blank that even though she was a better worker she would not get even equal pay much less more pay and if an advancement opening arose he would get it. Sure she could have quit, found another job and have the same thing happen.

Here in the anonymity of the Internet where we cannot see the people with whom we 'talk' it is easy to forget we are dealing with human beings and that one persons 'game' may have very serious implications to another.

I'll say it again. If there is equality now it is because women got fed up and fought back. Don't misunderstand me. Those articles admitted there is still discrimination although they claim it is unintentional. Unintentional by the company perhaps but not the individual.

The last time I looked which was shortly ago, NOW was founded by women, for women, and is a union of women. Men have had their 'Good old boy' clubs fora long, long time. What is wrong with us having one and helping each other? Men don't help each other?

Yes, Barmy Army can get away with but it isn't sad. He can laugh at himself and we all know where his priorities are.

Splunge, you beat me. If I had known you were going to post I would have gone and worked on my blog.

 

@ Snook,

What do you mean "why?" You managed to respond to everything else while completely missing the important point somehow: the employer choosing to pay an otherwise identically qualified woman LESS, for no other reason than because she's a woman and he feels like paying her less. Right or wrong? And why?

Let's put it another way: Two identically-qualified men apply for two identical jobs at the same company. Both are offered a position. The first man $72k annually, and the second $58k annually. The employer is a white protestant, as is the first man, but the second man, who receives the inferior salary for the same work, is a Jew.

1) How is that not discrimination?
2) If it is, how is that meaningfully different from my previous example of a man vs. a woman?
3) Let's assume the second man isn't predisposed to subterfuge to find out what the first man is getting paid, and may otherwise never find out that he's gotten the shaft. Is the employer behaving ethically here for merely offering him a job at all?

As for looking up salaries online or in industry publications, that's hardly conclusive. The best you'd get is an average, since no two employers offer the same wage and benefits for anything. This is usually provided in a range - say, X position based on Y years of experience pays $60k - $72k in your region / metropolitan area. In my original example, a man could be offered the high end of that range and the female the low end and neither would otherwise know they've been treated differently unless they told one another what they were making. And as we've established, this is why discussing salaries is so firmly discouraged.

 

That actually isn't discrimination, because Jews are cheap and therefore don't need as much money.

 

No, Splunge. Well, yes, Splunge, it isn't discrimination but not because of your reason but because it is a game and obviously the poor man didn't take Business Game Playing 101.

@Chandos, just saw your post below. The one factor I think Snook got right is the prioritizing family/work. Naturally a woman should prioritize work. Let the kids have fast food, dirty clothes and watch the porno channels. Work should come first in this game we are playing. Taking care of the family, shopping, cleaning, hugging all those little things are peripheral.

 

Would like to try and prove that men perform better, have better qualificatins are more assertive, have more of a propensity to take overtime/leave, than are women? Go ahead, take a shot at it. And while you are ranting, please list whatever else you feel that women don't do as well as men. It's very amusing, since I haven't had any entertainment for the day (and I mean that in a good way).

No, you are right in that there are way more female teachers than men. The issue I had was that you made it sound as if men don't want to be teachers because it wasn't a very good job. Yet, if you consider the amount of days off they have, benefits, and that they have a union, the teaching gig pays pretty well these days.

I've had way too many run-ins with those myself. But I always like good stories like that. I've had butch lesbians refuse to buy from me because I was a guy; I've had black people refuse to buy from me becuase I'm white; I've had Hispanics refuse to buy from me because I don't speak Spanish very well (even though I had two semesters in college). Discrimination comes in all sizes, TGS.

 

Now, y'see, this is what I think happens far more frequently:

Worker A is a white male chemical engineer just out of college with his Master's Degree. He applies for a position as Du Pont and get's offered a job for $40K. He sits in the interview and thinks, I've got a degree, and an unusual one at that. There aren't that many of us out there. To boot, my master's thesis was right on the point of this job. I've got experience, basically. Even more, I've done well in this interview. This guy likes me, I know it. With those thoughts in mind, he counters and they eventually settle on a pay of $47K.
Worker B is a black female chemical engineer fresh out of college with her Master's Degree. She also applies to Du Pont and also gets an offer. After the interview, she's offered a position at $40k. She thinks, I would really like working here. This place is interesting, and I like the people. They've offered me a fair pay, and I'm lucky to get it in this economy. I may not get $40K anywhere else. She settles on $40K.

So, who's employing discrimination here?

As for where I get my information, my wife's Counseling of Women and Feminist Counseling texts, written by women, in classes taught by women, to entirely female classes.

Now, I'm not saying that true and intentional discrimination doesn't exist in the modern day, just that it's rare and there are other factors at play.

 

That is crazy. It is in no way discrimination if the only reason it happens is because the women allows it to. When women weren't allowed to vote that was discrimination, when blacks couldn't eat in restaurants that was discrimination. Because a women voluntarily accepts a salary that may be less then she could get, that isn't discrimination. I'm not sure what it is, but it isn't discrimination.

As to your second point, I will claim that I am being discriminated against because I am conservative.

As I said above, it the Jew accepts the salary and the wage then it is his choice. If the employer is willing to overpay the WASP and underpay the Jew on philosophical reasons then the employer will get what they deserve. Maybe, the Jew is a better worker and could make the employer more money, but he leaves. Maybe other Jews find out and refuse to work for the employer and therefore the talent pool is smaller.

I have nothing to add except that I am saddened to see such a post on the BOM.

Don't misunderstand me. In no way am I saying that women are inferior in anyway. I actually think women work harder and are more productive then men. We spend way to much time concerned with sports. However, if there is this gap in pay, it is clearly because women accept it and I firmly believe it is up to them to stop it, not the men, not the employers, and certainly not the government.

As to teaching you are absolutely correct. If I hit the lottery, I would become a teacher in a heartbeat. I am an excellent trainer in accounting and tax. I would jump at the opportunity, if I didn't need the money I make now.

Your last comments are where the true discrimination is. But, as I alluded to above, if someone is willing to limit themselves that way, in the long run they will lose out as they are missing out on lots of opportunities.

Exactly. The employer isn't doing anything wrong by paying the man more. The employer decided that the extra money was worth it to make him an employee. They may have decided the same thing for the women, but since she didn't ask for it, why on earth should they just throw extra money at her? I'm assuming we are all adults here and long ago learned that "life isn't fair."

---------- Added 0 hours, 17 minutes and 27 seconds later... ----------

Somehow I missed this post, so I'm trying to add it to my other one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure things like what happened to your mother happened, but that was a long time ago and I believe things are much different now.

Maybe the use of the word "game" was callous. However, it gets to the heart of the matter. Whenever one person is paying money to another person there is a "game" involved. When you buy a car, do you pay the sticker price or do you negotiate it? When you have new windows put into your house, do you accept the salesman's first quote? I would hope the answer to both those questions are no. Getting a job is the exact same thing. While it is true there are other factors involved (unemployment rate, talent pool, etc.) that may make negotiating worthless, they are only worthless until you prove yourself. A known commodity always has value.

As to NOW, my biggest problem with them is their approach. Rather then trying to "raise women up" it appears that they would rather "tear men down". To me it is very similar to the difference between the "Black Panther Party" and Dr. Martin Luther King.

 

The problem is that if the original offer was fair (in relation to the offer given to the man), she wouldn’t have to “allow” anything to happen. Basically, you’re saying that she should have to fight just to be treated the same as the man. But that’s what discrimination is all about.

You’re not being discriminated against at all. As I said, we all know that Barmy jokes around. You rarely do, so if you were to make a comment like his, we wouldn’t be sure whether you were joking or not.

It was an (intentionally) absurd comment and was meant to show that there are many reasons used to justify discrimination. This one was obviously ridiculous, just as it is to say something like “women allow it to happen to themselves, so let’s take advantage of it”.

Hopefully people realize that I, like Barmy, often use irony to try to make a point. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t.

 

@ Nog,

You and Snook don't seem to get it. In your example both people were offered the same starting wage, which is the entire point of this disagreement. Neither is being treated unfairly. Had she lobbied for higher pay, as the man did, and was denied it based on the fact that she was either black or a woman, then she isn't being treated equally. If she was granted it, then she is. If he was offered $40k at the start of salary negotiations and she was offered less, then she isn't. It's really that simple, guys. The whole point is that neither her race or gender should be a factor in the employer's decision.

@ Snook,

Or maybe, the employer gets sued because it is illegal to adjust pay based on a person's ethnicity rather than their performance? Or do you not have a problem with that either?

I thought it was rather obvious that was a joke, aimed at illustrating the absurdity of anti-semitic stereotypes. Splunge isn't exactly known for such views, so you ought to give him a break.

I also find it perplexing that you were offended by that comment, employed to demonstrate a reason for unfair discrimination by an employer, yet defend the employer for treating someone differently for being a Jew. How does that logic work?

@ Splunge,

Exactly.

 

If I understand this correctly, you are working on the premise that when an employer interviews and decides to make an offer of employment to a woman that they are only offering 75% of what they would offer if it was a man. If I further extrapolate this you are saying that come raise time employers are also automatically only giving women 75% of the raise that they are giving men. If that is true, then it is horrible, but even if it was true, I'm still not convinced it is discrimination or that it is even illegal. Personally, I find that impossible to believe. Have you ever seen a help wanted sign that said Men $10/hour women $7.50/hour? I know I never have. Maybe it was true 50 years ago, but we have had women in the workforce for so long I can't imagine a place of work without women being there. The highly educated women I work with, would never put up with that nonsense. Now as I and NOG have said, I can totally believe that women may not negotiate for as high of pay raises as a man or even for a new position, but to say that there is some sort of systemic rule that HR departments follow to short-change women is silly. However, if it was true, I still stick to my guns and say it is the woman's fault for accepting what someone gives her. Carpe Diem

 

Nakia is on to something that lies at the core of the issue. We are expecting women to perform on a playground designed for men by men. That is one of the major issues, you can't compete with people who do not have to spend time and attention on the domestic situation. Men will start to experience this as well now when they take more responsibility in the home.

 

If you didn't like my earlier comment, you're really going to hate this one:

I guess that, during the Holocaust, those Jews that put up a fight but lost were discriminated against, but the ones who didn't resist weren't discriminated against at all?

 

I take offense to this. I've never received help apart from advice from anyone, *ever*, for just being a man.

And frankly, I don't care anymore. I don't care if blacks are equal to whites or if women are equal to men - as a white male I'm utterly tired of being demonized and getting implicated as a member of a worldwide conspiracy to oppress every minority and even the one majority.