Fair pay for women. It's not what you hear from advocates.

[UnseenParticipant]

“Equal pay for equal work” sounds reasonable and fair. It’s not.

Anyone who runs a company rationally pays employees for their value to the company, not for fulfilling a checklist of duties. True, when pay is discussed, companies often talk that way because it’s easy to explain and a job needs to be described, but what they really pay people for is their value to the operation.

How can two people holding the same job be unequal in terms of their value to the company?

Two workers both market widgets for WidgetCo.  Employee A is eager to climb up the corporate ladder, lets it be known s/he will consider any and all opportunities even if they involve overtime, changing shifts or departments, travel, even relocation. Employee B kind of likes the position s/he is in as well as his/her coworkers and turns down offers to work in other departments even at the same location, declines overtime and travel due to familial obligations, won’t relocate away from his/her father.

You should be able to see that one of these employees is much more valuable to WidgetCo than the other.

What could be unfair about with paying one more than the other?

Do you feel that you know the most likely gender of employee A and employee B?

There are a lot of misapprehensions about fair pay for women, and most of them are due to well-intentioned but misinformed and uncritical gender equality advocates repeating false or misunderstood statistics. Since any male explaining this will be suspected and likely accused of engaging in mansplaination, I’ll let Susan Hoff Sommers take over from here:

• This topic was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  Unseen.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  Reg the Fronkey Farmer. Reason: Reg, edit of title

[UnseenParticipant]

P.S. — I’m aware that the American Enterprise Institute is a conservative think tank. While I’m politically liberal overall, I don’t think liberals or conservatives have a lock on the truth, so no poisoning the well, please! Let’s stick to facts.

[DavisModerator]

African Americans are less likely to be wealthy enough to cover tuition as compared to white people. Based on their disadvantage of being qualified for jobs and in general having less education…should it be reasonable to pay an individual African Americans less because their over all demographic is disadvantaged? No. That’s grossly discriminatory and nasty. You wouldn’t dare make a  statement like this about African Americans. But it is still okay to do this to women because ultimately they are worth less to some men. And the sole fact that they might get pregnant in the future justifies an insanely vicious salary reduction. You disguise your argument as though you are justifying one worker being paid more than another for their qualifications and likely value to the company. But if you take your argument to where you are really going, you’re applying a specific particular situation to everyone. But the reality is women are systematically discriminated against per job opportunities and income, be them fully qualified, too old to have more children. There are many studies which show two people, fully equal qualifications, output, efficiency and career dedication…the men make more. That’s pointless discrimination. This isn’t a case of John is more qualified than Sarah so she’s paid less. It’s a case of 50% of the planet getting more money than the other 50% because SOME people in the other 50% MIGHT have maternity leave and because the other 50% has an ingrained bias against them and are less likely to give them the jobs they need to get experience.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  Davis.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  Davis.

[_Robert_Participant]

My company considers “inclusion” of all races and genders of paramount importance. One in 10 of the applicants for engineering positions are female.  The women who make the sacrifices needed to climb the corporate ladder do extremely well. The director of engineering is a woman. I see no evidence of discrimination in my high paying industry. I do see a lack of diversity in the applicants. Either many women are not interested in engineering, or they are discouraged somehow. I believe that many are not that interested. I would guess our salary data is skewed towards males because of no fault of the company.

[MattParticipant]

But it is still okay to do this to women because ultimately they are worth less to some men.

No, it’s not “okay”… It’s illegal.

And the sole fact that they might get pregnant in the future justifies an insanely vicious salary reduction.

I took the liberty of removing the irrelevant, and emotive, portion of this… and it sounds a bit more reasonable. Whether or not it justifies a reduction in salary (happy to discuss that later), can we avoid using terms like “insanely vicious” without at least quantifying what that means?

women are systematically discriminated against

I honestly don’t know where people get this from. The law is pretty egalitarian, so what “system” is doing this discrimination? (In case it isn’t clear: system discrimination is discrimination in/from a system, and I don’t accept that this exists in first world societies at present)

the men make more. That’s pointless discrimination.

Is it? Or is it that the women present more risk to the organisation and are paid less accordingly?

Consider this: Let’s ignore gender and look at hiring someone for a position in our company… The two applicants have identical age, education, dedication, etc… except one of them presents an extra risk that they may need a significant time off work (with significant risk that they won’t come back at all), with little flexibility in timing, at some undetermined time in the future. Which one is worth more to the company (remember we’re ignoring gender for this thought experiment)?

It’s a case of 50% of the planet getting more money than the other 50% because SOME people in the other 50% MIGHT have maternity leave

Oh, so you do understand! In the absence of good knowledge about an individual, we can use statistics to determine an appropriate pay cut for people in the group who present additional risk.

 

TL;DR… it’s not about gender, it’s about value added to the employer.

 

the other 50% has an ingrained bias against them and are less likely to give them the jobs they need to get experience.

How on earth did our species manage to propagate for so long when one half of it has “an ingrained bias” against the other half? I find this allegation ridiculous.

[UnseenParticipant]

Remember that the 72% number refers to all men and all women. It doesn’t explain WHY there’s this difference, assuming it’s true.

Let’s not let it all come down to maternity leave. Still, we live in times when brining a pregnancy to term is a choice. Some women leave the work force entirely upon the arrival of their first child because they want to be full-time moms. Those who continue to work often assume parental duties taking them away from work occasionally not because their partner forces them to or urges them to but because they actually want that responsibility and find that role fulfilling.

While the more extreme feminists discount the existence of any gender-based differences in behavior or talent and put all of that on social forces, they swim against the current of research which has shown that gender differences reveal themselves very early on and persist through adult life. For example,  female toddlers tending to prefer soft and furry toys like dolls and stuffed animals whereas male toddlers tend to favor hard-edged toys like trucks and airplanes. As adults, females seem far more obsessed with clothing and children than males, who tend to be far more enthusiastic about going fast and/or blowing stuff up.

Are talents distributed totally equally between the genders? Why would they be? Science knows that male and female brains are wired differently. Talent equality would have that to overcome.

[UnseenParticipant]

[UnseenParticipant]

Obviously, the subject line should start with “Fair” not “air.” Any way I can fix that, or could a moderator do it?

[UnseenParticipant]

Advocate feminism gets it wrong from the get go by ignoring the rather obvious NATURAL differences between men and women. Is being feminine or masculine a kind of involuntary choice each of us makes under parental or social pressure, or are males and females actually inherently biologically different?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@unseen, have you seen the Jordan Peterson video that @belen posted, on this subject?

https://atheistzone.com/groups/sunday-school/forum/topic/sunday-school-may-6th-2018/#post-9041

 

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Seems like most of your reasoning (except wrt some percentage of women who “choose” to forgo career to support their family) can also be a valid reason to pay less to disabled persons, no? Would you make the same case for them?

Because of “natural” differences between genders and other, various circumstances that result from demographics, we at least need to address the disparities at a wider social level than at the employment level. I feel it’s really, truly unfair to not support super moms with their career goals, just because most moms have to dedicate decades of their life to kids and home. In fact, oh, if only more women instead of men were encouraged to run the world!!

Yeah, I’m biased against the whole men-in-power tradition, especially when it’s a crusade to bolster profitable free enterprise as the primary, supposed “good” for society. I’m for tipping the scales in the favor of empowerment for women, just on general principle that it will improve society as we know it.

[UnseenParticipant]

PopeBeanie wrote:

Seems like most of your reasoning (except wrt some percentage of women who “choose” to forgo career to support their family) can also be a valid reason to pay less to disabled persons, no? Would you make the same case for them?

I can’t make an argument for forgoing a merit/usefulness based system of pay.

I currently am retired (semiretired to be perfectly accurate) and I have a part-time job with the Goodwill organization. The business is not without its flaws. Considering that it is a charitable organization, its upper management is overpaid. What it DOES do, because I see it every day, is that it teaches disadvantaged people (sometimes fairly severely disadvantaged people) some useful skills as well as a work ethic. The law allows Goodwill to pay them less as an incentive to Goodwill (and not just Goodwill, but many other businesses as well) to employ them. When they graduate from Goodwill they go off to unskilled/semiskilled jobs where they are paid less than a fully advantaged person who can do more, more skilled, or better work.

I work in a very extensive and well-organized book department, it’s skilled work that intelligent and well-educated people with a lot of cultural literacy do much better than anyone who’s unintelligent, uneducated, and culturally illiterate. As nice as a person with an IQ of 85 might be, they will likely not be able to discern whether this book is a ,ook better placed in the anthropology or Asian studies section? or is this novel a true horror novel or one of those vampire romance novels? In our department, we use none of these disadvantaged students (for that is what they are), but if we did take some on, they’d be doing a lot of make work. Moving things around, for example. Taking rejected books back for the next stage in the process or brining a bunch of new books in.

You see no justification for paying them less than an employee who provides more value to the company?

Let’s suppose that the law allowing this reduced pay system went away. So would most of those jobs.

You tell me what’s fair?

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  Unseen.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  Unseen.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  Unseen.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Kudos for the Goodwill work. No, I thought laws exist that protect (at least some) handicapped candidates and employees, but haven’t kept up on enough news in that area.

I understand your pro-market-driven approach to not requiring companies to provide some affirmative action [my term/perspective] for women. I even understand how minimum wage laws can decrease low skill employment openings. Imposing laws on small businesses is certainly unfair.

So I’ll beat my chest wrt society finding ways to compensate (or at least train) people with less opportunity, like mothers whom society needs to raise children, and who would make great leaders in business and government if only given more opportunity.

[_Robert_Participant]

….mothers whom society needs to raise children, and who would make great leaders in business and government if only given more opportunity

I had to read that twice. I guess fathers don’t matter and mothering and being  leaders in business and government are part time jobs?  This is what drives the middle of the road voters to vote Trump. Women included.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Robert_ wrote:

I guess fathers don’t matter and mothering and being  leaders in business and government are part time jobs?  This is what drives the middle of the road voters to vote Trump. Women included.

Ah right, it’s the left’s fault when the right acts like idiots. 🙂 I mean, you might as well tell the left they should shutup, for the sake of a new brand of political correctness.

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