This article examines Britain, where it appears that between the ages of 22 and 29 women on average earn about £1,111 more per year than men of the same age. This presumably reflects the fact that (1) more women than men go to university now and (2) pro-feminist hiring practices are all the rage now too.
But why, historically, does a gap in average earnings exist and continue to exist after the age of 30?
The Third Wave Feminist propaganda holds that this is caused by the capitalist, white male, heterosexual patriarchy conspiring against women and “institutional sexism” driving women into lower paying jobs.
The major lie at the heart of this vulgar Third Wave Feminism is that women, when they do the same job and same work as men, get paid on average 77% less in their hourly wages than men do. This is a myth.
A more reasonable explanation is simply that the gap reflects (1) the different professions and career paths that women, generally speaking, freely choose, and (2) different life choices of men and women (which lead to more part-time or casual work and time out of the labour force for women).
But, if society wanted full gender equality, then women ought to be encouraged to do 50% of the work in the following professions:
(1) garbage collectors;But of course these professions are mostly dominated by men, and the reasons why they are, generally speaking, dominated by men are fairly straightforward, as follows:
(2) deep sea fishermen
(3) electrical power line installers
(4) auto repair mechanics
(5) roofers
(6) heating, air conditioning and refrigeration mechanics
(7) aircraft maintenance and service technicians
(8) firefighters
(9) construction workers
(10) miners
(11) sewage workers, and
(12) oil rig workers.
(1) most women shun these professions and do not wish to do them, andSo the only real solution offered by Third Wave Feminism is to encourage women into the higher paying professions that do not require greater physical strength, and, if this fails, demand quotas and hiring practices that discriminate positively in favour of women.
(2) of the few women who might want to do them, many cannot because women – generally speaking and on average – tend to be physically less stronger than men are, and so cannot properly do these jobs anyway.
But there are reasons to think even these policies might fail. Take the sciences. Despite the culture that tells girls and women that they can do anything at all, it remains difficult to get women into the sciences.
And, at the end of the day, what the drive towards such Third Wave Feminist gender equality actually means is that many men will be still be struck doing the most difficult, back-breaking, dangerous, physically demanding work in society, and women largely absent from such jobs. The feminists will be mysteriously silent about this.
Move along there is nothing to see here!
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Most third wave feminist activists in the hiring sphere are enormously self-interested, ambitious and selfish people. They tend to care little about anyone else or facts or reason and almost wholly about their own career and prospects. I believe that one of them is running for president this year in the US. Not that anyone will actually wake up to what the game being played is.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed this too. Third Wave Feminism is just a vehicle for ambitious upper middle-class women who are competing with men for top positions in organizations or in the professions. They think that powerful men are “blocking” their advance up the professional ladder so they tend to view oppression as coming from “The Patriarchy” which is a kind of political proxy for their male work rivals.
DeleteMost ordinary women want their husbands to have jobs and high wages. They don’t view their life as a cosmic struggle with a Patriarchy that is preventing them from breaking the glass ceiling. That careerist outlook on life is something that is typically absent from working-class culture.
Third Wave Feminism and Marxist Second Wave Feminist are mostly (lol) bourgeois, middle class movements of (mostly) comparatively privileged women.
Delete"And, at the end of the day, what the drive towards such Third Wave Feminist gender equality actually means is that many men will be still be struck doing the most difficult, back-breaking, dangerous, physically demanding work in society, and women largely absent from such jobs. The feminists will be mysteriously silent about this. "
ReplyDeleteYou say this as if the fact that men work these jobs is somehow unjust. At the same time you criticize attempts to create a more equal ratio of men to women at these jobs.
Make up your mind. If it's a stupid idea to try to get more women to do these jobs, then you shouldn't complain that more men do them.
MRA folks use such damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don't reasoning so that, no matter what happens, they get to bash women. Don't fall into the same trap.
(1) I do *not* think it is unjust for men to do the most difficult, back-breaking, physically demanding work in society at all.
DeleteOn the contrary, I say: we need to recognise that it is natural and normal that men are better suited to these jobs and most of them will be done mostly by men, given (on average) the greater physical strength of men. Clear?
I say, yes, it would be grossly stupid and immoral to force or encourage women into professions most of them cannot properly do because of the disparity in average strength between the sexes.
Is this clear?
(2) When I mention that feminists aren't interested in making construction workers etc. 50% women, I am pointing to their hypocrisy given so many of them would react hysterically in disagreement to the idea that men and women have different average abilities in upper and lower body strength. Clear?
Also, some of the RadFems wouldn't mind if all jobs became more equalized in pay; that way a daycare worker would be making the same as a Computer Programmer or Engineer. They're complaining about a problem of "Equality of Outcome", and the best way to fix that is through Marxian equalization.
ReplyDeleteYes, many of them favor communism. In Soviet Union women were encouraged to work in factories and in construction. Men still dominated in construction jobs and pretty much everywhere they are dominating in West today. There were many discriminating laws for women also in Soviet Union. For example they could not legally drive a truck over certain weight limit while men could.
DeleteLK,
ReplyDeleteFacts from France suggest the same evolution : now a majority of medicine students and 80% of students at the national magistrature school are women.
But why should be it be explained through a bias ? From what I read in education sciology and from my own experience as a teacher girls are (ceteris paribus) quieter in class, harder working at home, more obedient in general.
So my guess is that what is an inheritance of domination ("it is not manly to shut one's mouth" grossly speaking) quite ironically happens to be a comparative advantage for the (soon to be) former dominated.
In my experience it is even more so for working class and or immigrant children. The girls feel less compelled to "defend" themselves against the school's culture and rules.
They develop less "anti school culture" (I take the expression from the british sociologist Paul Willis who used it to describe the way most blue collars'kids tend to relate to being schooled and so why they are so fiew to climb up the ladders. Of course there are also more direct factors like the way the parents speak, the books in the house, the "idle" youth the family can afford etc.)
But may be I do not know England's regulation (or unofficial practices) regarding the labour market.
How likely is it that a pro women bias actually exists ?
Another "cultural" question are those strange opinions about what sex equality should mean pervasive in England ? or may be among english middle classes ?
I ask because most outspoken feminists I know (from left wing organisation or union) defend reasonnable things (like say free abortion, regulation against harassment on the workplace, longer parenthood holidays) or even things I am quite sceptic about but are not obviously stupid or grounded on false facts (like banning prostitution or giving an education freed from gendered role models).
Legalization of prostitution always leads to increase in prostitution. Why is supporting banning prostitution (or buying prostitution services) stupid?
DeleteBecause of parental leave system hiring a female is a larger economic risk for the employer.
ReplyDeleteDo you agree that this causes discrimination against women in the labour market?
New Zealand has three times smaller wage gap than in Sweden. What is the explanation for this? You mentioned scientists. I believe that in Estonia about 40% of researchers are women, yet in the UK that number is 20%. Doesn't this show there's no reason why UK couldn't double the share of female researchers?
As to banning prostitution, I have two arguments. An a priori one is that I am not sure whether anyone is entitled to prevent consenting adults to have sex in exchange for money.
ReplyDeleteAn empirical one is that I fear that banning it altogether will only make prostitutes' lives more dangerous and help mafias grow as was already the case with alcohol in the US or with marijuana everywhere.
More generally I think that banning a social phenomenon we think is morally wrong is not necessarily the best way to end it. Full employment, good education and proper training opportunities look more promising to me.
And I am afraid of the "banning demagogy" that is : neoliberal politicians playing tough and bragging about how determined they are to end phenomena (prostitution, drugs, violence in general) that they are actually fueling.
As to discrimination quite the same holds. UK does not have to "double" anything. All the State has to do is to provide as equal a frame as possible (equal education, colour blind / sex blind entrance examinations etc.). It is then up to individuals (culturally determined as they are...) to "choose" a way of life that suits them.