I'm baking in some replies to some of your previous posts as well.
Quote: Originally posted by KittyCarey
[...]as you say, if employers could get away with paying women less they'd all employ women for the kind of job where "find the cheapest person who can do this" is the criteria.
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No, that's not what I said. I didn't say "where 'find the cheapest person who can do this' is the criteria", I said in general. I'm talking about two
equally qualified individuals. If there were a man and a woman applying for a job who were equally qualified, why would a company not hire the woman if she were equally qualified and they could get away with paying her less? It makes no sense. Unless you have the world view that everyone is sexist. I don't. If they're not equally qualified, then it's not an issue. I thought this was about women getting paid less than men
because they're women? Not that some people are paid more for being better workers. I would have a problem with the first scenario, but if some are paid more for being better employees, and they just happen to be men, everything is in order.
If you think it's unfair that male-oriented work fields have higher pay, get a job in that field. What's the issue? There is nothing stopping you from going into male-oriented working fields as a woman. If you're committed enough, you won't care about the perceived discouragement from society. And if you care more about what other people think than your ambition, maybe you aren't fit for the job in the first place. (Not that I believe they even
are discouraged in this day and age, generally.)
Got me thinking of the "ban bossy"-campaign. Some sort of outcry that women can't become bosses because they are discouraged by being called "bossy". As if you would be a leader type in the first place if you get stopped by a word ...
Quote: Originally posted by KittyCarey
Here is an article about an Australian study, while this discusses the issue more broadly (with some actual statistics).
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That article also says that in every single industry there is a gender wage gap that favors men. That is objectively not true, as in the modelling industry, women make a LOT more money than men. I also don't see feminists campaigning to get more women into coal mining, construction working, garbage collection, and other hard jobs that also have much more men than women. It's just the comfortable jobs.
I don't think male-oriented jobs pay more because society favors men. I think it has to do with what those jobs actually mean for society or how much money is involved. Civil engineering, science, law enforcement, finance, etc, hold up the society, or have a lot of money circulating in them. The modeling industry also has huge money circulating in it, but is largely dominated by women, and it's also a higher paying field. So I think it's deceptive to assume sexism here. Either way, I don't see the relevance, because again, a woman can still get a job in these work fields if she so chooses.
Quote: Originally posted by KittyCarey
But once you look at more senior jobs, employers are much more concerned with finding the "best" person, and paying them to work there - and too many employers' "best" criteria includes a subconscious "has a penis" requirement.
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Proof needed. I don't feel like spending hours on reading reports to find an answer to one question, so if you could point me to the part where it proves women are paid less than men because of discrimination, and not these other VERY RELEVANT factors, and if that's true I'll gladly concede. So until then it's just speculative. This is how you end up with conspiracy theories. I'm sure this is the case in SOME cases, but you make it sound like it's the standard. And I find that hard to believe. The West isn't this misogynistic hellhole that you make it out to be. That title belongs to the Middle East and Northern Africa.
Quote: Originally posted by KittyCarey
Or just many successful male candidates are better at persuading their employer to pay them more.
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Then it isn't discrimination. Then they aren't paid more for just being men. They're paid more because they negotiated a higher salary.
I did skim through the
report from that page, and on page 3 it interestingly says: "The national gender pay gap based on AWE is a symbol for the overall position of women in the workforce. It
does not show ‘like-for-like’ pay gaps, that is employees working in the same or comparable roles, nor
determine or explain the causes of any differences in earnings between women and men." Sooo, exactly how does this help your argument? That's exactly what I'm saying, the wage gap almost completely vanishes when you actually look at the exact same job.
The problem is that feminists have too much of a group-think. Even though women as a group make less than men as a group, you still have individual freedom. A woman can take a higher paying job and earn as much, or more than a man. This wouldn't be possible at all in an actual patriarchy. Just look at Saudi Arabia where women can't even leave the house without a man's permission. There you can REALLY talk about sexist systems holding women down. The problem is that feminists look at these numbers and assume sexism. Feminists did the same thing when they brought up the "
pink tax ".
They don't look deeper into it.
For sake of argument, let's say everything you say is true. Then women who are paid less than men need to speak up, and if it doesn't help, report it, as it's already against the law. Even in Australia. What feminism does is teaching women to blame society (men) for everything that's wrong in their life instead of taking matters into their own hands. What we need is strong women who stand up for themselves. Not deflecting
trigglypuffs .
And you don't solve it by setting up new laws that would give you unfair advantages, or however else you would plan to solve this. Like I said, you already have equal rights in law, so what is your solution to this? I have to ask again, what is the goal of feminism? I would prefer to not have the rest of my first post thrown away.
Yes, when you account for all relevant factors, there is still a very small wage gap, I am aware of that, however one could theorize it's because women tend to not negotiate higher salaries as much as men (generally). But the "77 cents for every dollar a man makes"-wage gap is
absolutely a myth .
Quote: Originally posted by KittyCarey
And as you say, it's not just misinformed men that don't accept the gender pay gap - there are also some misinformed women.
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Took some low hanging fruit there, I see, but no, not misinformed. We just don't assume sexism is behind everything.