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Have women reached equality in the workplace if, as in the US, they earn77 cents on the male dollar?
I was helping my 9 year old with a school project and came across this article form 2010. My personal reaction is somewhat irrelevant. The question should be addressed objectively vs. subjectively, distilled to the core of the question which, in my mind, is simply a matter of social policy. How to do we raise the next generation of leaders where this disparity will become obsolete?
Obey No1kinobe 20+
Do they earn the same for the same job, with the same experience and qualifications.
This equality should be the minimum.
Do they earn less because more low paid jobs, part time jobs, interrupted careers from child rearing? This is more complicated. I suggest things can be done to improve this, to help women have more options. However, I believe it is unreasonable to expect people working less hours, in lower skilled jobs, or with less experience to earn the same as men or women how work full time and take no time off for children.
steve a
R Jones
Or, just maybe, could it be that this 77cents/dollar thing is the result of incredibly poor research and a heavily biased representation of the results?
Who work more hours? Who is more likely to move for work? Who takes less time off from work? Who doesn't take time off to have children? Guess.
Women make choices and these choices affect both their careers and salaries.
Look at doctors/surgeons - so many more women training as medical students - great, so many of these women becoming outstanding doctors/surgeons - great, so many of these women, after only a few years, dropping to part time or even quitting - not so great.
There's nothing stopping women working in the same way that men do ... apart from things like making choices, and having children.
The only problem is that if you raise these points in your son's school project he'll probably get a low mark since it's against the standard myth that all men are oppressing all women.
(Just as a note - I think the man/woman thing is irrelevant in terms of merit - this is based on working with incompetent males and females, as well as extremely skilled males and females. However, I have also worked with women who have used their jobs to get maximum maternity money, and then leave soon after they have the children they want. Viewed purely in terms of investment and return ... these women represent a loss rather than a gain for the company)
Tyler Cheek
On a societal level many of the inequalities of women are overplayed, as many women do not even want equality in these areas. Take things like the assumption that your husband would jump to you and assume you an fix the car, which most women by nature either do not or cannot do. There ARE inherent differences in men and women, otherwise why is there a distinction?
Do not get me wrong, women are oppressed in many instances (most notably in other countries), however these instances are not part of the mainstream culture in the U.S. anymore.
Rhona Pavis 30+
Ehis Odijie
Pontus Westermark
I believe you've run across an article meant to make you feel angry and buy the newspaper.
Lydia Loizides 100+
Pontus Westermark
I found a couple mentions of a study that shows a number close to 5% taking more things into account, but leaving out a couple of other important factors, like what their job description actually said they was supposed to do and where these differneces arise. Is it because women just get offered less money for the same work at the same time of employment or do they arise after a couple of years when salary-negotiation may make a noticable difference?
Rhona Pavis 30+
David Hamilton 20+
Women are less likely to be unemployed than men. Women drop out of high school, less than men. Women graduate from college, more often than men do... Women suffer from drug addiction, less than men. Women suffer from mental illness, like stress disorders, less than men... Women live longer than men. Men kill themselves more than women do. Women work manual labor, coal mining, and farming jobs... less than men.
Women make 77 cents on the dollar... Women are less likely to try to dominate others, as managers in the workforce. What inequality?
Sometimes, I worry that people really think, money is the only thing that matters. Don't bother with the whole male and female president thing, you'll run the whole show soon enough. Hillary is leaving office to run in 2016 for sure, and the republican party is imploding, trying to court religious zealots. You don't need men to run the country... but, the one built by women isn't going to be much different... We just do what you tell us anyway : p
Rhona Pavis 30+
David Hamilton 20+
"Must people look up or down at each other?", no... of course not. But, men will always look at pretty women and say "what can i do to put a smile on your face?". That's just biology. Men will always look up to women socially, and sexually. We will always care more about female emotions, than masculine ones. We're trying to build a more balanced society, but we (meaning men), aren't good at it, we like women too much.
The problem exists because the people in charge are men, but they are still trying to make women happy... They are still second class citizens to thier wives, in their own mind. Women have power over men, that does not exist economically, so it is unfair to talk about equality, only as it relates to economics.
In many ways, men are very economically self sacrificing to women, without complaint. Women live almost a decade longer than men, on average. Men are all paying into a social security system, that will almost never pay them out, as much as they paid in. Medicare, and private insurance, now call charging men and women different health insurance premiums sexist, despite the fact, that women cost a lot more, through pregnancy, and longer life expectancies. So, men are now paying a percentage of womens health insurance costs as well.
For a married man, this might seem to make a type of sense, and almost be fair. His health insurance costs go up, so he can help cover his wife/partner. He pays extra for retirement benefits, so that as his wife outlives him, she can benefit... For single, or gay men... This is just pure sexist wealth distribution... Yet, men don't complain.
David Hamilton 20+
I think in our own lives however, we have all seen this pattern. It's what almost all sitcoms are about, because it happens a lot. Shoes, Make up, clothes, all manufactured in third world countries, and all tested on, our made out of, animals... but women are often pro labor, and animal rights... It's an interesting consumption culture we have here in the US, and it's very interesting which gender takes the blame for it. Again, that's just opinion though.
Rhona Pavis 30+
David Hamilton 20+
Do you see a new generation of women fighting to work in productive fields? Are women in my generation begging for mining jobs? Or, are men, who used to do physical labor, wondering, "where are the jobs for people like me?". Meanwhile women perfectly capable, and encouraged to do physical labor say "I want to work in the customer service economy, not the productive one... it's easier".
I'm not trying to suggest that all men feel one way, or that all women feel the other... but, from what i've seen in my personal experience... Neither men nor women in my generation, want to work in a farm, or factory, or mine... but they all want to have products made, in a factory, or farm, or mine... and that's not a valid way to view the world... Men need to make things... so women can consume them... Or women need to make things, so that women can consume them... We can't live in a world where no one makes things... but everyone consumes them.
Men and women must produce equal amounts of goods, before they claim to have earned equal consumption. I would love to see that... but, your argument tends to suggest that it is mans descrimination that is stopping women from producing as much as they consume... I would suggest that it is human laziness... and men are no more prone to it, than women.
I would also suggest... and, this is pure opinion... that men... don't want anything... They don't want to buy products... They don't want to consume. Men, tend to get their ego's from production... So, if women become equal producers... Won't they just produce for their own demand, and won't men work just hard enough to feed themselves?
Men like women... Women like stuff... Men buy stuff, for women.