The Angry White Man

[DanaC]

In answer to your question: partly it is because firms get around the equal pay laws by giving their male employees different titles. Partly it is due to a lack of eforcement where firms are blatantly paying different scales for the same job (where workers negotiate individual remuneration packages rather than having a firmwide payscale) and partly it is due to the continued gender assumptions which direct girls towards certain fields and direct boys towards others. The trouble is that areas which are historically considered 'female' attract lower payrates than areas which are historically gendered 'male'. The historical basis of this goes back to the medieval period when the concept of a separate rate of pay for 'women's work' was enshrined in law under the Labourers act. It continued through to the industrial revolution where women's pay was less even if doing the same job as a man because she was not considered the main breadwinner.

These attitudes informed your own culture as well. The idea of paying women less has only very recently been regarded as unfair, even by women. Consequently jobs traditionally associated with women (communications, caring and cleaning: the Three C's) have always been paid at a lower rate than those associated with men. The market has no need to increase those payrates to take account of newer attitudes and women are still predominantly employed in these industries because that's the way the education system sends them, or because those are the jobs that play to women's strengths (the caring roles and communications). As long as jobs which predominantly attract women are undervalued compared to 'male' jobs there will be a pay disparity.

Added to that are the differences in female and male lifecycles. Women are the ones who tend to take extended time out from their careers to have children. Though this is changing and women are more likely to return to work soon after the birth of their child, there is still enormous societal and biological pressure for women to take time out for the first year or two of their baby's life. The workplace does not take great account of this, seeing it as an inconvenience rather than a societal necessity and women are therefore penalised within their career for being active carers of their children. Women are more likely than men to become carers of elderly parents. Again the workplace deems this an inconvenience rather than a societal necessity and women are again punished in their careers.

[DanaC]

Lifespan cumulative pay comparisons are pointless. Show me two people who are in salaried jobs with the same time, experience, and success and they should be paid about the same. Point in time direct comparison would be the only accurate way to judge the situation. Men rarely take time off for childbirth, raising the family, etc. Not that all women choose to do that, but Lifespan pay has no way to account for that.

That's an important point. It's about time society started valuing women for doing that rather than penalising them. Though in fairness the paygap carries through even for women who never have children. As that article states, the disparity begins within a year of graduating and continues to increase even where women are working in the same field as men.

It's a complex issue wth many factors, but the end result is that men are economically more powerful than women as a sex.

[lookout123]

Although all of that makes sense, none of it points to anything unfair. A woman going coming out of school today can choose, with very few exceptions, to follow any career path she chooses. If she chooses to be an attorney she will be paid in line with her choice. If she chooses to be a secretary she will also be paid in line with her choice. How is this unfair? Should a secretary really be paid as much as the executive she serves? This isn't about the value of a human life, it is an issue of pay required to keep a competent individual in a job slot.

I guarantee you that me 2 female VP level clients make far more than I do. I also guarantee that most of their male (and female) employees make less than I do. How is that unfair or evidence of some injustice?

It's a complex issue wth many factors, but the end result is that men are economically more powerful than women as a sex.

If you mean in terms of dollars earned by all men this year vs total of all dollars earned by women this year, then I concede the point. If you want to talk about who actually directs the usage of the dollars in the US economy, I'll point you in the direction of the Profit and Loss charts for Lowe's and Home Depot. One company mistakenly thought men made home improvement and maintenance decisions. The other researched the issue and came to a different conclusion.

[DanaC]

How about the disparity between communication based work (call centres and receptionists, shopwork), caring work (nursing, primary school teaching) and cleaning, and the traditionally male areas of engineers, electricians, mechanics, management, labouring and construction etc. Areas that are traditionally female command lower wages than areas that are traditionally male.

An engineer doesn't train for longer than a primary school teacher. They both require a degree and are both in demand. One is traditonally male and one is traditionally female. Yet the engineer will most likely be paid more than the primary school teacher.

The problem is centuries in the making and the market is not going to resolve the issue. Society will need to tackle this one. Either girls need to be educated differently or...society needs to start valuing female skills more highly than it has historically done. What the answer to the problem is I honestly do not know. However, it is fruitless to deny that men are more economically powerful than women. Just as it is fruitless to deny that white men are more politically powerful than any other group in England or America. The fact that women have managed to close the gap somewhat in terms of economic clout and the fact that different ethnic groups have managed to close the gap somewhat in political terms, does not change the fact that most political and economic power rests in the hands of white men.

That doesn't mean all white men are powerful, in either economic or political terms. But it does mean that if you are born white and male you are statistically more likely to be able to access routes of power and influence than if you were born female or of another ethnic background. You are also statistically more likely to earn more money across your lifetime than any other group.

[lookout123]

Dana - are male teachers paid more than female engineers? Is a female manager paid less than her male call center employee?

Most nurses make more than most mechanics, regardless of the gender. Why?

Wages are attached to jobs because of supply and demand. More people are qualified to teach than to design a building. The people that teach work in a non-profit environment whereas a company can realize huge profits from an engineer's designs. Do you really not understand why one of those fields pays more?

Call center employees are easy to replace and easy to train they should pay less than an electrician receives.

Maybe England is more different from the US than I realized because I look around the US and I see lots of male teachers, nurses, and call center employees. I also see lots of female doctors, engineers, lawyers, and managers.

No one shows up to their first day of school and gets a slip of paper that says You have a penis, you shall be a manager of men or You! Vagina holder, go clean my toilet. People are free to make their own choices and they reap the pros and cons of their choices.

I will grant you that very few men are house cleaners though. I think that makes sense though. Who would pay a man to clean a house when you know you'd have to go behind us and fix everything?

[lookout123]

That doesn't mean all white men are powerful, in either economic or political terms. But it does mean that if you are born white and male you are statistically more likely to be able to access routes of power and influence than if you were born female or of another ethnic background. You are also statistically more likely to earn more money across your lifetime than any other group.

Statistics don't tell the whole truth, they're just easy to use when presentng a case. My whiteness and my maleness didn't open any doors for me. My low middleclass birth meant more than my penis or pigment.

[DanaC]

No one shows up to their first day of school and gets a slip of paper that says You have a penis, you shall be a manager of men or You! Vagina holder, go clean my toilet. People are free to make their own choices and they reap the pros and cons of their choices.

No. It's a little more subtle than that. This is centuries of conditioning. We aren't born in a silo.

Maybe England is more different from the US than I realized because I look around the US and I see lots of male teachers, nurses, and call center employees. I also see lots of female doctors, engineers, lawyers, and managers.

Likewise here. But...more women than men tend to work in those areas that are either tradionally female, or which play to 'female' strengths. Males are more likely to go for areas which are not tradionally female or which play to .male. strengths. The wage differential between those areas has always been the case. And no an individual woman engineer will not be paid less than an individual male nurse. But most engineers are male and most nurses are female.

Statistics can be skewed to make arguments, but they are also a useful indicator of societal trends. They show that employment and wage trends which have been the case for over a hundred years have not yet fully balanced out and continue to economically favour males over females.

My whiteness and my maleness didn't open any doors for me. My low middleclass birth meant more than my penis or pigment.

As I said, being white and male doesn't necessairly mean you will be wealthy or powerful. It just makes it more likely. Being middle-class will have its effect also. As I said earlier, middle-class white males are the most powerful group in America and England. Being white and male doesn't save you from being poor or powerless. However, being middle class and female means you will likely earn less and be less politically powerful than males of your class.

The study I referenced earlier was specifically looking at graduates. The differntial began to show within a year of graduation. Statistics aren't everything, but if you examine a large group of women and a large group of men of comparable starting points in life the gap will show.

I will grant you that very few men are house cleaners though. I think that makes sense though. Who would pay a man to clean a house when you know you'd have to go behind us and fix everything?

True dat :P

[Undertoad]

Call center employees are equally men and women, in my experience, and are paid in rupees according to how well they mask their accent.

[DanaC]

lol the world is changing fast :P

[lookout123]

But...more women than men tend to work in those areas that are either tradionally female, or which play to 'female' strengths.

You've said that a couple times now. So if a woman who loves children and the joy of learning goes into teaching she is somehow following a discriminatory path of being underpaid?

I don't understand how you separate a person's decision of what they want to do with their life from the consequence - they get paid in line with what they chose to do.

I am a financial advisor and when I don't spend the whole day debating with my friends in the cellar I'm paid pretty well. If I decide to leave this and go back to the high school teaching thing should I be paid more than other teachers because of my current standing as an advisor, or should I be paid the going rate for a teacher with my experience? Now suppose I was a female, should I be paid more, less, or the same as other teachers with the same credentials?

I guess what I'm getting at is why do you think it is some sort of disparity when a woman is paid the going rate for a field that she freely chose to enter? It doesn't matter if her parents handed her a doll or a GI Joe when she was 4, she was still an adult when she chose her career and she is free to change that career if she decides she wants something else. She will be paid according to her experience and skills in any field she pursues - just like a man. How can you get any more fair than that?

You have to separate the dollar value of a career choice from the real value of a person on an individual level. Each person is paid for the work that they do. Those that are paid more are not worth more as people but they are worth more as employees.

[lookout123]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Call center employees are equally men and women, in my experience, and are paid in rupees according to how well they mask their accent.

yes sir. damn dirty foreigners, takin' all our women folks' jobs... howkin our womenz compete wit those men?

[DanaC]

I guess what I'm getting at is why do you think it is some sort of disparity when a woman is paid the going rate for a field that she freely chose to enter?

Because the going rate for those fields is partially informed by historical factors. Historical factors which have tended to value areas where females worked less highly than areas where men worked. We have moved on and progress has been made. No longer is it legal to openly pay a woman less for doing the exact same job with the exact same jobtitle, but that was a long time coming and a relatively recent development. Historical factors are still at play in how the market values certain types of work. Historical factors are still at play in how society values the role of women within it (women are on the whole more likely to be unpaid carers, thus removing a burden of care from the state for the elderly and infirm).

Please don't think I am suggesting a conspiracy to keep women down. Though at certain points during the indutrialising era there were concerted efforts by both employers and male employees to maintain women's low wage rates and male unions generally tried to exclude women from their trades as their entry a) ndrove down wages and b) made male workers less attractive because they were more costly. The issue is both smaller and bigger than that. It is simply how our society is...and our society is the way it is because this how it has developed. There are historical factors which inform current trends and current factors. There are also biological and sociological factors.

The point I am making Lookout is that whilst at an individual level people make choices, at a societal level a basic inequality exists between males and females in terms of their economic power. The same is true for people of different ethnic origins. At an individual level people make choices, but at a societal level there is a huge disparity in terms of economic and political power.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by lookout123

*groan* see, this isn't about losing something or someone else taking something, it's about the division. The longer we let politicians and their sort tell us why one group is different and another is more privileged, one is held down and another needs a hand up the longer things get worse. Nothing positive comes from people feeling different or separated from each other. Only one group is helped by drawing a line in the sand between black/white/brown, rich/poor, college educated/not. We call that group politicians. They get ahead by keeping us apart. They pander to that niggling little feeling that someone has it better than you. They tell the poor that the middle class is disappearing to take away their hope. They tell the middle class that the gap is getting bigger between them and the rich to remove so they'll keep working harder and spending more so they won't fall into the "poor" category. They tell the rich that the poor welfare recipients want to tax them at 50% while they stay home and smoke crack and have babies, so they'll contribute more to the campaigns.

Who is getting something out of dividing us?
What ground has ever been gained by separating people?
What motivation would a politician ever have to make you feel safe, secure, and content?

Ain't that the truth.

[lookout123]

the societal level is made up of individuals making individual choices.

and no matter how much you want to believe that secretaries are paid less than managers simply because more women do the job, you are ignoring the obvious - secretaries are easier to find and train than the manager is so they will (and should) always earn a lower wage. regardless of the presence of peni, pay is determined by the supply and demand for qualified imployees in a job.

anyway, it's time for me to skedaddle onto my last little todo item, then i'm outta here. been fun discussing this with you, ya pinko commie.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

And the middleclass white man still carries far more power than any of them overall. Look at the percentages of women and ethnic minorities at the higher management levels in business and look at how many of your senators and congressmen are white men.

We get the same arguments over here about the apparent power of ethnic minorities and women. Yet the paygap between men and women in this country is still 17.5% across a lifetime. The economic gap between black and white even bigger and the gap between Pakistani and white even greater than that.

There is a massive economic gap between black Americans and white. There is an economic gap between American men and American women. Economic power counts for a lot in a capitalist society. When the political power is also held most firmly by the same group it's difficult to make a case for power residing anywhere but in a white man's hand.

If we look at the representation of ethnic minorities in our Congress they are over represented.

Your pay gap statistics don't mean squat. Women and minorities have come a long way in removing those barriers to pay. A long way.