NationStates Jolt Archive

What makes men so special? Why should they get paid more than us for the same job?

What makes men so special? Why should they get paid more than us for the same job?

I didnt think it happened any more, where are you from?

Texas

My dad get social security for being old and when he dies my mom get half his social secuirty. How is she supposed to live on that. She cant get a job shes kinda to old. What if she didnt have any children to support her? I mean why should he get more and she get less?

I didnt think it happened any more, where are you from?

Are you kidding? Take a look: http://www.newint.org/index4.html

WOMEN & MEN
-There are more women than men in the global workforce now, but women are still the poorest of the poor, representing 70% of those in absolute poverty.
-Equal pay
In every part of the world women, on average, earn at least 25% less than men.

Denmark, at 71%, has the most equal ratio. The United Arab Emirates, with 21%, is the least equal. Figures do not exist for most of Africa.1

No, its not right if the women can do what the men can. But if its a job that requires alot of strength and the woman might not be able to do the job as good and the man can do better the man should be paid just a little bit more. Same as if the woman is more organized in an office she should be paid more than a man that cannot do as good as she could. But if they have exactly the same they should both be paid the same.

'cause old geezers want to stick with their 50's idealogy...

Are you kidding? Take a look: http://www.newint.org/index4.html

WOMEN & MEN
-There are more women than men in the global workforce now, but women are still the poorest of the poor, representing 70% of those in absolute poverty.
-Equal pay
In every part of the world women, on average, earn at least 25% less than men.

Denmark, at 71%, has the most equal ratio. The United Arab Emirates, with 21%, is the least equal. Figures do not exist for most of Africa.1

okay i'm not quite that naive, i meant that i thought it was a law in most western countries that men and women had to get the same pay for the same job and although there are quite a few exceptions, on the whole it was followed, but it seems its worse than that.

Where did you get your figures from?

I took an economics class a couple of years ago, and one thing my professor pointed out was that the University of Michigan had done a study about this "wage gap." At first glance, women appear to earn 70-something cents to the dollar men make. However, take a closer look at what all goes into that.

Men, on average, work longer hours than women (about 5-6 hours a week, I believe) so that closes the per-hour gap a bit.

A lot of women have lower-paying jobs, thus closing the overall gap for same-job wages.

Also, factoring in education, experience, job tenure, and marital status, the average single man makes the same money for the same job as the average single woman. The big killer for women appears to be motherhood; women who take time off to raise kids never really make up ground.

In summary, take a closer look at the "wage gap." Frankly I trust the University of Michigan more than i do some special interest group barking skewed figures.

okay i'm not quite that naive, i meant that i thought it was a law in most western countries that men and women had to get the same pay for the same job and although there are quite a few exceptions, on the whole it was followed, but it seems its worse than that.

Where did you get your figures from?

I included the link from the New Internationalist page I got the figures from...and you'll be able to see where THEY got them from on that page too. Pay equity is touted about a lot in most western countries, but in reality there is still a long way to go. (my father in law by the way thinks that women bitch too much and should just be happy that they've gotten as far as we have:))

Many jobs are still traditionally male-dominated or advancement opportunities for women are small(the glass ceiling everyone talks about). For example, Education is still a very male-dominated profession...despite the fact that most TEACHERS are now female. The administration, however, are usually male. Some of this is our (women) fault because many women feel they are not qualified to do the job so they don't apply. Many men don't worry about whether they are qualified, they figure they'll learn as they go (I've seen many first or second year male teachers apply to a principalship...and never female beginners do so). When a women gets in, it is usually with years and years of experience behind her. Why do we think this way? Why do we allow ourselves to be patronised? Because it feels normal. Honestly... I worked research during my university years, going from school to school analysing test scores etc. I was in charge of the team, and I had an older, male assistant. I didn't even notice that every single time we walked into a school, the principal would greet my assistant, assuming HE was in charge. It didn't bother me in the slightest. When my assistant pointed it out, I was shocked, more by my own lack of reaction than anything.

Well anyway, we still got a ways to go, so my father-in-law is going to have to keep listening to us uppity women "bitching".:)

Are you kidding? Take a look: http://www.newint.org/index4.html

WOMEN & MEN
-There are more women than men in the global workforce now, but women are still the poorest of the poor, representing 70% of those in absolute poverty.
-Equal pay
In every part of the world women, on average, earn at least 25% less than men.

Denmark, at 71%, has the most equal ratio. The United Arab Emirates, with 21%, is the least equal. Figures do not exist for most of Africa.1

operative concept: equal pay for equal work. Comparing raw pay recieved without reference to the work done has nothing to do with equal pay for equal work.

The last study I saw comparing men and women of the same experience in the same jobs showed women earning $1.07 for every $1.00 earned by the man, but this only applied to the US and the methodology was somewhat suspect. If we consider all paying work to be equal then there is just almost no difference in the US between men and women, employed women earn $0.77 for every $1.00 that men earn and work 0.78 hours for every 1.00 hours men work. But then again women tend to do more unpaid non-employment "work", like childcare and housekeeping, so how does one calculate or fix that problem?

I took an economics class a couple of years ago, and one thing my professor pointed out was that the University of Michigan had done a study about this "wage gap." At first glance, women appear to earn 70-something cents to the dollar men make. However, take a closer look at what all goes into that.

Men, on average, work longer hours than women (about 5-6 hours a week, I believe) so that closes the per-hour gap a bit.

A lot of women have lower-paying jobs, thus closing the overall gap for same-job wages.

Also, factoring in education, experience, job tenure, and marital status, the average single man makes the same money for the same job as the average single woman. The big killer for women appears to be motherhood; women who take time off to raise kids never really make up ground.

In summary, take a closer look at the "wage gap." Frankly I trust the University of Michigan more than i do some special interest group barking skewed figures.

These figures you talk about...was the study a global one or just for the U.S? The ones I quoted are global...including countries with a lot less pay equity than in western nations. I like to look at things on a global level, not just in my own country. No need to start name calling (in defence of the New Internationalist).

Anywho, for years I made about $20,000 more than my husband, because I had 5 years University education and years of experience teaching. Recently, he began an electrical apprenticeship (construction). His highest education was in his country, equivalent to our grade 9. He is a third year apprentice electrician, and he and I are now making equal pay. Now we've talked about this a lot... in his line of work there isn't really physical activity that I couldn't handle (in fact he bitches it's making him fat:)). Plus, he gets wicked overtime when he works extra. I've shadowed him on the job (thinking perhaps I should go into the trades!) and they spend an AWFUL lot of time driving or sitting around (waiting for the other tradesmen, plumbers and such, to do their thing). Ok...so I teach. I get lots of holidays (Christmas is the only paid one by the way)...and I'm on a salary. Which means the average 4 hours I work at home every day is not paid. Neither are my weekends which I spend marking or preparing materials. My husband complains I work too much:). Anyway...my point is... who the hell would hire ME with just a grade 9 education? A diner? Maybe...but I'd be competing against people with B.As, :) so probably not. Yet a man can still get a job that pays more than mine (he makes $10,000 more than me now, and he's not a journeyman yet!) with little education and no experience. Now you can argue that construction is a physical job that a woman may not be able to do as well...fine I'll give you that even though it's not always the case. My point is, a women generally has to get more education and have more experience, just to make the SAME as a man. So it takes us longer to make the same amount. Who knows...if we were both teachers or both electricians, we may be making exactly the same. I think I just feel a bit cheated here, since I'm still paying off crazy debt:)

operative concept: equal pay for equal work. Comparing raw pay recieved without reference to the work done has nothing to do with equal pay for equal work.

The last study I saw comparing men and women of the same experience in the same jobs showed women earning $1.07 for every $1.00 earned by the man, but this only applied to the US and the methodology was somewhat suspect. If we consider all paying work to be equal then there is just almost no difference in the US between men and women, employed women earn $0.77 for every $1.00 that men earn and work 0.78 hours for every 1.00 hours men work. But then again women tend to do more unpaid non-employment "work", like childcare and housekeeping, so how does one calculate or fix that problem?

I completely understand your figures...and agree for the most part. Yes, in the west, equal pay for equal work is pretty, well, EQUAL now. It's the differences in opportunities that I'm "bitching" about:). You're right...how do we factor in childcare and housekeeping (I actually saw somewhere some figures calculating what you'd have to pay if the wife didn't do it...but can't remember where). There is still a real issue in most women's lives...do I stay single, childless and really successful, or do I settle for less in order to have a family. There are certainly men out there who are pulling their own weight in the family circle, but that is still not the majority. Who should take care of the kids? Who should do the housecleaning? Quite often this is still not a shared thing...it is a one or the other issue. Which is crap. Men and women both have families (and thank goodness for more equality for men in terms of parental leave), and we should BOTH take care of them...and pay the penalties if we have to work less to do it. But oh well... straying from the original topic. I'll conceed that IN THE WEST, we have fairly equal pay for equal work. I just don't think that shows us equality between the sexes is complete. Rant done. :p

Sinuhue well there's a lot of disparity in the trades, a lot based upon the stregnth of the union.

A (an?) union longshoreman on the West coast of the US makes more than the average doctor in the US, and has considerably lower expenses in addition to less education and comparable working hours. But there are no reasons why women cannot be longshoremen (it's mostly done with machinery these days, forklifts and cranes) and men cannot become surgeons. Real difference, longshoremen have a better union.

But to return to equal pay for equal work, were you to become an electrician the is little doubt that you would recieve pay equal to your husband on the same jobs -provided you're both union, sorta undercutting the unequal pay argument. That's because the union has set the (high?) rate of wages for electricians, and that rate makes no reference to the sex of the electrician. But the unionized trades aren't really a good place to compare anyway, since they are not a free labor market, so employers aren't free to pay women less (if they in fact do so).

My dad get social security for being old and when he dies my mom get half his social secuirty.....I mean why should he get more and she get less?Well that's simple, your father paid into the SS system and is thus entitled to full benefits. However, your mother didn't pay into the system so she only receives the survivor's benefit. Your argument of it being unfair has no base unless they both paid the same amount into the system.

Well that's simple, your father paid into the SS system and is thus entitled to full benefits. However, your mother didn't pay into the system so she only receives the survivor's benefit. Your argument of it being unfair has no base unless they both paid the same amount into the system.
Don't forget also that in theory your father's benefits support two people, your father and your mother - while the half beenfit only supports one person, your mother. An equal ammount of money per person. As for whether or not wither benefit is a reasonable ammount that's a different wuaetion, but they are certainly "equal".

What makes men so special? Why should they get paid more than us for the same job?
My dad get social security...
Social Security is not a "Job"

Because men need several attempts to do it right...:D

So someone else reads the New Internationalist as well. Good magazine, and accurate too.

I voted number 3...because I dont know any female that gets paid less for doing the same job...

And I know a lot of females :D

operative concept: equal pay for equal work. Comparing raw pay recieved without reference to the work done has nothing to do with equal pay for equal work.

The last study I saw comparing men and women of the same experience in the same jobs showed women earning $1.07 for every $1.00 earned by the man, but this only applied to the US and the methodology was somewhat suspect. If we consider all paying work to be equal then there is just almost no difference in the US between men and women, employed women earn $0.77 for every $1.00 that men earn and work 0.78 hours for every 1.00 hours men work. But then again women tend to do more unpaid non-employment "work", like childcare and housekeeping, so how does one calculate or fix that problem?

In otherwords, women are lazy is what you are saying. Go home to Gor.

In otherwords, women are lazy is what you are saying. Go home to Gor.
What is Gor?...you lazy girl :D

What makes men so special? Why should they get paid more than us for the same job?

we live shorter!

nah, everyone should be paid equally as long as they are equally qualified.

...I have encountered instances where women are paid more then men.

Because men need several attempts to do it right...:D

So someone else reads the New Internationalist as well. Good magazine, and accurate too.

I don't know...I keep seeing people refer to it as a "special interest group barking skewed numbers" heheheheh.

Okay, looking at this site that was put up in another thread... http://www.eoc.org.uk/cseng/research/wm_pay_and_income_2003.pdf
it hows kind of what others have been saying about equal pay... that it IS equal, it's just that men are working longer hours (RE: harder :gundge: )...and that accounts for the difference...the base hourly wage is the same. However, I think this quote from the site puts it best:

A key explanation for the wider gender pay gap in the private sector is likely to be the differing representation of women in the three highest paid occupational groups (managers and administrators, professional occupations and associate professional and technical occupations)...in the public sector...women compris[e] 53 per cent of full-time employees....the equivalent figure for the private sector was only 27 per cent. (direct quote)

Meaning that sure, we get equal pay for equal work, but women do not have the same opportunities to get that equal work...we are not represented equally...and you can't say in the positions listed above that it is because of the difference in strength between the genders. The glass ceiling hasn't moved.

(yeah, I posted this in another thread but I actually think it belongs here)

In otherwords, women are lazy is what you are saying. Go home to Gor.
He said nothing of the sort. He gave you the info, which could certainly be interpreted that way. And if he had said women are lazy based on that info, it would be a legitimate comment. Probably it's more to do with women doing family stuff, though.

From the employer's or an outsider's perspective, it is of course perfectly reasonable to pay one less if they work less, or if they are less dependable or flexible. And of course, a school is not going to pay you for doing housework. That's essentially a second job. You could pretend your husband gives you a salary for it, I suppose.

Women also tend to be a bit less qualified for high paying jobs, as well. One reason that's been stated is that they never make up progress they lose during maternity leave and such. Another thing is the shorter hours, both slowing them down and making them less employable. There is one more thing, which is unrelated to motherhood. That is that women seem to pick lower paying fields in both employment and college. For example, engineering is a field absolutely dominated by men, but not necessarily because of discrimination. Women just don't enter the field. You can see this in the high demand and high admit rates engineering schools have for women, trying to balance their classes. Meanwhile, lower paying fields like teaching and psychology get lots of interest from women. Lots of low education, male dominated (often due to physical capability) work is unionized, too, and paying surprisingly high wages. When you add all these up, or even if you just consider the tradition of men being the providers, it's no wonder that men tend to pull in more money overall.

And as people have said, electricians make more than teachers, even if they are less educated. That imbalance is based on the job, not the gender. Same goes for plumbers.

Get an engineering degree and then you can talk about equal opportunities.

What makes men so special? Why should they get paid more than us for the same job?

You can't make a general question out of this; it depends on each individual situation. That's why there are laws against it in Texas, and those laws are administered by the Texas courts. If you feel you are being discriminated against, file a lawsuit.

same work same pay

No, its not right if the women can do what the men can. But if its a job that requires alot of strength and the woman might not be able to do the job as good and the man can do better the man should be paid just a little bit more. Same as if the woman is more organized in an office she should be paid more than a man that cannot do as good as she could. But if they have exactly the same they should both be paid the same.

No. It shouldn't be if he had lesser problems to lift something then she. It should be, can the person do the job at a pleasuring speed? If yes, no matter what sex or "race" he/she should be hired and the same wage(right word?).

I voted number 3...because I dont know any female that gets paid less for doing the same job...

And I know a lot of females :D

in my job, i get lower pay and fewer hours than my male coworkers.
my boss assumes that as a girl, i am unable to lift anything so i get put to work on the duties that are required for a shorter time than what my male coworkers do.

but then i start to unload the truck and bring heavy items from site to site (i find it's more the handle grips on things than the weight that causes problems) and i've helped my male coworkers carry things a number of times.

i'm aware that it's unfair, but there's nothing i can do except be glad that this isn't a carreer job and that i get to go back to school soon enough and never have to work there again.

That is that women seem to pick lower paying fields in both employment and college. For example, engineering is a field absolutely dominated by men, but not necessarily because of discrimination. Women just don't enter the field. You can see this in the high demand and high admit rates engineering schools have for women, trying to balance their classes. Meanwhile, lower paying fields like teaching and psychology get lots of interest from women.


you do have a point there. i'm in honours physics at my school and one of four girls in the program for my year. though there are a number of girls who are in medical physics...

and psychology is low paying?

same work same pay

Exactly, a very simple way to put it. I don't know why some people can't seem to grasp that concept.

down with annoying feminisim! :sniper: :mp5: :headbang:

In otherwords, women are lazy is what you are saying. Go home to Gor.
Erg I said nothing of the sort. I specifically qualifed that I was only taking about paid employment, if you draw from that the conclusion that women are lazy because they spend less of their life in the pursuit of a paycheck, that's your opinion, not mine. Women, at least in the US which has measured it, work .78 hours at paid employment for every 1.00 hour men work at paid employment, that's not opinion that's fact. If you believe the reason for this observed phenomena is laziness on the part of women, please justify it. Personally I suspect a fair ammount of it is due to women doing a disproportionate share of non-paid labor like child-care and housekeeping, but I really have nothing to back that up aside from anctedotal evidence and personal experience.

I imagine if men do spend more hours than women at paid employment and equal hours at non-paid labor, then I could accept that women are lazy - provided all work requires the same ammount of effort and men are not sitting in offices while women work on factory floors, or watching paint dry while women are reflooring the livingroom. But this is getting further afield and into the question of how hard work is, and I have to note here that some people can do certain things with minmal effort that other people find near impossible (ask Dakini). I doubt anyone has produced reliable metrics quantifying the effort expended in all the various labors by all the various people who do them, but if you have access to them we can compare them to the sex distribution of the labors and actually quantify if one sex or the other is lazier.

in my job, i get lower pay and fewer hours than my male coworkers.
my boss assumes that as a girl, i am unable to lift anything so i get put to work on the duties that are required for a shorter time than what my male coworkers do.
Well...do you do the same job? yes or no?
If you do...Give me the Name and Adress of your Employer...I personally know this Lawyer who wants to dend him a nice letter. :D

As far as I can tell its illegal to pay different rates for the same job based on gender. However, female dominated jobs (nursing for example) generally make a lot less than they should.

female dominated jobs (nursing for example) generally make a lot less than they should.
Female Nurses Should be paid more and Female Doctors should be paid less.

What is Gor?...you lazy girl :DWell if you really want an answer . . . wait if you really don't then don't read on.


Gor is a fantasy world created by someone with the penname of John Norman that is in Earth's orbit, just opposite the Eath so we never see it. On Gor men are real men and women are real sex slaves. According to the Gor books women have evolved with deep desires to be enslaved and only in slavery can they enjoy the greatest of all pleasure the slave orgasm which is the fufilment of thier purpose in life and slavery is what their genes force them look for. Men of course have evolved in a complementary manner to be masters. Goreans and Terrans are the same species and interracial sex occurs, usually enslaved Earth female and Gorean male, but Terran females are somewhat less genetically inclined to slavery than Gorean females (if I remember correctly, it's been a loooong time since I read a Gor novel). The technology of Gor is artificially limited to about that of the early iron age and society is set at about the city-state level of classical Athens, probably modeled after an idealized form of classical Greece, however they do maintain the technology to travel to Earth.

The series has been arround for about 4 decades now (I don't even know if "John Norman" is still alive) and has spawned a whole niche following, mostly as a subset of the B&D circuit. There is a Gorean Sex manual, if the concept of masculine domination/female submission interesting. There are Gorean parties where everything is themed as if it were Gor. There are Gorean societies similar to the more well known SCA. One can even buy Gorean based slave collars and brands in certain discriminating adult novelty stores.

In feminist circles Gor has become a synonym for a certain misogynistic viewpoint. Gee, I wonder what it is about Gor that upsets feminists so?

you do have a point there. i'm in honours physics at my school and one of four girls in the program for my year. though there are a number of girls who are in medical physics...

and psychology is low paying?
I saw a statistic somewhere that psych majors don't make much money. I think it's more because they have trouble finding work in that field, so they end up being social workers or something unrelated. Degrees in less employable fields are another thing hurting women's careers.

Gor sounds nice. :D