A couple of US news stories reported on the Netscape homepage today caught my eye immediately as the kind of thing that could (hopefully!) lead to a fun thread here on AD.

Here is a link. Highlights follow.



The article goes on to say that these 25 things can be boiled down to three, which are

1. Take jobs that are somehow unpleasant, harder to get into, involve boring or otherwise less typically "rewarding" work, requiring longer and/or antisocial hours, or involve risk (either financial or to personal safety).
   
   
2. Put in more hours. Typically men work longer hours because of the family support of the women in their lives (or their absence). The author says
   
   QUOTE
   If a male corporate manager chose to take care of his children, we'd applaud him but not expect the workplace to promote him as quickly. Yet when women do the same, women's advocacy organizations often expect just that. Both men and women must accept the consequences of their choices.
3. Be more productive in the hours you do work. The author's analysis suggests that for women and men in comparable jobs that both produce comparable levels of output, women tend to be paid slightly more than men.

Most of this is common sense to me, and the traditional feminist response has often been to say that "men's work" and "women's work" are valued differently by society, and that maybe encouraging women to work like men is not the solution they had in mind. Perhaps the European trend towards paid paternity leave might level the playing field somewhat, by increasing the amount of time men spend out of their jobs and with their families instead?

The other article that caught my eye was mainly focused on class actions - here is a link

Wal-Mart are attempting to challenge a class actions that charges them with sex discrimination against female employees. I think the Constitional basis of the Wal-Mart position is interesting and merits debate - on another thread. But I quote it here only inasmuch as it illustrates the relevance of the pay equality debate in todays' world.

So, my questions for debate are:
What do you think of Dr Warren Farrell's case?( that the main gender pay disparities left in the post-feminist world are caused by the different attitudes men and women have to their work, in particular the types of work they are prepared to do)If you disagree, what do you think DOES cause the real disparities in the way men & women are treated?

If this is a problem, should we try to influence businesses to change the way they think about rewarding people, or influence people to change how they think about work, or both? How?

What part, if any, does government (at any level) have to play?

Edited for spelling and clarity

This is a profound and important issue. I think Farrell makes a good case for the exact reasons why, in a broadly statistical sense, women make less money than men. I think, however, that we are missing a much deeper level of sexism than simply workplace discrimination.

Why are women over-represented in careers that are less "rewarding"? Why are men over-represented in careers that require more time? Why the statistical difference in productivity?

I contend that all these factors come about because of an assumption deep within the culture that women are "supposed" to be responsible for taking care of others; housework, child care, taking care of elders, and so on. If this aspect of life were genuinely equalized between the sexes, the statistical differences in the earning power of women and men would vanish.

The government's role can only be to forbid sex discrimination. It cannot change society's beliefs about sex roles. Only we, as individuals, can do that. In your heart, you must truly believe that it is OK for a man to be a househusband, and that it is OK for a woman to be strongly focused on her career.

Well said Victoria! I am not sure that we (in our hearts) will ever change this belief though. I can only speak from personal experience-- but I can say this. Before I had my daughter I was practicing law and working very long hours. I fully intended to take a leave of absence for four months after my daughter was born. Heck, I had even filed a brief 2 days before I was in the hospital having her! But after I had my daughter everything changed. My priorities completely changed and I quit my job to stay home with her. Later, when she was older, I got into teaching where my schedule matches hers. This has been my experience and I think many women feel this way. The conclusions reached by Farrel are accurate. But I am not sure there is anything that "society" can do about this as long as mothers find that they want to choose being home with their kids over working.

A generally reasonable explanation, subject to the same weaknesses as any arguments based at least partially on psychological and sociological observations. The female members of my family have voiced similar ideas, but I try not to overgeneralize... I don't mind remaining mystified by the way humans behave.

At the same time, I have also had the unfortunate experience of having to witness sexism in the workplace, even to the extent of having a few sexists fired. I don't think there is a practical way to prevent prejudices of any kind from creeping into the workplace, but when they do, they should be dealt with decisively and not allowed to continue.



Very few things in life have simple causes. In this case, it would seem reasonable that there is a blend of contributing factors, including sexism among some men, as well as some women valuing quality of life over pay, etc.-- all of them influence the statistics to a certain degree, the question is percentage that each factor contributes to the final result.

My sister once told a friend that women who refuse to work for pigs get every promotion they deserve. Her implication was that even if sexism is a problem in one workplace, another way to get higher pay is to shop your resume to companies with good records for valuing women. Her friend took her advice and got a better job with more pay at another company. About the same time, my sister quit her own job to have a baby. Everybody's different.



I'm not so sure mind control is the role of business. People that value some things in life more than their professional ambitions should not be marginalized, but at the same time they should accept that those people who are willing to sacrifice more are going to earn more.

Companies should not be allowed to presume that all women are going to be less ambitious than men and therefore less motivated to go the extra mile for the job-- instead they should treat each employee as an individual and reward her based on the merits of her work. If she chooses to emphasize work somewhat less than others, then that's her choice to make.

It would be nice if we could all be perfect in everything we do, but our time and energy are not limitless commodities, so sometimes we have to face the reality that to improve at something other than work can result in not being the best person for jobs that require absolute dedication.

I've given up some really great careers in my day to spend more time with family or to do volunteer work. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the major cuts in my pay that resulted. However, if I had been denied the big jobs up front because somebody thought my demographic was less dedicated, I'd have been royally ticked.



Government needs to police business to make sure employers are appropriately punishing cases of sexism, and that they are not allowing demographics rather than individual merit to influence salaries and promotions. Government should not engage in "reverse prejudice" by artificially forcing people to be paid higher wages based on their demographics rather than their individual merits relative to other employees in the same position.

Affirmative action is necessary when bigotry is the rule rather than the exception, but as soon as bigotry becomes the exception rather than the rule, affirmative action itself starts to become a form of bigotry. Some companies, indistries or localities probably still need affirmative action to counteract prevalent sexism, but most others can probably do well enough to have a reliable system of reporting sexism, investigating allegations and firing or docking sexists.

I'm tired of sexism and affirmative action destroying the stability of the American workplace. It seems to me that any minority whos performance is substandard can fall back on their ol' saftey net; affirmative action.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for equality, but I feel like we need to move on, and get past sexism as an issue. The fact that there is still a gap in average male and female payrates tells me that we have yet to move past it, which is a shame.




It troubles me that there are still people out there that discriminate on the basis of gender, but it troubles me even more that people make exceptions and special cases based on gender. The disparities in the treatment of men and women can be interpretted in two ways. One being that people still think men are superior workers to women, which is absurd; and two, that executives are finding it necessary to make special exceptions in the rewards of women for fear of lawsuits regarding discrimination. Both of these situations are inane to the point of annoyance.



Equality. It's time to enforce TRUE equality. I dream of a workplace; a society, where all people are equal in treatment. This means no special treatment, and no discrimination. At the moment, we live in a world where TV specials and books depict women as heroines for doing jobs formerly held only by men; a world in which affirmative action overshadows equality. I want my kids to live in a world where they are free to do anything they want to do, and not be recognized for their race or sex, but rather for their accomplishment. For example, you may here a news report that praises a female CEO of a largely male company. In my eyes, she's not special. I respect her position as CEO, but not her gender. It demeans one's people to ask for special recognition.



I'm not sure the government should involve itself in the business aspect of gender equaltiy, but certainly programs can be created that encourage true equality, which I tried to describe above.


Edited for clarity.

I think he's pretty much correct. While specific individuals may have been victims of sexist discrimination (or beneficiaries), the overall reality is people make their own choices and those choices have consequences. That the consequences may be unforseen, unintended, or disliked at some point down the road does not alter the fact that the person made the choice, and should be responsible for the results.

Julian, this is just about the silliest question you've ever asked, which, granted, is competing against a pretty small field of silly questions from you.

Businesses don't think. People think. Some of them are involved in business. Most, in fact almost all people involved in business work. Plus, of course, there's also lots of people working in government, and in a myriad of other realms aside from "business" who have an interest in the subject at hand. Now, if you want to rephrase the question to "should we try to influence people to change the way they think about rewarding other people", then it makes a little more sense. Of course, such efforts to influence people seem remarkably like attempting to impose a set of moral beliefs on others.

Aside from addressing the issues of how people working in government reward other people working in government, I would say that gov't should have little role.

Do you have any scientific (that's real science, not social science) evidence to back up your claim of "deeper level of sexism", or are we supposed to take your statement of faith as fact upon which to base public policy? If a woman does as HayleAnne did, is she making a rational choice, or merely succumbing to false consciousness due to the sinister manipulations of the patriarchy? (btw, show me your membership card in the Sisterhood, I'll show you my membership card in the Patriarchy.

More importantly, prove that these assumptions, if they exist, are cultural artifacts, rather than biological, and hence are amenable to modification. Because if they aren't mere cultural artifacts, then the charge for equality is worse than tilting at windmills.

I'm not sure what kind of "scientific proof" (given your rejection of all the social sciences) you would accept as evidence that there is a basic inequality in the roles that society expects of women and men. I could point out the most obvious examples, I suppose. Consider the lives of women under the Taliban. Consider the international crime of female genital mutilation. Consider the number of women who have been murdered for the sake of "honor" after having violated societal norms (such as being seen holding hands with a boy.) Of course, things here in the USA are not anywhere near that bad. On the other hand:

Rape Statistics





I hope this can be seen as evidence that there is something wrong with the relationship between the sexes.



Sorry, I'm just a member of the human race.

There is nothing at all wrong with what hayleyanne choose to do. My point is that, if hayleyanne had made a very different choice -- leaving the vast majority of child care to a husband, for example -- society would not approve of it as much. This is the attitude that I would like to change. This is one of the situations in which I think that American society's deep sexism harms men to a much greater degree than it does women. To some extent, at least, women who choose non-traditional roles can win a lot of respect. Sadly, men who choose non-traditional roles are less likely to win approval, even from themselves. A woman may be proud to be a "tomboy;" no man wants to be called a "sissy" or a "girly-man."



This is irrelevant to me. Let's pretend for a moment that gender roles are 100% biologically determined. (Does this sound even remotely reasonable? Never mind; this is just a thought experiment.) If this were true -- if our DNA resulted in the submission of one-half of humanity to the other half -- then it would be our ethical duty to overcome our biological limitations to make things more equal. I deny the assertion that biologically-determined aspects of human behavior (if there are any such things) cannot be changed, but this doesn't matter either. It cannot be denied that gender roles in the United States in 2005 are much, much different from what they were a mere century ago. Either these behaviors were culturally-determined, or else this is strong evidence that biologically-determined behaviors can be changed. I don't care which one is true; I just celebrate the change.

To get back to the question raised by Julian, the only role government can play is to forbid sex discrimination. (The Equal Rights Amendment would have been a nice place to start.) A much more important way to "influence how people think about work" (and many other aspects of life) is by pointing out that they have many more choices than they thought. Welcome the man who is "feminine" and the woman who is "masculine."

If this is tilting at windmills, then I am proud to be Donna Quixote.

I think the article was interesting. Yes, women can choose, finally. It wasnt an easy road.



The first thing I thought of was those women who hold road signs on street construction sights all day, you know, the stop/ slow. They make good money. There are nearly ever any men doing this. I would never be able to do this. Of course the men are driving the trucks, they have CDL's. Its hard to get work even with a CDL, you need someone to let you in, train and get hours. Some women have CDL's. They are the ones holding the signs. Some women drive trucks too. But how many men hold the signs?

Since when have women not been doing THE most boring jobs? Ill tell you, weve been doing them since the beginning of time before we had illegal immigrants to do them for us, since we were immigrants. Since before men let us do the interesting jobs, even before we were able to be educated to do the interesting jobs. All that is gone now, at least in the first world.



This is totally disingenuous, and so- pathetic, where has he been the last 100 years? There are women prison guards, roofers and coal miners, but as far as willingness to do 'unpleasant but necessary work' , I see far more females in traditionally male positions than I see male maids, secretaries, child care, retail, textile, social workers, school cooks, vomit, scum and urine cleaner uppers across the board, of unpleasant but necessary workers.



Here is the crux of the matter. Women hold up the family and men work longer. Im not sure this is a good thing, and I believe most women are be willing in a good two party situation to sacrifice money for quality of time, but if not, would their husbands pick up the slack as they have done?



Right on Victoria. I think its truly harmful when a man cannot exhibit nurturing aspects of his life and is put into strict roles by society. We can do anything we want now, men cannot without being feminized, mostly by each other! It hasnt evolved for males the way it has for females, which is a shame.

[quote=Victoria Silverwolf,Apr 5 2005, 06:29 AM]

[quote]I'm not sure what kind of "scientific proof" (given your rejection of all the social sciences) you would accept as evidence that there is a basic inequality in the roles that society expects of women and men.[/quote]Actually, there is logical background behind most of them. The problem only arises when people attempt to enforce such divisions of labor instead of allowing people to fall into their roles by the dictates of efficiency.

[quote]I could point out the most obvious examples, I suppose. Consider the lives of women under the Taliban. Consider the international crime of female genital mutilation.[/quote]Consider the lives of men under Judaism. Consider the international crime of male genital mutilation. My boyfriend's a jew, ma'am, so I'm close enough to the issue that I feel free to comment on it. Do you oppose this? Please do. I think that it should be banned.

[quote]Consider the number of women who have been murdered for the sake of "honor" after having violated societal norms (such as being seen holding hands with a boy.)[/quote]Yeah. This is one of the reasons that I'm against religion as a matter of principle.

[quote]Of course, things here in the USA are not anywhere near that bad.[/quote]Thankfully.

[quote]I hope this can be seen as evidence that there is something wrong with the relationship between the sexes.[/quote]No, men just have greater physical strength and are generally perfectly capable of fending off any forceful attentions from women. By the way, men are also expected by their culture to be tolerant of unwanted sexual advances by women.

[quote]Sorry, I'm just a member of the human race.[/quote]I think that this was his point.

[quote]There is nothing at all wrong with what hayleyanne choose to do. My point is that, if hayleyanne had made a very different choice -- leaving the vast majority of child care to a husband, for example -- society would not approve of it as much.[/quote]Are you kidding? I live in a fairly conservative region and, even here, she would have received a round of applause.

[quote]This is the attitude that I would like to change. This is one of the situations in which I think that American society's deep sexism harms men to a much greater degree than it does women.[/quote]In some cases, I would agree that it does. My bf's trying to fend off a suit that he wouldn't even be able to hold up, and that's after he hasn't even done anything wrong.

[quote]A woman may be proud to be a "tomboy;" no man wants to be called a "sissy" or a "girly-man."[/quote]You ever heard of drag queens?

[quote]This is irrelevant to me. Let's pretend for a moment that gender roles are 100% biologically determined.[/quote]I'd say that "influenced" is a better word, and it's largely physiological.

[quote]If this were true -- if our DNA resulted in the submission of one-half of humanity to the other half -- then it would be our ethical duty to overcome our biological limitations to make things more equal.[/quote]The thing is, this isn't true at all. Women wouldn't be very effective in rearing offspring if they weren't perfectly capable of being jackboots. Also, I think that most people have things backwards; there is actually scientific evidence of a biological process that causes men to have difficulty thinking clearly when in the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex. If women are affected similarly, then I would think that it would be a fair statement that the feeling is fairly mutual.

[quote]I deny the assertion that biologically-determined aspects of human behavior (if there are any such things) cannot be changed, but this doesn't matter either.[/quote]If you want to get yourself 'roided up, that's your dish.

[quote]It cannot be denied that gender roles in the United States in 2005 are much, much different from what they were a mere century ago. Either these behaviors were culturally-determined, or else this is strong evidence that biologically-determined behaviors can be changed. I don't care which one is true; I just celebrate the change.[/quote]I think that this is better explained by the invention of baby formula and by the steady advancements in labor-saving machinery. Men just have more brute strength than women, though I found it interesting that some researchers seem to believe that women are capable of having more strength per body mass. Also, I don't suggest putting a guy with meat-cleaver hands to work in the kitchen; he might hurt himself. Men make better chefs, though!

[quote]To get back to the question raised by Julian, the only role government can play is to forbid sex discrimination. (The Equal Rights Amendment would have been a nice place to start.)[/quote]I agree. Nearly all of the problems that the bill's opponent's pointed out would have been avoided through the route of simple common sense.

[quote]A much more important way to "influence how people think about work" (and many other aspects of life) is by pointing out that they have many more choices than they thought. Welcome the man who is "feminine" and the woman who is "masculine."[/quote]To each the position that he or she is best suited to fill.

[quote]If this is tilting at windmills, then I am proud to be Donna Quixote.
[/quote]Personally, I think that you might wish to give your opinions more thought. I'm a strong supporter of feminism, but I think that there are enough misperceptions in this regard to write a book on.

It seems the ability to file under class action can be upheld, if for no other reason, than for "Overriding National Interest", a claim that should be made extraordinarily rarely, but, given the damage the end of class action would do, seems applicable to this case.

What do you think of Dr Warren Farrell's case?( that the main gender pay disparities left in the post-feminist world are caused by the different attitudes men and women have to their work, in particular the types of work they are prepared to do)If you disagree, what do you think DOES cause the real disparities in the way men & women are treated?


I think that if men in American society do not want to remain childless all their lives or do not want to shoulder fifty percent of the childcare and household work, they should reconsider pushing this aspect of gender difference. Women often have a different attitude toward work because women's extra-employment duties are different from (and far heavier than) men's.

If this is a problem, should we try to influence businesses to change the way they think about rewarding people, or influence people to change how they think about work, or both? How?

Well, if our birthrate needs to remain up, there is only one way to tackle the situation: employers will have to shorten the workweek for men and women, and men will have to shoulder half of the child rearing and housework.

What part, if any, does government (at any level) have to play?

If the government does not fear longterm population decline, it need do nothing. If it does, it needs to lower the workweek from forty hours to approximately 30 (this still gives corporations more workers for less than they once had, since a man used to be able to support himself and his family without his wife working in many middle class occupations).

I don't think Dr. Farrell's case holds much water.

[*] Even a casual glance at the worse jobs in the American economy would show that "[taking] jobs that are somehow unpleasant, harder to get into, involve boring or otherwise less typically "rewarding" work, requiring longer and/or antisocial hours, or involve risk (either financial or to personal safety)" is no guarantee of high wages. The late-night 7-11 clerk is in a risky job (much more likely to be robbed or assaulted than most workers) that's boring and has terribly antisocial hours, but gets paid a lot less than many workers with less risky, normal-hours jobs.

Check out this report in Monthly Labor Review, a publication of the US government, comparing what sort of job traits are associated with wage premiums. The sort of traits that Farrell suggests pay a premium, are in fact hardly worth anything at all; in the case of people performing physically unpleasant or risky jobs, they actually suffer a slight wage reduction compared to similar workers with less risky jobs.

The idea that the free market fairly compensates people for risky and unpleasant work is comforting to free-market fans, but it isn't true in practice.

[*]It is true that men typically work longer hours than women (especially if you don't count unpaid work in the home). However, this doesn't account for all of the wage gap - even measured in hourly wages, there's still a substantial gap. Furthermore, Farrell assumes that how many hours people are assigned to work is something that they freely choose; but if to some extent employers assign hours to employees (which is the case in many real-world jobs), then it's unclear how much of the "hours gap" is due to free choice, and how much due to employer discrimination.

[*]I doubt the claim that men are more productive when they work is well proven; however, I don't have a copy of Farrell's book, so I can't examine the evidence he used to support this conclusion.



First of all, some employers simply discriminate. We should address this with beefed-up enforcement of existing anti-discrimination law.

We also need to change the base assumptions underlying how jobs are structured. Most jobs are designed for a "Father Knows Best" world, in which employers could safely assume that workers (and especially those workers in the best jobs) had "wives at home" taking care of the worker's caretaking obligations to children and to relatives, leaving the worker free to be totally dedicated to the workplace. This assumption may not always have been explicit, but it's implicit in jobs that make no provision for caretaking duties.

In today's world, assuming a "wife at home" is unrealistic and sexist. Instead, jobs should be designed to assume that all workers - male or female - might have significant family obligations that employers should accommodate as a matter of course.

There are many ways the government can encourage this modernization. We could expand family leave law, for example, providing mandatory months off for all new parents. We could give tax breaks to companies that provide flex-time for employees. We could lower the non-overtime working week to 30 hours a week, as someone else here suggested. We can help fund high-quality, low-cost child care. Etc.