5 ms·

Discrimination? Please... Can we not use this word to describe this phenomena? The undertone of the study and article make this situation sound like there's so

by jsnk 11y ago

Discrimination? Please... Can we not use this word to describe this phenomena? The undertone of the study and article make this situation sound like there's something cynical happening. It's just supply and demand. I am a 5'11" male with medium build. Whenever I try to get my shoes sized 10-11, I consistently pay 10-15 bucks more than someone with shoe size 7 or 13. I also have to pay more on cloths because people who can wear xxs or xxl usually get swoop in on good deal during sales. Medium or large are always sold out. Does this sound like "discrimination"?

DanBC 11y ago
"price discrimination" is a term that isn't related to "sexual discrimination". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  Sure, but that's clearly not what this investigation is about. From the article: >DCA Commissioner Julie Menin, who launched the investigation this summer, said the numbers show an insidious form of gender discrimination. Compounding the injustice, she said, is the wage gap. Federal data shows women in the United States earn about 79 cents for every dollar paid to men. They're framing this as a social justice issue and even using that ridiculous 79 cents statistic, which has been thoroughly discredited. When making actual apples-to-apples comparisons, the wage gap becomes an error bar: ~96 cents on the dollar.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > which has been thoroughly discredited. No it hasn't. > When making actual apples-to-apples comparisons Which is how sexists justify paying women less for doing similar work, whilst ignoring the fact that they're also preventing women from getting the higher paying work.
    - marcoperaza 11y ago
      That 77 cents on the dollar statistic is just a comparison of the average earnings of all full time women with the average earnings of all full time men. There are so many confounding factors that you can't say anything meaningful about wage discrimination with that data. The idea that this statistic must be 1:1 is actually pretty horrifying. We all make tradeoffs throughout our lives between our careers, families, friends, hobbies, and indulgences. These are deeply personal choices. Whether by socialization or by birth, men and women are not identical. It's only natural that their aggregate preferences are different. What's important is that each person is free to make this decision for themselves. There's plenty of couples where the woman earns more. Men are much more likely to study engineering or math, while women are much more likely to study psychology, education, or social work. Women are much more likely to choose to slow down or pause their careers when they have children. Men are much more likely to put long hours into their work. Any attempt to measure gender pay discrimination has to control for these things. And then it starts to get really tricky when it comes to individually negotiated salaries. Men are on average better at negotiating their pay. And because job offers are often based on your current pay + some increase to lure you away, the effect gets compounded. This isn't discrimination, but it disadvantages women on average. Is the answer to ban pay negotiations? That's not realistic, it'd just depress pay across the board. The solution is to encourage women to negotiate their pay. As for your claim that women are being prevented from getting high-paying work, I'm not sure what you mean. Could you elaborate? Some sources for your enlightenment: Consad study for the Department of Labor: http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20... (seems to be down at the moment, but I've been able to access it before) Excerpt: > Although additional research in this area is clearly needed, this study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga... http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wage-gap-myth-that-wont-die-1443654408 http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wage-gap-myth-that-wont-die-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/04/09/president-obamas-persistent-77-cent-claim-on-the-wage-gap-gets-a-new-pinocchio-rating/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/04/...
goodJobWalrus 11y ago
Price discrimination is a scientific term in economics. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination

by jsnk 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago

"price discrimination" is a term that isn't related to "sexual discrimination". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination

marcoperaza 11y ago
Sure, but that's clearly not what this investigation is about. From the article: >DCA Commissioner Julie Menin, who launched the investigation this summer, said the numbers show an insidious form of gender discrimination. Compounding the injustice, she said, is the wage gap. Federal data shows women in the United States earn about 79 cents for every dollar paid to men. They're framing this as a social justice issue and even using that ridiculous 79 cents statistic, which has been thoroughly discredited. When making actual apples-to-apples comparisons, the wage gap becomes an error bar: ~96 cents on the dollar.
- DanBC 11y ago
  > which has been thoroughly discredited. No it hasn't. > When making actual apples-to-apples comparisons Which is how sexists justify paying women less for doing similar work, whilst ignoring the fact that they're also preventing women from getting the higher paying work.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    That 77 cents on the dollar statistic is just a comparison of the average earnings of all full time women with the average earnings of all full time men. There are so many confounding factors that you can't say anything meaningful about wage discrimination with that data. The idea that this statistic must be 1:1 is actually pretty horrifying. We all make tradeoffs throughout our lives between our careers, families, friends, hobbies, and indulgences. These are deeply personal choices. Whether by socialization or by birth, men and women are not identical. It's only natural that their aggregate preferences are different. What's important is that each person is free to make this decision for themselves. There's plenty of couples where the woman earns more. Men are much more likely to study engineering or math, while women are much more likely to study psychology, education, or social work. Women are much more likely to choose to slow down or pause their careers when they have children. Men are much more likely to put long hours into their work. Any attempt to measure gender pay discrimination has to control for these things. And then it starts to get really tricky when it comes to individually negotiated salaries. Men are on average better at negotiating their pay. And because job offers are often based on your current pay + some increase to lure you away, the effect gets compounded. This isn't discrimination, but it disadvantages women on average. Is the answer to ban pay negotiations? That's not realistic, it'd just depress pay across the board. The solution is to encourage women to negotiate their pay. As for your claim that women are being prevented from getting high-paying work, I'm not sure what you mean. Could you elaborate? Some sources for your enlightenment: Consad study for the Department of Labor: http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20... (seems to be down at the moment, but I've been able to access it before) Excerpt: > Although additional research in this area is clearly needed, this study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga... http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wage-gap-myth-that-wont-die-1443654408 http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wage-gap-myth-that-wont-die-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/04/09/president-obamas-persistent-77-cent-claim-on-the-wage-gap-gets-a-new-pinocchio-rating/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/04/...

goodJobWalrus 11y ago

Price discrimination is a scientific term in economics. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination