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You're not punishing them just because they're female; you are rationally incorporating the increased risk of them being indisposed due to pregnancy into your c

by wyager 10y ago

You're not punishing them just because they're female; you are rationally incorporating the increased risk of them being indisposed due to pregnancy into your calculations. It's the same as car insurance companies charging more for insuring young men than for insuring young women. Whatever nice ideals we have about gender equality, there are often practical statistical differences between genders, and it's OK to recognize and use that information. Whenever you prevent people from rationally using this kind of information in economic decisions, you are hurting more than you are helping. In the car insurance case, if insurance companies were unable to charge more for the more risky young men, this would mean that young women were unfairly subsidizing the risk of young men. So there's no net gain, and there's a bit of a cost associated with the fact that the market is no longer able to accurately transmit price information, which would have done useful things like encouraging the development of safer car technology, encourage statistically risky driver demographics to bike or take public transport rather than drive, etc.

rifung 10y ago
> You're not punishing them just because they're female; you are rationally incorporating the increased risk of them being indisposed due to pregnancy into your calculations. Perhaps the latter is the intention but as far as I can tell it does not prevent the former from happening. > Whatever nice ideals we have about gender equality, there are often practical statistical differences between genders, and it's OK to recognize and use that information. I suppose this is our fundamental disagreement then. I recognize that there may be additional costs or burdens to businesses and even other consumers if companies are forced to ignore statistically relevant details in the name of equality. However, this is a price I am willing to pay to live in what I consider a civilized society. In a way this thinking even prevents social mobility. After all, if you are poor, it's less likely you would have a good education or upbringing, so is it okay for companies to discriminate against the poor? Feel free to accuse me of being an idealist, but I would rather we strive to live in a society where people are judged for who they are and not their race, sex, or other things which are completely out of their control.

by wyager 10y ago

rifung 10y ago

> You're not punishing them just because they're female; you are rationally incorporating the increased risk of them being indisposed due to pregnancy into your calculations. Perhaps the latter is the intention but as far as I can tell it does not prevent the former from happening. > Whatever nice ideals we have about gender equality, there are often practical statistical differences between genders, and it's OK to recognize and use that information. I suppose this is our fundamental disagreement then. I recognize that there may be additional costs or burdens to businesses and even other consumers if companies are forced to ignore statistically relevant details in the name of equality. However, this is a price I am willing to pay to live in what I consider a civilized society. In a way this thinking even prevents social mobility. After all, if you are poor, it's less likely you would have a good education or upbringing, so is it okay for companies to discriminate against the poor? Feel free to accuse me of being an idealist, but I would rather we strive to live in a society where people are judged for who they are and not their race, sex, or other things which are completely out of their control.