3 ms·

What other individual traits and axes (apart from gender) are "protected from pay discrimination" in the US? I'm genuinely curious -- is there an official enum

by Radim 9y ago

What other individual traits and axes (apart from gender) are "protected from pay discrimination" in the US? I'm genuinely curious -- is there an official enumeration? I ask because there's no limit to the number of ways you can slice and dice a human population, based on a million facets each person has. So I wonder, where did the legislators draw the line? And why? Why not somewhere else?

hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
- Radim 9y ago
  Thanks. That seems a fascinating topic, the emergence and evolution of these "protected classes" over time. I'll try to descend into your links once I have more time, but a TL;DR discussion on "why we drew the line here, not there" would be great too. Is it mainly a function of how vocal or powerful a subpopulation is? Something else? What other subdivisions will become privileged next? Where is this trend headed?
cLeEOGPw 9y ago
It's an easy way to divide population and make them fight internally. This tactic is very effective, because if other ones would put focus on law creators, a division of population makes it so people, at least large part, assign blame for injustice to the other side of the division. In this case, the attack on population is two-fold - on one hand you have women that you convince are unjustly paid lower than men doing "same" job, on the other hand you create perceived injustice on men side, where men work hard both at actual work and at negotiations for salary in companies like google, and then they see women getting same as them without putting any effort in negotiation. Or even worse - they see their salaries sliced to match those of women who didn't negotiate/didn't commit enough to their job. With attack like this it's hard to see the actual responsible entity, the top some percent of population by wealth, whom are actually benefiting from these laws. They win in any way - if women don't get paid the same in the end, they create tension between genders, that misdirects attention from their excessive wealth, and if women get paid same, it means they can pay men lower, also creating tension from men side.

by Radim 9y ago

hn_throwaway_99 9y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class

Radim 9y ago
Thanks. That seems a fascinating topic, the emergence and evolution of these "protected classes" over time. I'll try to descend into your links once I have more time, but a TL;DR discussion on "why we drew the line here, not there" would be great too. Is it mainly a function of how vocal or powerful a subpopulation is? Something else? What other subdivisions will become privileged next? Where is this trend headed?

cLeEOGPw 9y ago

It's an easy way to divide population and make them fight internally. This tactic is very effective, because if other ones would put focus on law creators, a division of population makes it so people, at least large part, assign blame for injustice to the other side of the division. In this case, the attack on population is two-fold - on one hand you have women that you convince are unjustly paid lower than men doing "same" job, on the other hand you create perceived injustice on men side, where men work hard both at actual work and at negotiations for salary in companies like google, and then they see women getting same as them without putting any effort in negotiation. Or even worse - they see their salaries sliced to match those of women who didn't negotiate/didn't commit enough to their job. With attack like this it's hard to see the actual responsible entity, the top some percent of population by wealth, whom are actually benefiting from these laws. They win in any way - if women don't get paid the same in the end, they create tension between genders, that misdirects attention from their excessive wealth, and if women get paid same, it means they can pay men lower, also creating tension from men side.