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When the explanation for women being paid less / having less power overall is that men have superior bodies for tasks (from athletes to programmers), it does se

When the explanation for women being paid less / having less power overall is that men have superior bodies for tasks (from athletes to programmers), it does seem to come off that way. It's little help that women have better verbal and emotional skills if they do not appear to be valued in our society.

aianus 9y ago
The highest paying jobs are managerial not technical. If anything emotional skills are much more valued in our society.
- projektir 9y ago
  Yet high-paid managerial and control jobs are dominated by men.
  - kamaal 9y ago
    This is because emotions and empathy are a small part of management. Bulk of it is politics. And politics is a ultra-competitive space which it own demands.
Grustaf 9y ago
You should take care to separate these two very different questions. You should also not forget that there are values other than monetary. I'm sure most people "value" their midwives or nannies infinitely higher than their plumbers or even bankers.
- Mz 9y ago
  Yes, that is why nannies and so many other Pink Collar Ghetto jobs are paid so poorly: Because we value these people so much.
  - Grustaf 9y ago
    I don't know if this is sarcasm or too deep for me to grasp, but my point is that there are many forms of value. Not just economic. Income is not decided based on how much the majority of people value occupations, it's not even a factor. Soldiers are usually highly valued but earn very little. Monks have often had even higher status and made no money at all. Money lenders were reviled but rich. Etc etc etc. EDIT: Soldiers do earn little considering the risks they take, and the status of the job. This is still true in countries with modern professional armies, but it was much more true historically. So much so that many higher class people would actually _pay_ for the privilege. They had no shortage of money but wanted the glory that military service could bring.
    - Mz 9y ago
      Soldiers are usually highly valued but earn very little. My father and ex husband were both career military. You are misinformed. In the US, soldiers get relatively little cash pay because they are provided free room and board, free medical, a free burial, free life insurance, and can access a host of other free amenities for merely flashing their ID card, such as access to free legal services for some purposes. If they serve at least 20 years, they get a retirement check for life. If you join at age 18, as most soldiers do, you can retire as early as age 38 and readily pursue a second career. Unless you were maimed in war, you will still be young and able-bodied. They can buy a house with no down payment and the federal government will help them pay for college. Military retirees tend to be in quite good financial shape. What the federal government does not give them in cash pay it more than makes up for in countless benefits. People who say they value what you do but do not want to pay you adequately for the job are basically taking advantage. Women are routinely expected to do things out of the goodness of their hearts, because they care. I am a woman. I have been homeless for 5.5 years. I am incredibly sick of people acting like "we love what you do!" And then not wanting to pay me anything. I have spent a lot of time deconstructing this problem space and I very much expect to get paid these days. I do a lot less giving it away for free. Because the vast majority of people expecting me to benefit them because I care absolutely do not care that I struggle to get enough to eat every month and I need money to get off the goddamn street and back into housing. Poverty in the US is overwhelmingly an issue for women and children. If we valued women so much, this travesty should not be true.
- projektir 9y ago
  I tend to believe they're highly interrelated. The belief in the superiority of a gender could very well lead to the belief in the superiority of both their abilities and the value of said abilities. We live in a capitalist society, where both value and power is expressed through money. If you are to tell me that midwives and nannies are worth more than they are paid, what is your explanation for that? It's all the same thing.
  - Grustaf 9y ago
    No, value in general is not expressed through money, only market value. For some things they correlate, for others not at all. The reason a nanny makes very little is because of supply and demand. On the supply side most young women can become nannies, it requires no special education. Demand wise people would not hire them if their cost approached what the parent that would otherwise stay home makes. At the same time you entrust your children, that you doubtless value more than anything in the world, to the nanny. Same with midwives. The "value" they create is infinite, their salaries are not, mostly because it is not _that_ difficult to become one, so if the supply is low you can just raise the salary slightly and demand would catch up. You could even argue that the _economic_ value they create is many times what they earn. Without midwives a significant proportion of children would not survive, and GDP would fall appreciably. Yet they can not bargain with that, since they don't have a monopoly. If they won't deliver children, someone else will. That is not true for olympic sprinters or Fortune 500 CEOs, the supply of talent is so much smaller. On the other hand you have particle physicists and accomplished poets. The supply of them is also very low, but so is the demand. I also suspect that neither group is very income sensitive, they do what they do because they have to, not because it pays more than something else. Clearly income and value are very different things.
    - projektir 9y ago
      So what you appear to be saying is that the only thing women are good at is something they're all good at about equally and immediately. And something that the current system is completely unable to properly monetarily register and the system just relies on them giving it away for free while getting nothing in return. That all sounds very convenient. It's also interesting that all of these things seem related to children. Why don't you add childbirth to the mix.

aianus 9y ago

The highest paying jobs are managerial not technical. If anything emotional skills are much more valued in our society.

projektir 9y ago
Yet high-paid managerial and control jobs are dominated by men.
- kamaal 9y ago
  This is because emotions and empathy are a small part of management. Bulk of it is politics. And politics is a ultra-competitive space which it own demands.

Grustaf 9y ago

You should take care to separate these two very different questions. You should also not forget that there are values other than monetary. I'm sure most people "value" their midwives or nannies infinitely higher than their plumbers or even bankers.

Mz 9y ago
Yes, that is why nannies and so many other Pink Collar Ghetto jobs are paid so poorly: Because we value these people so much.
- Grustaf 9y ago
  I don't know if this is sarcasm or too deep for me to grasp, but my point is that there are many forms of value. Not just economic. Income is not decided based on how much the majority of people value occupations, it's not even a factor. Soldiers are usually highly valued but earn very little. Monks have often had even higher status and made no money at all. Money lenders were reviled but rich. Etc etc etc. EDIT: Soldiers do earn little considering the risks they take, and the status of the job. This is still true in countries with modern professional armies, but it was much more true historically. So much so that many higher class people would actually _pay_ for the privilege. They had no shortage of money but wanted the glory that military service could bring.
  - Mz 9y ago
    Soldiers are usually highly valued but earn very little. My father and ex husband were both career military. You are misinformed. In the US, soldiers get relatively little cash pay because they are provided free room and board, free medical, a free burial, free life insurance, and can access a host of other free amenities for merely flashing their ID card, such as access to free legal services for some purposes. If they serve at least 20 years, they get a retirement check for life. If you join at age 18, as most soldiers do, you can retire as early as age 38 and readily pursue a second career. Unless you were maimed in war, you will still be young and able-bodied. They can buy a house with no down payment and the federal government will help them pay for college. Military retirees tend to be in quite good financial shape. What the federal government does not give them in cash pay it more than makes up for in countless benefits. People who say they value what you do but do not want to pay you adequately for the job are basically taking advantage. Women are routinely expected to do things out of the goodness of their hearts, because they care. I am a woman. I have been homeless for 5.5 years. I am incredibly sick of people acting like "we love what you do!" And then not wanting to pay me anything. I have spent a lot of time deconstructing this problem space and I very much expect to get paid these days. I do a lot less giving it away for free. Because the vast majority of people expecting me to benefit them because I care absolutely do not care that I struggle to get enough to eat every month and I need money to get off the goddamn street and back into housing. Poverty in the US is overwhelmingly an issue for women and children. If we valued women so much, this travesty should not be true.
projektir 9y ago
I tend to believe they're highly interrelated. The belief in the superiority of a gender could very well lead to the belief in the superiority of both their abilities and the value of said abilities. We live in a capitalist society, where both value and power is expressed through money. If you are to tell me that midwives and nannies are worth more than they are paid, what is your explanation for that? It's all the same thing.
- Grustaf 9y ago
  No, value in general is not expressed through money, only market value. For some things they correlate, for others not at all. The reason a nanny makes very little is because of supply and demand. On the supply side most young women can become nannies, it requires no special education. Demand wise people would not hire them if their cost approached what the parent that would otherwise stay home makes. At the same time you entrust your children, that you doubtless value more than anything in the world, to the nanny. Same with midwives. The "value" they create is infinite, their salaries are not, mostly because it is not _that_ difficult to become one, so if the supply is low you can just raise the salary slightly and demand would catch up. You could even argue that the _economic_ value they create is many times what they earn. Without midwives a significant proportion of children would not survive, and GDP would fall appreciably. Yet they can not bargain with that, since they don't have a monopoly. If they won't deliver children, someone else will. That is not true for olympic sprinters or Fortune 500 CEOs, the supply of talent is so much smaller. On the other hand you have particle physicists and accomplished poets. The supply of them is also very low, but so is the demand. I also suspect that neither group is very income sensitive, they do what they do because they have to, not because it pays more than something else. Clearly income and value are very different things.
  - projektir 9y ago
    So what you appear to be saying is that the only thing women are good at is something they're all good at about equally and immediately. And something that the current system is completely unable to properly monetarily register and the system just relies on them giving it away for free while getting nothing in return. That all sounds very convenient. It's also interesting that all of these things seem related to children. Why don't you add childbirth to the mix.