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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 ab

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.
  - Grustaf 9y ago
    I am not saying any of that, no. I'm simply explaining why nannies don't earn much. Still, they earn more than monks, who in some societies are seen as pillars of existence in a very literal sense. My point is again that income is set by supply and demand, not value in some deeper sense. The market "knows the price of everything and the value of nothing"
    - projektir 9y ago
      Well, there's also a lot of supply of sprinters. Anyone can be a sprinter. There are far more sprinters than the world needs. Yet, nonetheless, there is value found in the Olympic sprinter. Or the NCAA sprinter. Why? Well, because a high skill in sprinting is valued as opposed to a lower skill in sprinting. It's something you can train at, get better at, and get recognized for. Something that would set you apart from all the other sprinters. Well, where are the Olympic nannies earning millions of dollars, then? If you're going to talk about supply and demand, you may want to think about why there's demand for something. Why is there demand for Olympic sprinters? Why is there no demand for Olympic teachers? That's really the question.
      - Grustaf 9y ago
        Simple. Teaching doesn't scale, an olympic sprinter will do their thing in front of hundreds of millions of viewers.

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.
- Grustaf 9y ago
  I am not saying any of that, no. I'm simply explaining why nannies don't earn much. Still, they earn more than monks, who in some societies are seen as pillars of existence in a very literal sense. My point is again that income is set by supply and demand, not value in some deeper sense. The market "knows the price of everything and the value of nothing"
  - projektir 9y ago
    Well, there's also a lot of supply of sprinters. Anyone can be a sprinter. There are far more sprinters than the world needs. Yet, nonetheless, there is value found in the Olympic sprinter. Or the NCAA sprinter. Why? Well, because a high skill in sprinting is valued as opposed to a lower skill in sprinting. It's something you can train at, get better at, and get recognized for. Something that would set you apart from all the other sprinters. Well, where are the Olympic nannies earning millions of dollars, then? If you're going to talk about supply and demand, you may want to think about why there's demand for something. Why is there demand for Olympic sprinters? Why is there no demand for Olympic teachers? That's really the question.
    - Grustaf 9y ago
      Simple. Teaching doesn't scale, an olympic sprinter will do their thing in front of hundreds of millions of viewers.