5 ms·

Eh, just because females have advantages in some domains doesn't mean that their overall advantages in life are outweighed by the overall male advantages in lif

by zasz 15y ago

Eh, just because females have advantages in some domains doesn't mean that their overall advantages in life are outweighed by the overall male advantages in life. Stuff like the salary gap, stereotype threat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat), and being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids affect most adult women for most of their lives. Murder is a pretty rare event, and men, as the traditionally more risk-taking sex, could be bringing quite a bit of it down on themselves. I'd take the increased chance of murder, personally.

spindritf 15y ago
> the salary gap Men don't earn more money for being men (not any more at least, if it was ever true): > according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00....
- wpietri 15y ago
  Amazing what happens when you read the whole article: you discover that a) this is a market research survey guy, and b) his theory is due to the fact that the women are better educated, and therefore better qualified. Which means that this is definitely not evidence that evidence that women get paid the same as men when all else is equal.
  - knucker3 15y ago
    It's not just this one guy though: http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20... http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=7763 http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_detai... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E6DD1531F936A3575AC0A9639C8B63 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E6DD1531F... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903454504576486690371838036.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190345450457648... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVvaQ0xxni8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVvaQ0xxni8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow
    - wpietri 15y ago
      Thanks. That's helpful. However, that first link, the only one from a neutral source, suggests that sexism and male privilege are indeed still problems. They say that they couldn't account for 24-35% of the wage gap. And the portions they could account for were due to: * more women work part time * more women take time off to care for children and the elderly * women value 'family-friendly' workplaces more The first one isn't really an explanation; it says nothing about why that's the case. The second is at least partly due to societal policing of gender roles: talk to any couple where the guy stays home with the kid and you'll hear both partners complain about how they're treated. The man is unmanly; the woman, unwomanly. It's also self-reinforcing; the wage gap means that guys make more, so there's economic incentive for women to stay home. The third could be similar: ceteris paribus, it should be parents who value family-friendly workplaces more. So I think this study confirms that there is a salary gap, and that a good portion of the reason for it is exactly what Zasz says: women "being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids". The study also suggests that what gap-closing has happened is due to changes in human capital. That is, women being more educated and more experienced in jobs typically held by men. That demonstrates to me that sexism was indeed a major problem in the past, that historical "women are just different" arguments are bunk, and that there's no particular reason to think that December 2011 is the month where we've solved the problems that come from millennia of oppression of women.
makomk 15y ago
On the other hand, stuff like the causes of the salary gap, stereotype threat, and being expected to give up contact with your kids to be the one raising money to bring them up affect most adult men for most of their lives. (There's support out there for heterosexual men giving up their careers to raise kids but only so long as this decision is made by the kids' mother based on what benefits her personally.) The wage gap is also curious because these days it results mostly from men and women doing different kinds of work, and campaigners demand totally different solutions for high-status jobs than they do for low-status ones. For stuff like tech industry startups there are lots of campaigns to include more women. On the other hand, if you take street-side trash collection (another job which is also largely male) instead there are campaigns for women to get the same pay for doing "equivalent" jobs like office cleaning. Now, trash collection of this kind is an awful lot more dangerous than cleaning offices and this is both why it's better paid and why there are few women doing it; for various reasons people get more upset about a woman dying in a horrific industrial accident than a man so employers have an incentive to discourage women, and there's not so much social pressure for them to get dangerous jobs. Equality would require making people care more about men dying or less about women, both of which benefit men rather than women, so feminists go for the unequal option of paying women for doing less than men instead. Edit: For example, if you play video games take a close look at the gender of the mooks that you kill en-masse. That's just one of the subtle messages saying that men are disposable in mass media.
- kstenerud 15y ago
  Actually, men in crappy, dangerous jobs is an evolutionary trait. It's also why they're (traditionally) the ones to go to war and why everyone thinks women and children are to be protected above all else. If 90% of the males in a population die, it takes 1 generation to recover. If 90% of the females in a population die, it takes 5 generations to recover. Meanwhile, they are easy pickings for other competing populations.
  - makomk 15y ago
    Well, that's probably kind of true and it matters a lot if you're doing something like constructing a fictional matriarchal society. It's not exactly relevant in modern times though; we don't (or at least shouldn't) stop women from working because having other options might discourage them from having kids anymore, why should we allow other kinds of horrible gender-based discrimination in the name of population increase?

by zasz 15y ago

spindritf 15y ago

> the salary gap Men don't earn more money for being men (not any more at least, if it was ever true): > according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00....

wpietri 15y ago
Amazing what happens when you read the whole article: you discover that a) this is a market research survey guy, and b) his theory is due to the fact that the women are better educated, and therefore better qualified. Which means that this is definitely not evidence that evidence that women get paid the same as men when all else is equal.
- knucker3 15y ago
  It's not just this one guy though: http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20... http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=7763 http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_detai... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E6DD1531F936A3575AC0A9639C8B63 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E6DD1531F... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903454504576486690371838036.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190345450457648... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVvaQ0xxni8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVvaQ0xxni8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow
  - wpietri 15y ago
    Thanks. That's helpful. However, that first link, the only one from a neutral source, suggests that sexism and male privilege are indeed still problems. They say that they couldn't account for 24-35% of the wage gap. And the portions they could account for were due to: * more women work part time * more women take time off to care for children and the elderly * women value 'family-friendly' workplaces more The first one isn't really an explanation; it says nothing about why that's the case. The second is at least partly due to societal policing of gender roles: talk to any couple where the guy stays home with the kid and you'll hear both partners complain about how they're treated. The man is unmanly; the woman, unwomanly. It's also self-reinforcing; the wage gap means that guys make more, so there's economic incentive for women to stay home. The third could be similar: ceteris paribus, it should be parents who value family-friendly workplaces more. So I think this study confirms that there is a salary gap, and that a good portion of the reason for it is exactly what Zasz says: women "being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids". The study also suggests that what gap-closing has happened is due to changes in human capital. That is, women being more educated and more experienced in jobs typically held by men. That demonstrates to me that sexism was indeed a major problem in the past, that historical "women are just different" arguments are bunk, and that there's no particular reason to think that December 2011 is the month where we've solved the problems that come from millennia of oppression of women.

makomk 15y ago

On the other hand, stuff like the causes of the salary gap, stereotype threat, and being expected to give up contact with your kids to be the one raising money to bring them up affect most adult men for most of their lives. (There's support out there for heterosexual men giving up their careers to raise kids but only so long as this decision is made by the kids' mother based on what benefits her personally.) The wage gap is also curious because these days it results mostly from men and women doing different kinds of work, and campaigners demand totally different solutions for high-status jobs than they do for low-status ones. For stuff like tech industry startups there are lots of campaigns to include more women. On the other hand, if you take street-side trash collection (another job which is also largely male) instead there are campaigns for women to get the same pay for doing "equivalent" jobs like office cleaning. Now, trash collection of this kind is an awful lot more dangerous than cleaning offices and this is both why it's better paid and why there are few women doing it; for various reasons people get more upset about a woman dying in a horrific industrial accident than a man so employers have an incentive to discourage women, and there's not so much social pressure for them to get dangerous jobs. Equality would require making people care more about men dying or less about women, both of which benefit men rather than women, so feminists go for the unequal option of paying women for doing less than men instead. Edit: For example, if you play video games take a close look at the gender of the mooks that you kill en-masse. That's just one of the subtle messages saying that men are disposable in mass media.

kstenerud 15y ago
Actually, men in crappy, dangerous jobs is an evolutionary trait. It's also why they're (traditionally) the ones to go to war and why everyone thinks women and children are to be protected above all else. If 90% of the males in a population die, it takes 1 generation to recover. If 90% of the females in a population die, it takes 5 generations to recover. Meanwhile, they are easy pickings for other competing populations.
- makomk 15y ago
  Well, that's probably kind of true and it matters a lot if you're doing something like constructing a fictional matriarchal society. It's not exactly relevant in modern times though; we don't (or at least shouldn't) stop women from working because having other options might discourage them from having kids anymore, why should we allow other kinds of horrible gender-based discrimination in the name of population increase?