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Maddox put forward a interesting question about women getting paid less then men- He said "You know how I know that this is bullshit? Because if there was a way

• gizmo686 11y ago
  The implication is that companies would only hire women, as they are cheaper than men.
• mikeash 11y ago
  That's the idea. The problem is that it ignores other consequences. A company might save 30% on wages by hiring only women, and then find themselves with no clients because all of the potential clients are sexist. For a more concrete example, consider the old South, and whether stores there unfairly discriminated against black people. The equivalent argument would be: this is obvious bullshit, because if there was a way companies could instantly expand their customer base by 30% (or whatever the proportion of black people living in the South was), who in their right minds wouldn't do it! This argument ignores the fact that a store which admits black people might lose a large portion of their white clientele. Of course, the 30% figure is wrong. Women do earn 30% less than men, but not for the same work. Most of the earnings gap is because women work different jobs than men. There is a wage gap for the same jobs, but it's substantially smaller. But the fact that the conclusion happens to be correct doesn't make the argument not nonsense.