"LABOUR markets are hotbeds of inequality. For every dollar a white American man in full-time work earns, the average white woman earns 78 cents and the average Latina only 56 cents."
Study after study has proven this statement false when accounting for the type of work done.
Which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't form the majority (or at least appear-to, judging by the net-effect of everyone interacting in the public-sphere).
Like @zo1 said, we don't really know the real landscape either. Just think of how little it takes to silence someone like Marc Andreessen. Now think of all the commentary people in tech don't say, especially on social issues, because the online masses with pitchforks will be after you.
Unfortunately that's the way it is for a lot of people after a certain point. The only counter example of this in tech I can think of is David Heinemeier Hansson.
Okay everyone took this a bit too literally. Obviously I don't mean he was literally silenced. But I would bet he's self-censoring a bit more: "I now withdraw from all future discussions of Indian economics and politics, and leave them to people with more knowledge and experience!" which was then followed by five tweets to explain the original tweet. That kind of reaction has to influence his willingness to speak on other topics not directly related to tech.
I'd imagine that pregnancy resulting in lower years of experience at the same age as the equivalently-aged man has an effect on that disparity as well.
Women aren't paid less because they take jobs for less money, women are paid less because men are promoted more, men dictate the location of families more, and women are encouraged to take on more of the homemaking as compared to their husbands.
Oh good, we've moved past the idea that a woman doing a specific job should earn less into a much harder problem of how do we convince society that women's careers are as important as mens.
edit: clarification: men dictate location of families.
Naaahh, those OBJECTIVE TRUTHFUL REAL Vulcans have anecdotal evidence to accuse "bullshit PC research". I would like to challenge the GP to post THREE pieces of research published in a journal that you would otherwise consider prestigious, to prove your point.
TO GP: There may be /are persons who argue that, of course. Don't pretend to be an 'objective'/impartial judge yourself.
If you only look within a given occupation, sure, the disparity isn’t as wide, but that fails to answer some important questions: why do the choices that women (or any given group) make result in them being paid less overall? Should they essentially be punished for those choices, particularly when you consider the power that money buys? Are some of the occupations that are dominated by women undervalued and underpaid, such as teaching and nursing? Consider watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV9zBAotFeo
If I make the decision to take up painting; my economic worth will decrease. That's personal.
I, as somebody who aspires to be a father some day, will try to make it worthwhile for mom; but ultimately her lifetime financial earnings will be less with kids, and that's something she will decide.
As far as occupations which are "underpaid", that's up to the employees. Nurses are paid what they value their work at, if they don't want to work for that money, they don't have to. Because nurses don't mind working for what they're currently paid, they are paid that much. If they were paid less, fewer of them would do the work.
That a person would continue to work for a given rate does not imply that they don’t mind working for that rate. There are many reasons why one might continue. They may not be trained in another occupation. They may not have the money to choose to stop working in an effort to make a statement about their rate. They may even want to continue working despite their objections about how much they’re being paid.
"should they essentially be punished for those choices"
Certain jobs are worth less than other jobs. Can we agree on this? I think it's reasonable that college education and experience allow me to earn more than someone working a job which requires neither.
Someone is organizing the system to pay the lowest possible wages. This someone operates within deeply entrenched structures of power. Someone also didn't let women vote until 1920 in the US... 1959 in Switzerland. And someone made sure that inheritance customs were patrilineal... someone admired extremely patriarchal societies like the old Roman and Greek... someone treated women as property... someone kept women out of the universities... someone kept them out of the guilds and professions... who is this guy?
That's the long story of the struggle for justice for women.
You seemed to say that gender injustice could only be perpetrated by some shadowy caricature "someone." I'm saying there is such a someone: the patriarchy.
On an individual level, perhaps, but how would individual negotiations explain the difference in pay between whole professions (where most of the pay gap is)?
It's not really that individual negotiations explain the larger differences. It's more that the problems with individual negotiations are symptomatic of the deeper gender issues.
Choosing work that is paid less in not being punished for your choices -- that's silly -- it's the obvious and expected result of having made that choice.
Nurses btw, make very good money.
Looking at a list of male-dominated fields just now, I noticed that they're all dangerous occupations: Construction, Logging, Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction.
Should they essentially be punished for those choices by bringing safer jobs' salaries to the same level?
> why do the choices that women (or any given group) make result in them being paid less overall?
If you pick a low-valued career, you will probably be paid less. No need to bring in gender here... movers are mostly men, and they're also low-value.
> Should they essentially be punished for those choices, particularly when you consider the power that money buys?
It's not punishment. They willingly give up the power of money by picking a career that earns less. If someone wants the power of money, pick a different career. Again, gender doesn't matter.
> Are some of the occupations that are dominated by women undervalued and underpaid, such as teaching and nursing?
Yes, but it has nothing to do with the dominating gender. Those fields are just under appreciated... it's a societal problem if we under value those professions, but (again) gender doesn't matter. Male nurses suffer the same problem.
It seem what you should be asking is: Are women inherently biased to pick these nurturing roles, and is this because of societal or biological pressures? If it's biological, is society responsible for correcting the economic imbalance by effectively subsidizing those roles? Should we accept that some careers are valued less, make this very obvious during formative years (highschool/college), encourage rational decision making, and accept any natural gender imbalances that result?
>Should they essentially be punished for those choices
Men are punished by working in more dangerous fields. They are literally killed for their choices and at a far worse rate than any income inequality, even of the most exaggerated reports.
But perhaps my biggest gripe over this whole issue is that I believe that had the occupational death rates for men and women been opposite what they are, we would be having radically different conversations about the issue.
Tangentially related; it was stated by some that the decline in the quality of education in the US is due to women having more options for other types of work. Meaning that women were once pigeon-holed into education as a career, thus the many brilliant and smart women who pretty much had education as one of the few career paths socially available to them started to leave to other fields as equality movement opened them up. Now we have results of the people who have entered education as a field being not as high of quality than when we forced all smart women into said field.
1. What study? Show 3 examples from reputable sources.
2. Soo... how do latina/white women magically end up in a lesser-paying profession? The counter to the 'but they like women's studies and teaching' is to remind you that women used to be a larger proportion in CS.
Most people who argue for wage-equality are arguing for a more fundamental change: how come women and minorities -- the traditionally oppressed groups -- just happen to have lower-paid fields? You attempt to dismiss it by arguing that since the type of work done is different, it's not an issue worth considering.
>2. Soo... how do latina/white women magically end up in a lesser-paying profession?
For Latina's, it is an SES issue. Having poor parents negatively impacts life opportunities.
As for the difference between women and men, society puts more pressure on men to be the primary income earners, which is one reason men take on vastly more dangerous jobs and work longer hours. Men are also pressured to take far less time off for children, and single men have less access to having children than single women, thus increasing the pay they earn over the lifetime of a career.
>the traditionally oppressed groups -- just happen to have lower-paid fields?
Why do men generally have the far more lethal fields?
The TLDR is the strongest correlating parameter that affects wage gap is child-rearing but not necessarily gender. Given a woman doesn't step out of the work force to raise a child, she should expect to have relatively equal pay to a man. That said society constantly pressures women to be the child-rearing gender in a hetero sexual relationship.
Of course, in a heterosexual relationship the often man earns for the family, and the woman can (and does, statistically) spend most of those earnings.
I don't think the pressure is unjustified either; it is, after all, literally the only reason the species exists.
This proves that having children imposes an economic penalty on the mother if there are no support systems in the form of quality daycare and such.
Maybe, the discourse should be how can we provide better childcare, along with safe and nurturing environments for kids when outside the home. That would convince women that it is worth it for them to remain in the workforce.
When the world is overpopulated, why should we subsidize greater population? Maybe in extreme cases like Japan (but really, they should open up more to immigration), but why for elsewhere?
You have a point that should be up for debate. The issue though is that the real cause for income disparity between men and women is not misogyny by men. And that we should not accept the current framing of that debate.
If we don't want to subsidize overpopulation, then maybe we should accept that women will sacrifice income over the wellbeing of their offspring. Something's gotta give at some point.
> motherhood drags female earnings down. .... Yet one minority appears immune to this scourge: lesbians.
> if employers promote them on the assumption that they will not have children and so devote more time to work than straight colleagues...
(Edited Some Spelling Issues SRY)
This seems to be the correct empirical evidence for me. I greatly admire people with a strong work ethic BUT it usually comes down to how many priorities you have above your priority to work. I feel like I have a strong work ethic but I can not compete with single, no children workers who put work above everything else or Frank Sinatra / Jimmy Johnson (Football Coach) who placed their work above their families.
In my experience, lesbians may also exhibit more assertive traits in demanding fields similar to their male counterparts.
Meaning that, perhaps, they are less likely to be taken more advantage of than their hetero counterparts only because of the innate disposition dynamic they create in dealing with others.
To reiterate, lesbians, who are in high-functioning/demanding positions seem to be more willing/capable of standing up for them selves in negotiations in such a way that they can (apparently provenly) produce better results for themselves.
TL;DR: assertive type-a behavior has its merits in negotiations, regardless of gender.
I believe you are. Plenty of Lesbians are submissive, and there are plenty of straight women that are aggressive negotiators. I work in fairly busy car dealership, and i can assure you some of the best (if not the best) sales people we have are straight women.
Anyway looks like a 60:40 split between men and women for buying vehicles from 1991-2000. However, there is a much more stark difference in the types of vehicles bought. If you are mostly selling used vehicles then most of your customers are men.
If you are pushing new vehicles and leases, it shifts more in favor of women.
I tend to agree with you. I think we hit an issue though where someone feels that they should have gotten that raise/promotion/whatever even though work is #4 on their list of priorities and everyone knows it.
Not saying that's your opinion, but sometimes this attitude comes out in some of the HN comments that it's unfair for someone who works 60 hours a week and answers emails at 9 pm to get a promotion over the single mother who walks in the door at 9 am sharp and is pulling out of the parking lot at 5.
sometimes this attitude comes out in some of the HN comments that it's unfair for someone who works 60 hours a week and answers emails at 9 pm to get a promotion over the single mother who walks in the door at 9 am sharp and is pulling out of the parking lot at 5.
I think the complaint is often more -- judge the actual business impact. Not shallow shiny measures, such as how long you're in the office.
Unfortunately, what I tended to see was a lot of ping pong from noon to 5pm, and then work from 5pm to midnight. Just because your workplace is your fun place, doesn't mean you deserve a promotion.
I think most of us think people should not be encouraged to work 60 hours a week, and that doing unpaid work and burning yourself out shouldn't be necessary in order to get a promotion. If somebody wants to go crazy and let their job take over their life then fine, but that behaviour is only going to cause problems in the long run, so it shouldn't be rewarded, and certainly shouldn't move the bar for everyone else.
You just described ageism. They replace you with that new person who can go till they also burnout. I was in one job where the average stay was a little over 2 years. It was working in Student Life at college and you were expected to work the 8 AM - 4 PM M-F and have three nightly meetings and be on call 7 days a week 24 hours a day one week a month. If there were emergencies I would be working till 2 AM and I "COULD" call in late aka come in at 10 AM or else be viewed a slacker. After 3 years I couldn't hack it and they had dozens of applications to replace my position. Then they fired the whole team and just rehired. It is still that way 10 years later.
> single mother who walks in the door at 9 am sharp and is pulling out of the parking lot at 5
I'm Dad and I pick my kids up at school at 3:15. I will leave at 3:05 and I will do work at home if necessary. My problem is other people are clearly more valuable to the bottom line of "Getting their Work Done." I didn't marry till I was 33 and I was always the MVP. After being married I can't just sleep and eat a project till it gets done anymore. Heck I would pull two all nighters a month just to know everything was done.
Right now I am in the point of life where my experience and core values are my value to the job. Thankfully I am in a place where those matter to my employers.
Its not healthy to work 60 hours a week, always be on call, and neglect everything else in life other than your job. More importantly (in this context) its not good for business. Time off is good for productivity. Productivity isn't measured in hours.
I have a friend who did research on this, and IIRC, I believe the hypotheses are:
1. They leave jobs after being outed and the churn results in lower earnings.
2. Two men, unencumbered by glass ceilings, forego max earnings to have better work life balance.
EDIT: I should qualify that I don't remember what the conclusions were.
They are less concerned about them having children and if they do, there is less impact to either individual because the gendered role of child care is equally applied. Gay men take a penalty for the same reason that there isn't a default woman in the relationship who will be socially pressured to care for the child and thus increases the risk that either man will be put into the role.
That isn't to say this explains all of the penalty. Homophobia leading to less employment options could also be an issue (and unequal homophobia targeted at either gender).
The simplest explanation which covers both reported lesbian premiums and gay male penalties on earnings is that social pressure exists for the man in a heterosexual relationship to take on the responsibility of being the main earner. Even without kids, the bias is towards the woman being the most likely person to cut back on their hours, take time out of work or at least not push their career quite so hard if the household doesn't need two full time incomes, and the man being the person to take on additional workload or push for a higher-paying role if the household is struggling to make ends meet.
And those who both did and didn't have children are paying for the previous generation. The only ones to have unearned social security are the original recipients and it is too late to do much of anything about that.
I think if people equate homosexuality with more earnings there is a real danger of people seeking it for the wrong reason. Hope this study does not encourage more women to become lesbian.
(Clarification: I'm male, so technically I'd be out of scope anyway since I'm supposed to earn less because of who I am according to the article, but the point stands.)
Or even try to force yourself to be attracted to someone you aren't attracted to regardless of sex/gender. It may happen over time on its own but you can't force that attraction into existence.
I was never wondering about the claimed impossibility of one person actually changing their sexual orientation physically/mentally, but instead whether they'd claim so for ulterior reasons. Think men having sex in prisons while still attracted to women.
I was never wondering about your claimed impossibility of one person actually changing their sexual orientation physically/mentally, but instead whether they'd claim so for ulterior reasons. Think men having sex in prisons while still attracted to women.
It doesn't follow that someone would choose to change their sexual orientation for a possible 9% increase.
People dont spontaneously change their sexual orientation because its slightly easier to do it this way, otherwise the hardships and trials that the gay community had experienced the last 50 years could have been waved away by just magically turning straight.
It's utter madness to suggest that is going to happen or people reading an article on a news site will somehow "decide" to go gay because of their pay.
IMO you absolutely deserve the downvotes for this argument, and most people probably dont think they need to justify such a widely accepted point.
We have no evidence that homosexuality is a choice. We do have evidence that it may have epigenetic [1] and/or neonatal origins [2], neither of which are factors under an individual's control.
Suggesting women may "turn lesbian" to access higher incomes thus presupposes a conversion mechanism that has not been shown to exist. Suggesting it as a possibility could be offensive to some given how gay rights were restricted with political arguments framing homosexuality as a personal choice.
Ok now the reply button shows up for this comment, weird, because before it didn't.
Anyway. You have a valid point, but are we to stop discussion of all potential events that may occur in the future because it may appear a inappropriate to some?
No study has suggested that anyone can just "turn lesbian" you are right, but that is before the current study was released and its impact measured on the masses. Why am I not allowed to think and speculate about what may happen as a result of this study?
Of course it's impossible to literally become homosexual. In your example there are people for instance who act black, but are not (think eminem). No one argues he has physically become black, but has adopted the many things that go with that. So please don't be under any illusion that when it comes to a topic as subjective as sexuality one must always be born homosexual or otherwise to claim to be one or the other.
"this" does not refer to simply being a lesbian. For example (hypothetical) it's also a danger for people to study poetry if they lack the cognitive skills to do so (whatever they may be), but choosing to go to school full time to study it anyway because they make 9% more money. Wrong reason for doing something does not mean that whatever thing itself is wrong. Where is the offensive part?
It is short-sighted to celebrate the economic returns of women having no/fewer children. Consider the average contribution to the furthering of mankind over one woman's lifetime (without children, her lineage stops there), versus the potential contribution from her 100 descendants in 3 generations' time, or 1000 descendants in 5 generations' time.
Unfortunately, this myopic fascination for short-term economic gain and "equality" persists, and yet we wonder why the developed world's economies are stagnating and teetering closer to failure. It's our birth rates, stupid!
Besides, people are so much more than economic units, despite what our media tells us. Each part of the world has its own unique history, philosophy, art, ethnicity, food -- all handed down from our respective ancestors. And yet, we continue to march into the abyss and throw it all away for the sake of the economy; individualism and consumerism is the name of the game nowadays.
There's no reason for this; we have to stop before we lose everything.
With women controlling between 80 and 95 percent of household incomes, and being responsible for 85 percent of all brand purchases, worldwide, women do not do uncompensated labour. This fallacy needs to be brought to an end.
I bring stats, and sources to refute baseless statements, and I get down voted. Any ideology that requires false statistics will fail.
In single income families, the income is shared, the household or domestic partners work in not uncompensated. And as to expenditures, the domestic partner, primarily the female childrearer is in charge of a huge percentage of that income, for everything from vehicle purchases, vacations, furniture, clothes, etc.
> You are vastly overestimating how many children people have.
Right, my post was complaining about how few children people are having. For the sake of contrast, I supposed an idealized situation where our fertility rates are comfortably above mere replacement, say 3 to 4 per woman. In such case, a woman with 4 children, each having 4 children, each having 4 children, will indeed have >100 descendants.
> The way forward is not to lean on women to do huge amounts of uncompensated labour, the return of which flows to someone else.
Over the past 10,000 years, we've determined a set of social constructs that solve this problem really well in the context of agrarian society: marriage (monogamous, enduring partnership between provider and carer), and religion (commitment to a purpose higher than yourself, because a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail).
Anyway, note my quotes on "equality": try as we might, women are not men, and nobody wins by getting women to be more like men. The ideal of equality is like communism: inspiring, misleading, and impossible. No one is equal, nor should they be.
Yes, but you have to look at it from a societal-engineering mindset. Religion was vital in getting everyone to commit to the collective rather than the individual.
FWIW, it's difficult to analyze this through today's society because I think the cancer of individualism rampant in our society bleeds into everyone regardless of their faith. For example, many Christians pray and act in order to be saved; totally individualistic. I believe this is a byproduct of our age, and with a more collectivist societal mindset we could address things like this.
We're not in an agrarian society, and in case you haven't noticed almost everyone gets the hell out of that situation as soon as they can when other opportunities present themselves.
a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail
You say this, implying the inevitable failure of capitalism; then you oppose communism; do you really want to go straight back to feudalism?
I made the wrong use of terms; by "agrarian" I meant non-nomadic; static; people living in one place working on things sometimes multiple economic edges from subsistence. Since we progressed away from nomadicism, we have determined these social structures that work for ensuring our survival, and indeed, maximizing our potential.
> a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail
Capitalism doesn't require individualism. You could argue that it tends to individualism, but I believe that with a strong societal philosophy (and perhaps a bit of oversight) it can be kept in check.
Capitalism is a bit like web development: it works, and makes sense, so long as you're not talking about it. As soon as you're talking about it, you're probably doing it wrong.
Agrarian society was only practical because a wealth of unused resources was available to each individual. Since then, we have barely managed to postpone an impending Malthusian catastrophe by optimizing the crap out of high-tech agriculture. The world isn't growing, and a population of seven billion is worse off in most ways a than a population of one billion would be.
I think our economic system more or less makes sense. By requiring a constant trend of growth, we can spur investment and make people more inclined to take on risk, which in general serves us better than not. As I mentioned in [0] (linked above), if we can get the fertility rate back up for another 100 years in order to drive good growth, I believe we will be able to eliminate most forms of scarcity. From there, we will have more flexibility.
For now, in a world of scarcity and competition, if we continue to perish without replacement, we are risking everything.
> The way forward is not to lean on women to do huge amounts of uncompensated labour
I read this, and I think of my wife. She does not earn a wage outside the home - and yet, she controls much more than 50% of the household income.
What is that, if not compensation? The fact that my name is the one on the check does not mean that the money is "mine". We've voluntarily agreed to combine our resources in order to raise a family.
I just noticed my comments here have been flagkilled, as well as the comment I made yesterday that I linked to from this one. This is incredible. I'll have to readjust my sensor for what speech is and isn't verboten here, but I'm sad that I overestimated Hacker News so. I went to a lot of effort to stay within the bounds, and maintain a respectful, objective argument.
To see such suppression happen somewhere like Hacker News of all places expresses to me how far gone we are as a society. If arguments such as those I made here aren't even allowed to be had on one of the more-open online forums, perhaps there is no hope for us.
If anyone is curious to read these killed comments, email me at: 319loe+5wpqjzb1szho2ovdi8aquyzh8js@sharklasers.com
I vouched for your flagkilled comments, maybe that will help unkill them.
While I don't agree with much of what you say, you're presenting your ideas in a thoughtful and respectful manner, so I don't personally feel they should be killed.
I understand your good intentions, but feel that you've been social engineered.
Those comments were flagged for good reasons, in the most positive from it is detestable that someone would try to use HN as a platform to advocate the exact opposite of what HN should attempt to stand for, in a more negative form this is simply trolling. As a result of not flagging comments like these I'd expect HN female participation to drop and eventually you'd see fewer female YC founders.
Which is exactly what the GP seems to desire since that increases the chances of them to fulfill their reproductive duty to mankind or whatever he feels it is they should be doing instead.
Novelty accounts spouting non-sensical flame-bait viewpoints relegating 50% of the population to bearing a minimum of 4 to 5 children (see other comments by the same user) are rightly flagged, they're not the kind of thing we should either tolerate or encourage.
That people trying to advocate such viewpoints play 'by the rules' to couch their trash in 'a thoughtful and respectful wrapper' goes past the fact that the 'flag' option is there for more reasons than just the tone of a comment (for instance, to flag flame-bait content), besides that comments that solely complaint about downvotes or flags are off-topic.
No, I'm fine with lots of opinions that I disagree with and the majority of those are not harmful. But this sort of drivel has no place on HN as far as I'm concerned, in fact if this were to become the norm (that you can spout any sort of nonsense as long as you do it 'respectfully') then I feel my time on HN should come to an end.
And maybe it should.
As for your edit: yes, exactly. That's the sort of thing that will eventually result if you condone this sort of trash, it won't happen overnight but it definitely will happen.
Plenty of non-lesbian women have no children, and the article explicitly mentions that they corrected for this and yet the gap persists.
Anyway, I think you're pushing some kind of fertility agenda with - guess what - the women only being good enough to raise kids, equality is a good thing, and the birthrate is not the problem, that's a totally separate issue.
No one is going to make the case that motherhood could or should improve a woman's earnings. Motherhood is diametrically opposed to careerhood; you give to one what you take from the other. This article merely states that there's still a gap between heterosexual and homosexual women when adjusting for motherhood, but I think it's safe to say that gap would be much narrower.
The article, as all mainstream media on the topic too often does, has an evident bias toward the working woman in contrary to the mother. When you realize this bias in our media, you see it everywhere. This article has language like: "motherhood drags female earnings down", "they could face positive discrimination, if employers promote them on the assumption that they will not have children", "it could be that in same-sex couples women do not feel obliged to do as much childcare or housework, giving them more freedom to fulfil their potential in the workplace".
The message is clear (and again; it's the message delivered by our entire media): being a mother is bad, girls. Devote your life to your career -- that will give you purpose and legacy.
> I think you're pushing some kind of fertility agenda
The word "agenda" implies you feel a need to discredit my ideas that we as a society should have an above-replacement fertility rate. Why?
For what it's worth, I believe our dying population is a result of a much wider cultural shift; sub-replacement fertility rates are just a symptom. My 'agenda' -- I'm happy to call it that because I believe it is the defining issue of our age, and everything humanity has worked for hangs on us getting this right -- is on much baser elements.
> the women only being good enough to raise kids
Psychological and sociological research over the past 50 years has managed to confirm what humans universally knew for millennia: women have a predilection towards caring, and men have a predilection towards providing. I agree that we should avoid pigeonholing people, but you would have to have quite the cognitive dissonance to avoid recognizing this pattern among the two sexes.
With such strong predilections, it makes sense then to encourage boys and girls to aspire to different things based on their tendencies and abilities to contribute the most back to their society. Men work on the world as it is and push it forward a bit, and women ensure there is a better generation to follow -- in general. Note that recognizing and celebrating tendencies among the sexes does not require that we dictate someone's path: if a girl becomes a successful author then her husband could become the predominant carer. Whatever!
My point is that we need to ensure there are capable generations to follow. If we don't, we lose everything.
If you would like to make the case for why equality is inherently good, is worth striving for, and is achievable, I'm all ears. I'm also curious to see you support your claim that our birth rates are not problematic (or are you agreeing with me here that there are deeper issues at play?).
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 196 ms ] threadStudy after study has proven this statement false when accounting for the type of work done.
Unfortunately that's the way it is for a lot of people after a certain point. The only counter example of this in tech I can think of is David Heinemeier Hansson.
Hyperbole much? He wasn't silenced in the slightest (which would be difficult to do, given the amount of money, i.e. power he has).
If getting a deleted tweet reprinted in several tech publications and on the top of HN is being "silenced", I would love to be silenced more.
In most of the U.S. there is no equivalent paternity leave, so this risk (to the employer) is asymmetric.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/whats-re...
Women aren't paid less because they take jobs for less money, women are paid less because men are promoted more, men dictate the location of families more, and women are encouraged to take on more of the homemaking as compared to their husbands.
Oh good, we've moved past the idea that a woman doing a specific job should earn less into a much harder problem of how do we convince society that women's careers are as important as mens.
edit: clarification: men dictate location of families.
TO GP: There may be /are persons who argue that, of course. Don't pretend to be an 'objective'/impartial judge yourself.
If I make the decision to take up painting; my economic worth will decrease. That's personal.
I, as somebody who aspires to be a father some day, will try to make it worthwhile for mom; but ultimately her lifetime financial earnings will be less with kids, and that's something she will decide.
As far as occupations which are "underpaid", that's up to the employees. Nurses are paid what they value their work at, if they don't want to work for that money, they don't have to. Because nurses don't mind working for what they're currently paid, they are paid that much. If they were paid less, fewer of them would do the work.
Certain jobs are worth less than other jobs. Can we agree on this? I think it's reasonable that college education and experience allow me to earn more than someone working a job which requires neither.
Do you think someone is purposely organizing the system so that women are paid less?
For everyone.
The rest of your comment seems to be about ancient history - what did you mean to say about society today?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_rights_(...
That's the long story of the struggle for justice for women.
You seemed to say that gender injustice could only be perpetrated by some shadowy caricature "someone." I'm saying there is such a someone: the patriarchy.
I think the people who make such decisions pay everyone as little as possible.
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-th...
That's begging the question.
It's also a loaded question.
Nurses btw, make very good money.
Looking at a list of male-dominated fields just now, I noticed that they're all dangerous occupations: Construction, Logging, Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction.
Should they essentially be punished for those choices by bringing safer jobs' salaries to the same level?
If you pick a low-valued career, you will probably be paid less. No need to bring in gender here... movers are mostly men, and they're also low-value.
> Should they essentially be punished for those choices, particularly when you consider the power that money buys?
It's not punishment. They willingly give up the power of money by picking a career that earns less. If someone wants the power of money, pick a different career. Again, gender doesn't matter.
> Are some of the occupations that are dominated by women undervalued and underpaid, such as teaching and nursing?
Yes, but it has nothing to do with the dominating gender. Those fields are just under appreciated... it's a societal problem if we under value those professions, but (again) gender doesn't matter. Male nurses suffer the same problem.
It seem what you should be asking is: Are women inherently biased to pick these nurturing roles, and is this because of societal or biological pressures? If it's biological, is society responsible for correcting the economic imbalance by effectively subsidizing those roles? Should we accept that some careers are valued less, make this very obvious during formative years (highschool/college), encourage rational decision making, and accept any natural gender imbalances that result?
If ${group} is valued less in society then it isn't a stretch that ${activities group does} becomes less valued in society.
Many here are quick to point out that weed was outlawed because it was an activity that minorities enjoyed.
I'm not saying that this is the case (idk) but its not an outlandish idea.
We don't pay people based on how we "value" them. Labor is a market like any other.
Men are punished by working in more dangerous fields. They are literally killed for their choices and at a far worse rate than any income inequality, even of the most exaggerated reports.
But perhaps my biggest gripe over this whole issue is that I believe that had the occupational death rates for men and women been opposite what they are, we would be having radically different conversations about the issue.
(Asking sincerely, not as critique.)
Most people who argue for wage-equality are arguing for a more fundamental change: how come women and minorities -- the traditionally oppressed groups -- just happen to have lower-paid fields? You attempt to dismiss it by arguing that since the type of work done is different, it's not an issue worth considering.
For Latina's, it is an SES issue. Having poor parents negatively impacts life opportunities.
As for the difference between women and men, society puts more pressure on men to be the primary income earners, which is one reason men take on vastly more dangerous jobs and work longer hours. Men are also pressured to take far less time off for children, and single men have less access to having children than single women, thus increasing the pay they earn over the lifetime of a career.
>the traditionally oppressed groups -- just happen to have lower-paid fields?
Why do men generally have the far more lethal fields?
The TLDR is the strongest correlating parameter that affects wage gap is child-rearing but not necessarily gender. Given a woman doesn't step out of the work force to raise a child, she should expect to have relatively equal pay to a man. That said society constantly pressures women to be the child-rearing gender in a hetero sexual relationship.
I don't think the pressure is unjustified either; it is, after all, literally the only reason the species exists.
Sure, as long as she puts in the same hours and is as willing to travel.
> if employers promote them on the assumption that they will not have children and so devote more time to work than straight colleagues...
(Edited Some Spelling Issues SRY)
This seems to be the correct empirical evidence for me. I greatly admire people with a strong work ethic BUT it usually comes down to how many priorities you have above your priority to work. I feel like I have a strong work ethic but I can not compete with single, no children workers who put work above everything else or Frank Sinatra / Jimmy Johnson (Football Coach) who placed their work above their families.
Meaning that, perhaps, they are less likely to be taken more advantage of than their hetero counterparts only because of the innate disposition dynamic they create in dealing with others.
To reiterate, lesbians, who are in high-functioning/demanding positions seem to be more willing/capable of standing up for them selves in negotiations in such a way that they can (apparently provenly) produce better results for themselves.
TL;DR: assertive type-a behavior has its merits in negotiations, regardless of gender.
The real thing is that the best ones tend to be "single" mothers, so they are very motivated. Sales is 90% motivation, talking to a lot of people.
The average sales person tends to be lazy as heck.
http://www.bls.gov/cex/anthology/csxanth8.pdf
Anyway looks like a 60:40 split between men and women for buying vehicles from 1991-2000. However, there is a much more stark difference in the types of vehicles bought. If you are mostly selling used vehicles then most of your customers are men.
If you are pushing new vehicles and leases, it shifts more in favor of women.
Sales to others WRT to a product that you are not/do not personally make is different than all other sales of personal services/self traits...
I'm sure you understand this.
Not saying that's your opinion, but sometimes this attitude comes out in some of the HN comments that it's unfair for someone who works 60 hours a week and answers emails at 9 pm to get a promotion over the single mother who walks in the door at 9 am sharp and is pulling out of the parking lot at 5.
I think the complaint is often more -- judge the actual business impact. Not shallow shiny measures, such as how long you're in the office.
Unfortunately, what I tended to see was a lot of ping pong from noon to 5pm, and then work from 5pm to midnight. Just because your workplace is your fun place, doesn't mean you deserve a promotion.
I'm Dad and I pick my kids up at school at 3:15. I will leave at 3:05 and I will do work at home if necessary. My problem is other people are clearly more valuable to the bottom line of "Getting their Work Done." I didn't marry till I was 33 and I was always the MVP. After being married I can't just sleep and eat a project till it gets done anymore. Heck I would pull two all nighters a month just to know everything was done.
Right now I am in the point of life where my experience and core values are my value to the job. Thankfully I am in a place where those matter to my employers.
Source? Want to check if adjustments are made for occupation type.
I think it's less concern, and more the actual act of having children taking time and experience away from the persons resume.
1. They leave jobs after being outed and the churn results in lower earnings. 2. Two men, unencumbered by glass ceilings, forego max earnings to have better work life balance.
EDIT: I should qualify that I don't remember what the conclusions were.
That isn't to say this explains all of the penalty. Homophobia leading to less employment options could also be an issue (and unequal homophobia targeted at either gender).
But thats not on topic.
At least, I sure as hell didn't.
(Clarification: I'm male, so technically I'd be out of scope anyway since I'm supposed to earn less because of who I am according to the article, but the point stands.)
People dont spontaneously change their sexual orientation because its slightly easier to do it this way, otherwise the hardships and trials that the gay community had experienced the last 50 years could have been waved away by just magically turning straight.
It's utter madness to suggest that is going to happen or people reading an article on a news site will somehow "decide" to go gay because of their pay.
IMO you absolutely deserve the downvotes for this argument, and most people probably dont think they need to justify such a widely accepted point.
Also unable to reply to "JumpCrisscross" above, perhaps because he has so many points? Any ideas why?
Suggesting women may "turn lesbian" to access higher incomes thus presupposes a conversion mechanism that has not been shown to exist. Suggesting it as a possibility could be offensive to some given how gay rights were restricted with political arguments framing homosexuality as a personal choice.
[1] http://www.nature.com/news/epigenetic-tags-linked-to-homosex...
[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296090/
Anyway. You have a valid point, but are we to stop discussion of all potential events that may occur in the future because it may appear a inappropriate to some?
No study has suggested that anyone can just "turn lesbian" you are right, but that is before the current study was released and its impact measured on the masses. Why am I not allowed to think and speculate about what may happen as a result of this study?
Normal. HN has rate limiting. The reply link eventually does show up.
Consider the racial wealth gap [1]. Would you find it appropriate to say "I hope this study does not encourage more white people to become asian"?
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/business/racial-wealth-gap...
2: Homosexuality isn't dangerous.
Poor people?
[ What ??? You guys don't like it when you get called out on class war ???? ]
Unfortunately, this myopic fascination for short-term economic gain and "equality" persists, and yet we wonder why the developed world's economies are stagnating and teetering closer to failure. It's our birth rates, stupid!
Besides, people are so much more than economic units, despite what our media tells us. Each part of the world has its own unique history, philosophy, art, ethnicity, food -- all handed down from our respective ancestors. And yet, we continue to march into the abyss and throw it all away for the sake of the economy; individualism and consumerism is the name of the game nowadays.
There's no reason for this; we have to stop before we lose everything.
(I wrote some more on this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11076964)
You are vastly overestimating how many children people have.
equality
The way forward is not to lean on women to do huge amounts of uncompensated labour, the return of which flows to someone else.
(source she-conomy.com)
In single income families, the income is shared, the household or domestic partners work in not uncompensated. And as to expenditures, the domestic partner, primarily the female childrearer is in charge of a huge percentage of that income, for everything from vehicle purchases, vacations, furniture, clothes, etc.
If I'm wrong, show proof.
Right, my post was complaining about how few children people are having. For the sake of contrast, I supposed an idealized situation where our fertility rates are comfortably above mere replacement, say 3 to 4 per woman. In such case, a woman with 4 children, each having 4 children, each having 4 children, will indeed have >100 descendants.
> The way forward is not to lean on women to do huge amounts of uncompensated labour, the return of which flows to someone else.
Over the past 10,000 years, we've determined a set of social constructs that solve this problem really well in the context of agrarian society: marriage (monogamous, enduring partnership between provider and carer), and religion (commitment to a purpose higher than yourself, because a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail).
Anyway, note my quotes on "equality": try as we might, women are not men, and nobody wins by getting women to be more like men. The ideal of equality is like communism: inspiring, misleading, and impossible. No one is equal, nor should they be.
It is objective untrue that people without a religion only pursue their own interests.
FWIW, it's difficult to analyze this through today's society because I think the cancer of individualism rampant in our society bleeds into everyone regardless of their faith. For example, many Christians pray and act in order to be saved; totally individualistic. I believe this is a byproduct of our age, and with a more collectivist societal mindset we could address things like this.
We're not in an agrarian society, and in case you haven't noticed almost everyone gets the hell out of that situation as soon as they can when other opportunities present themselves.
a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail
You say this, implying the inevitable failure of capitalism; then you oppose communism; do you really want to go straight back to feudalism?
I made the wrong use of terms; by "agrarian" I meant non-nomadic; static; people living in one place working on things sometimes multiple economic edges from subsistence. Since we progressed away from nomadicism, we have determined these social structures that work for ensuring our survival, and indeed, maximizing our potential.
> a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail
Capitalism doesn't require individualism. You could argue that it tends to individualism, but I believe that with a strong societal philosophy (and perhaps a bit of oversight) it can be kept in check.
Capitalism is a bit like web development: it works, and makes sense, so long as you're not talking about it. As soon as you're talking about it, you're probably doing it wrong.
For now, in a world of scarcity and competition, if we continue to perish without replacement, we are risking everything.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11076964
I read this, and I think of my wife. She does not earn a wage outside the home - and yet, she controls much more than 50% of the household income.
What is that, if not compensation? The fact that my name is the one on the check does not mean that the money is "mine". We've voluntarily agreed to combine our resources in order to raise a family.
To see such suppression happen somewhere like Hacker News of all places expresses to me how far gone we are as a society. If arguments such as those I made here aren't even allowed to be had on one of the more-open online forums, perhaps there is no hope for us.
If anyone is curious to read these killed comments, email me at: 319loe+5wpqjzb1szho2ovdi8aquyzh8js@sharklasers.com
While I don't agree with much of what you say, you're presenting your ideas in a thoughtful and respectful manner, so I don't personally feel they should be killed.
Those comments were flagged for good reasons, in the most positive from it is detestable that someone would try to use HN as a platform to advocate the exact opposite of what HN should attempt to stand for, in a more negative form this is simply trolling. As a result of not flagging comments like these I'd expect HN female participation to drop and eventually you'd see fewer female YC founders.
Which is exactly what the GP seems to desire since that increases the chances of them to fulfill their reproductive duty to mankind or whatever he feels it is they should be doing instead.
Novelty accounts spouting non-sensical flame-bait viewpoints relegating 50% of the population to bearing a minimum of 4 to 5 children (see other comments by the same user) are rightly flagged, they're not the kind of thing we should either tolerate or encourage.
That people trying to advocate such viewpoints play 'by the rules' to couch their trash in 'a thoughtful and respectful wrapper' goes past the fact that the 'flag' option is there for more reasons than just the tone of a comment (for instance, to flag flame-bait content), besides that comments that solely complaint about downvotes or flags are off-topic.
So here we are.
Fewer YC female founders as a result of this thread? Seriously????
And maybe it should.
As for your edit: yes, exactly. That's the sort of thing that will eventually result if you condone this sort of trash, it won't happen overnight but it definitely will happen.
"Nonsense" "Trash" "Drivel"
You're not OK with opinions that vary from your own. You language is pretty clear on that point.
Anyway, I think you're pushing some kind of fertility agenda with - guess what - the women only being good enough to raise kids, equality is a good thing, and the birthrate is not the problem, that's a totally separate issue.
The article, as all mainstream media on the topic too often does, has an evident bias toward the working woman in contrary to the mother. When you realize this bias in our media, you see it everywhere. This article has language like: "motherhood drags female earnings down", "they could face positive discrimination, if employers promote them on the assumption that they will not have children", "it could be that in same-sex couples women do not feel obliged to do as much childcare or housework, giving them more freedom to fulfil their potential in the workplace".
The message is clear (and again; it's the message delivered by our entire media): being a mother is bad, girls. Devote your life to your career -- that will give you purpose and legacy.
> I think you're pushing some kind of fertility agenda
The word "agenda" implies you feel a need to discredit my ideas that we as a society should have an above-replacement fertility rate. Why?
For what it's worth, I believe our dying population is a result of a much wider cultural shift; sub-replacement fertility rates are just a symptom. My 'agenda' -- I'm happy to call it that because I believe it is the defining issue of our age, and everything humanity has worked for hangs on us getting this right -- is on much baser elements.
> the women only being good enough to raise kids
Psychological and sociological research over the past 50 years has managed to confirm what humans universally knew for millennia: women have a predilection towards caring, and men have a predilection towards providing. I agree that we should avoid pigeonholing people, but you would have to have quite the cognitive dissonance to avoid recognizing this pattern among the two sexes.
With such strong predilections, it makes sense then to encourage boys and girls to aspire to different things based on their tendencies and abilities to contribute the most back to their society. Men work on the world as it is and push it forward a bit, and women ensure there is a better generation to follow -- in general. Note that recognizing and celebrating tendencies among the sexes does not require that we dictate someone's path: if a girl becomes a successful author then her husband could become the predominant carer. Whatever!
My point is that we need to ensure there are capable generations to follow. If we don't, we lose everything.
If you would like to make the case for why equality is inherently good, is worth striving for, and is achievable, I'm all ears. I'm also curious to see you support your claim that our birth rates are not problematic (or are you agreeing with me here that there are deeper issues at play?).