Society/Culture Feminism - 2017 Thread - Pt II

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Cue future complaints that women learn 'less' than men working in engineering despite not actually doing exactly the same work, or having the same work arrangements.
Unmarried women without children earn more than the similar male version, on average I believe.

There aren't as many so the few that benefit from positive cultures turning you into a token symbol of virtue impacts the numbers more heavily.
 

Fadge

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STEM is one of the biggest causes of the gender pay gap, decrease the discrepancy in M/F participation in STEM, you will reduce the gender pay gap.
Cue future complaints that women learn 'less' than men working in engineering despite not actually doing exactly the same work, or having the same work arrangements.
So why is it important to decrease this "gender pay gap"?
The Gender Pay Gap as it is calculated in Australia by the Workforce Gender Equality Agency exists only because there are more productive hours worked by Australian males than there are by Australian females over any given time period.

More productive hours not only means that males are earning more when paid on an equal hourly rate to women simply because they are contributing greater hours through overtime, etc. (seems fair to me), but it also means more experience, which in turn leads to increased eligibility to the more senior roles available within the Australian workforce (notwithstanding the equalisation quotas that are commonplace nowadays).

The Gender Pay Gap as it is calculated in Australia will therefore continue to exist until such time as the human anatomy evolves to the point where males can give birth to children. Only at this time will it be conceivable that females will be working an equal number of productive hours as males and therefore contributing equally across the national workforce.
 
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Fadge

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This is a nice bit of rhetoric, have fun


What Gender Pay Gap? Big little lies?
28 August 2019in Gender Pay Gap ,Tagged Australia, Gender pay gap, Equal Pay Day, [Un] Equal Pay Day.
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    Leonora Risse
    Dr Leonora Risse is an applied economist whose research focuses on understanding gender differentials in workforce outcomes. Her broader research expertise spans across labour economics, inequalities and disadvantage, population economics, and education. She is currently a Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at RMIT University, and a Research Fellow with the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. She gained public policy experience having previously worked as a Senior Research Economist for the Australian Government’s Productivity Commission.
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Gender Pay Gap:

Is the Gender Pay Gap a myth? Is it really 'a thing'? Don't we all know plenty of women who are paid the same as men?



Welcome to Equal Pay Day! A day to unpack the myth from the muddle and nonsense. Yes, the Gender Pay Gap is indeed 'a thing'. Today marks the additional 59 days women have to work from the end of the last financial year to earn the same amount as men.


So... if a gap really exists, how much of it is due to a woman's personal choices? Here, Dr Leonora Risse from RMIT University busts open some of the common myths and arguments. Read, absorb and send this on to every person you know who says... "Oh, but the women and men in my work are paid the same. There's really no such thing as the gender pay gap..."
Australia’s gender pay gap currently sits at 14%.

Australian full-time working women take home an average of $1485 per week in pay, while full-time working men take home an average weekly pay packet of $1726.

This gap of $241 is calculated using the latest workforce earnings survey information collected by Australia’s official data agency, the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Now, there may be many people reading this who believe that the gender pay gap is a load of nonsense. Or who are a bit confused by what it all means.

At a first glance, the concept of the ‘gender pay gap’ might not make sense. Especially because we know it’s against the law to pay workers different rates for doing the same job. It’s understandable to have some doubts and criticisms.

As an economist who studies the labour market, I want to address some of the commonly expressed concerns.

The gender pay gap is a myth
In Australia’s industrial relations system, it is illegal to pay a woman less than a man when they’re employed to do identical jobs - which is why you might be thinking that the gender pay gap is not real.

This law stems from the 1969 Equal Pay Case and is reflected in several subsequent pieces of legislation including the 1984 Sex Discrimination Act.

But paying workers the same rate for doing exactly the same job simply reflects the basic moral principle of ‘pay equity’ – this is not the same thing as the ‘gender pay gap’.

The gender pay gap is a calculation of the difference in female earnings compared to male earnings across all jobs and industries. It reflects a combination of factors, which I will unpack here.

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Women earn less because they work less
If you’re thinking that women take home less money than men because they usually work fewer hours in paid employment than men, you’re right.

Around 45% of working women are employed part-time, compared to less than 20% of working men. This reflects the reality that many women are juggling paid work alongside their family and caring responsibilities.

This is why the 14% gender pay gap calculation is based only on full-time earnings.

(Although, if we include part-time workers and calculate hourly wages, the gender pay gap still exists, as demonstrated in this latest KPMG report).

Women earn less because they work in industries that pay less
If you’re thinking that women receive lower pay because they tend to gravitate towards lower-paid industries such as education, healthcare and social assistance – while men are concentrated in higher-paid industries such as construction, mining and utilities – again, you’re right.


Some people argue, therefore, that if women wish to earn more, they should move out of traditionally female fields, and switch into jobs like engineering, mining, building and the trades instead. While this might sound like logical advice, imagine what would happen to society if we started losing nurses, school teachers, childcare workers, aged care workers, mental health workers and counsellors?

These female-dominated jobs are essential to fostering a healthy and educated society. The problem is that the true value of many of these ‘human services’ jobs are dispersed widely throughout society – the benefits are not immediately visible and not fully reflected in their low wages.

You might also argue that many women opt into care-oriented job because they’re more strongly motivated by a desire to help people than by higher earnings. Thank goodness we do have people in our society who care about helping others! But should it really mean that these caring jobs deserve to receive less pay?

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Women earn less because they do less dangerous work
Possibly you believe that female-dominated jobs, like nursing and teaching, don’t need to be paid as much because they are less risky and demanding.

It’s correct that the highest rates of workplace fatalities are reported in male-dominated industries – transport, warehousing, agriculture and construction. This is largely reflective of the physical element of these jobs.


Fatalities are undeniably the ultimate tragedy, though also not the only way to measure danger. If we look at the top 10 jobs with highest number of claims for workplace-related mental stress, we find the female-dominated professions health and welfare support workers, nurses, personal carers and school teachers, alongside paramedics, defence personnel, police officers, and bus and rail drivers. Stress in these occupations often comes from exposure to violence or a traumatic event, assault, harassment, bullying, and ongoing work pressures.

Rather than use these risk factors as leverage to justify a gender pay gap, surely a target of zero fatalities and minimal mental stress should be the aim of all modern workplaces.

Women earn less because they work in lower ranked jobs
Again, you’re right. Within most workplaces, men are more heavily represented among the senior occupational roles such as managers and CEOs.

Men tend to climb the career ladder more rapidly than women. Taking time out of the workforce to raise children is one of the obvious factors that interrupts women’s career progression. Remaining out of the workforce after having children is not always by choice, if the partner can’t share the caring load or the childcare costs preclude the financial gains of returning full-time.

But even if we remove the effect of motherhood, childless women do not necessarily reach senior ranks as quickly as men either. And even when women reach management levels, they still earn less than their male counterparts.

Women earn less because they lack ambition and confidence
While it might be perceived that men are more strongly motivated by money, there’s no consistent evidence that women flounder in terms of career ambition.

In fact, a study of Australian school students found no major difference between males and females in the factors motivating their career aspirations. Women are now surpassing men in terms of post-school educational achievements. Surely pursuing educational qualifications, especially at university level, takes ambition.


When it comes to confidence, it’s true that men generally report stronger confidence in their capabilities compared to women. And higher levels of confidence are linked to higher pay. But the sticking point here is that there is no economic evidence that higher confidence actually makes a worker a more productive and valuable to a company. Quite the opposite, an overconfident person can be more of a liability for a company through reckless decision-making.

Any advice offered to women to lift their confidence as a way to boost her earnings might sound well-intentioned, but is not backed up by any solid evidence. On the contrary, there’s greater risk that women who show assertiveness and ambition will be perceived disfavourably – think of how female managers are often stereotypically viewed as too pushy and too bossy.

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Women earn less because they are worse at negotiations
It’s now been shown that Australian women ask for a pay rise just as often as men, but are less likely to be awarded it. And if we add in bonuses and allowances – which are often negotiable components – the gender gap in total remuneration widens further.

Men are accruing more through negotiating – but any suggestion that women need to bargain more aggressively is not the solution, as women bear the risk of backlash for showing assertiveness in the workplace. In fact, women are pretty good are tuning into their environment and identifying when would be a good time to negotiate – and when not to. Plus, they are also pretty good at negotiating for others.

Often it’s the subtle influence of unconscious bias that makes all of us lean towards men for senior roles and reward them with higher pay – simply because it’s the societal template we are accustomed to. Unconscious bias is a factor we can start to tackle.

Ok, but why should I care about the gender pay gap?
Taking home lower pay means that women are less financially empowered than men. This has rippling effects, such as having less money to their name for a home loan, and less superannuation to cover their retirement years.

The 14% gap in pay means that women would, hypothetically, need to work an additional 59 days – that’s nearly two months extra – to catch up to the same pay packet as men over the course of a year. If we count of 59 days since the start of the financial year, we arrive at the 28th August as the date of “Unequal Pay Day”. Today is a symbolic reminder of that gap.


What can we do about it?
There are many everyday steps that workplace can take to close the gap in men and women’s pay and employment opportunities.

Organisations can be more transparent about current rates of pay, salary bands, and what items can be negotiated for. They can undertake an analysis of their own internal pay gaps. Interview panels can use performance-based objective criteria to judge a candidate’s suitability – as opposed to subjective assessments like “he reminds me of my younger self”. These strategies reduce the potential for unconscious bias to contaminate hiring and pay decisions, ultimately ensuring you are appointing and rewarding your workers on the basis of merit and value.

And, as individuals, the most important step you can take is to recognise that the gender pay gap exists in the first place.
Yep, hard to argue with any of that.... :rolleyes:
 
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What can we do about it?
There are many everyday steps that workplace can take to close the gap in men and women’s pay and employment opportunities.

Organisations can be more transparent about current rates of pay, salary bands, and what items can be negotiated for. They can undertake an analysis of their own internal pay gaps. Interview panels can use performance-based objective criteria to judge a candidate’s suitability – as opposed to subjective assessments like “he reminds me of my younger self”. These strategies reduce the potential for unconscious bias to contaminate hiring and pay decisions, ultimately ensuring you are appointing and rewarding your workers on the basis of merit and value.

I reject the gender pay gap arguments as presented in the article but I don't have an issue with the proposals outlined above. Except this is not what is being implemented. Companies are applying discriminative policies that favour women over men. Gender equality targets at each level of a company hierarchy result in policies, such as shortlisting a female for every vacancy, but also bias where the hiring manager takes a female candidate over a male to meet their gender equality target regardless of merit and value.
 
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I reject the gender pay gap arguments as presented in the article but I don't have an issue with the proposals outlined above. Except this is not what is being implemented. Companies are applying discriminative policies that favour women over men. Gender equality targets at each level of a company hierarchy result in policies, such as shortlisting a female for every vacancy, but also bias where the hiring manager takes a female candidate over a male to meet their gender equality target regardless of merit and value.

Correct, and this is a dangerous situation. I don't agree with everything Jordan Peterson says but his strategy would be ensuring access to all regardless of demographic and then letting the percentages of representation take care of themselves.

My company has an American business and I was talking to the director last month. He told me his daughter got a job in a technical role (electrical engineering) and they agreed on a salary. Then (no s**t) they said because there is a gender pay gap in their organisation of 30% she would receive 30% more than that wage!

Now who do you think is getting paid less in that org: the women engineers or the receptionist? Maybe they should pay the receptionist the same as the engineers instead? Fair play to her and good on her but this situation just confounds me.
 
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Correct, and this is a dangerous situation. I don't agree with everything Jordan Peterson says but his strategy would be ensuring access to all regardless of demographic and then letting the percentages of representation take care of themselves.

My company has an American business and I was talking to the director last month. He told me his daughter got a job in a technical role (electrical engineering) and they agreed on a salary. Then (no s**t) they said because there is a gender pay gap in their organisation of 30% she would receive 30% more than that wage!

Now who do you think is getting paid less in that org: the women engineers or the receptionist? Maybe they should pay the receptionist the same as the engineers instead? Fair play to her and good on her but this situation just confounds me.

Not fair play to her. That's ****ed. It's discriminatory to the men who joined the company with similar qualifications at the same time. And also to the men that missed out on the job just because she is female.
 

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Not fair play to her. That's f’ed. It's discriminatory to the men who joined the company with similar qualifications at the same time. And also to the men that missed out on the job just because she is female.
Also unfair to the males who have slogged their guts out for the company for the previous five years, and are now on a (significantly) lower salary despite more years of service and more experience just because they have balls...
 

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Can you both genuinely not think of a single reason to make STEM more accessible and appealing to women?

It should be common knowledge by now that women outnumber men at colleges and universities world wide, often at a ratio of 60/40. Coaxing more women into STEM fields to attain an equal gender ratio would eventually come at the expense of men, and the field as a whole. Disenfranchising men in a field where their natural strengths lie, is of no benefit to anyone and would likely exacerbate the already burgeoning disparity in higher education between men and women.


There are less women in STEM fields, because many people still hold the opinion that women don't belong in STEM fields.

There are less women in STEM fields because less women choose to pursue a career in STEM fields. Women in first world nations have the same opportunity and access to pursue a STEM career as men, but they don't because non-STEM professions appeal to them more. The reasons for this were explained quite clearly in post #7,083 and post #7,089. If you had read the articles posted by Goosecat then you would be familiar with the gender-equality paradox, a phenomenon that has been researched the world over which demonstrates that the countries with the highest level of gender equality have the lowest ratio of female STEM graduates. Giving women more access/opportunity to STEM fields does not increase the ratio of women in STEM; it actually does the opposite because when barriers to any and all career avenues are removed as much as humanly practicable, women still choose career paths that are more congruent with their natural interests and abilities such as nursing, teaching, psychology, child care. I'm at a loss as to why you can't understand this.

I know you're never going to read the articles Goosecat posted because it's more comforting to shield your eyes from the truth and stay inside your bubble than actually learning something - especially when you know it's going to prove you dead wrong. So I'm just going to advise you for your own benefit
that what you're arguing is contrary to what the established science and research in this area has already proven. Excerpt from one of the articles:

"In their study, researchers also discovered a near-universal sex difference in academic strengths and weaknesses that contributes to the STEM gap."

….


"These gender differences in academic strengths, as well as interest in science, may explain why the gender differences in STEM fields has been stable for decades, and why current approaches to address them have failed."


There is a stigma attached to it.

If there is a stigma associated with women in STEM careers, then lowering the bar for women is not going to alleviate that stigma - if anything it could create more of a stigma because it's telling women that they have a handicap in this area and can't compete with men on a level playing field.


Even with such a strong push from certain areas we still have people explaining that women are just different to men,

You mean people are pointing out reality to you, and you don't like reality because it gets in the way of your ideology? Your unwillingness to accept the fact that there are differences between men and women that culminate in them making different career choices, I think has provided everyone reading this thread with a fascinating insight into the very obvious shortcomings of feminist ideology.


STEM shouldn't be viewed as unsuited for specific genders, because it isn't unsuited for specific genders. The same way it isn't unsuited for specific races.

No, it's unsuited to people who don't possess the required academic strength in maths and science, which are more likely to be women.
 
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Not fair play to her. That's f’ed. It's discriminatory to the men who joined the company with similar qualifications at the same time. And also to the men that missed out on the job just because she is female.

I agree, but I don't hold it against her, it's not like you'd say no. But you'd hope her workmates don't find out about it for her sake.

Also unfair to the males who have slogged their guts out for the company for the previous five years, and are now on a (significantly) lower salary despite more years of service and more experience just because they have balls...

Yeah you're right of course, it's a funny way to approach the problem as well.
 

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Can someone please explain to a simpleton like me why it's important to increase the number of women in STEM in the first place? That is, what are the benefits in doing so?
To minimise that mystical "gender pay gap"

A true benefit would be to allow the smart kids that went public schools a lower entry score.

But no, the flavour of the month is gender.



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Royal Flush

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Feminist argument on gender pay gap,
On average men get paid the equivalent of 64 working days per year more then women in Australia.



Logically that's 8, 46 hour weeks


No lie that was a feminist argument posted on twitter.

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Women aren't prevented from STEM occupations, they are cheered for it and their employment can even be a patronising display of the company's virtue for hiring a womanfolk to wear a hard hat in the man cave.
Rubbish. The environment in STEM has been pretty bad for women since maths was invented.
 
Rubbish. The environment in STEM has been pretty bad for women since maths was invented.

The environment for the elite men in STEM has been pretty horrible for them outside of work until it began paying well too.

The woman who ran the math for the moon landings was pretty celebrated but you're talking about a field that tends to welcome the guys who traded some of their social ability for STEM ability and then not being as comfortable for women, who are social monsters.

One of my closest friends is a guy who works in this field and has as close to zero social ability as is possible. The world is better for him but I needed to learn how to communicate with him in his robot way. Those are the guys in the elite STEM jobs. They don't pad out their reality with wasted energy being spent on social pleasantries and it really, really, REALLY rubs some women the wrong way to be around them.

Someone reading that last paragraph will think I am being mean to him, him reading it would say that is a fair summation of the circumstances.
 
Justice events are very rarely able to be summarised in a single sentence.

Arrested doesn't mean charged, doesn't mean convicted. Claiming sexual assault when someone has been stabbed is just as valid as accusing her of trying to kill him unprovoked. Investigation would be required and considering she would have admitted to stabbing him and he said she stabbed him then it's the rest that is to be looked into, but she definitely committed a life threatening act on someone.
 

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The environment for the elite men in STEM has been pretty horrible for them outside of work until it began paying well too.

The woman who ran the math for the moon landings was pretty celebrated but you're talking about a field that tends to welcome the guys who traded some of their social ability for STEM ability and then not being as comfortable for women, who are social monsters.

One of my closest friends is a guy who works in this field and has as close to zero social ability as is possible. The world is better for him but I needed to learn how to communicate with him in his robot way. Those are the guys in the elite STEM jobs. They don't pad out their reality with wasted energy being spent on social pleasantries and it really, really, REALLY rubs some women the wrong way to be around them.

Someone reading that last paragraph will think I am being mean to him, him reading it would say that is a fair summation of the circumstances.
What does it say for feminism, when one of thier celebrated hero's, the woman who ran the man on the moon landings, is a fraud. Her claim to fame a lie.
 
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