We had a troll pop by yesterday to whine that women don’t actually get paid less than men, they’re just worth less, which was a good reminder of the injustice; but I mainly take note because my wife is a member of AAUW so of course she took me by the ear and told me I had to remind everyone that women are getting ripped off everywhere, and also that it’s compounded by racial discrimination.
For African-American and Hispanic women, the wage gap is worse, which means it takes even longer for their salaries to "equal" the salaries of their white male counterparts. White men are used as a benchmark because they are the largest demographic group in the labor force. African-American and Hispanic women are paid less than their white and Asian-American peers, even when they have the same educational credentials. Asian-American women’s salaries show the smallest pay gap, at 87 percent of white men’s salaries. Hispanic women’s salaries show the largest gap, at 53 percent of white men’s salaries.
The Democrats have a petition. It wouldn’t hurt to sign, since the Republicans wobble between denying the problem exists and admitting there’s a pay gap, but having no clue about what to do about it.
And the Republicans are screaming bloody murder because Obama has signed some sort of executive order (of which he’s done thousands, according to them) encouraging equal pay.
One of the measure prohibits banning employees from talking to each other about their wages. Nothing like a little exposure to make management sit up and take notice, if all the women notice they make less than the men working the same positions.
Dang, forgot the link to the news article in #2:
http://www.thetowntalk.com/viewart/20140408/NEWS01/140408015/Obama-signs-actions-taking-aim-gender-pay-gap-
I was looking over the shoulder of a guy who sat in the seat in front of me on the train this morning. He had the Wall Street Journal open and I saw some of the editorial headlines. There was one about how climate change had “taken over” university campuses and how football players unionizing was a “bad call” and the one in the lower right corner said that the pay gap was a “myth”. Yep, all the usual conservatwit denial of reality.
Fun fact: when racial inequality and gender inequality (and sometimes class inequality) cross paths to form a double serving of inequality fun, it is called intersectionism or intersectionist theory. And it is horrible.
There was one comment on that article–which is pretty good*–and it was from an MRA.
I signed the petition.
Now can I sign a Democratic petition that promises more than lip service to “paycheck fairness”? Can I sign one that doesn’t redirect me to a fundraising page promising that I might win a trip to New York if only I “chip in” to defray the costs of sending someone to New York?
I don’t think I’ll redirect the money I’m currently contributing to specific candidates and direct services organizations. Even if I have a chance to win!
Re-reading my comment, I should note that I’m feeling particularly cynical tonight. Being offered the chance to WIN! A TRIP! TO NEW YORK! if only I gave some money really pissed me off. :P
why du Americans write ‘african-american’ insted’v ‘black’?
The latter is a nationality, the former a continent. Or do they imply a ‘nativ’ from the american continent and a ‘nativ’ from the african continent got it together?
what du americans call aborigines from australia?
I suppose black pepl from minisota ought t be cald e.g. ‘gambian-minisotan’?
Evalusnraly, we’r all from the african continent..surely
I used to think that the pay gap was a done deal here, barring a few excepcions where the 21st century hadn´t yet kicked some arsehole in the crotch. However the other day my best friend came to visit and we talked about her new job as an engineer. That sparked a conversation about her situation and other female friend´s situations and it turns out (yeah, my bubble just got burst) that this shit is alive and well and rather than being mostly gone except for a few small pockets, it´s the other way around, there are some places where equality has been achieved, everywhere else the pay gap is still a reality. Unsurprisingly, among my female friends the one that has a job where gender really makes no difference is the one that works at a cancer research lab.
I thought Equal Pay Day was in mid-November – the day from which, effectively, women are working for free till the end of the year.
Then I looked it up, and it turns out today is the day (in the US?) that women would have had to work up to to make as much as men last year. Ick.
praestans: why du Americans write ‘african-american’ insted’v ‘black’?
Why do you write unreadable gibberish instead of coherent sentences?
Trying to figure out whether comment #9 is a Poe. Surely noone’s that dim (he says, being keenly aware that many are actually far dimmer)…
robinjohnson @ 11,
That’s in the UK where we tend to mark the day in the year after which women are essentially working without pay until 31 December. The Americans do it the other way about. Same problem, slightly different way of highlighting it.
If you live in New York, there is a new organization to try to address the equal pay problem here. They’re looking for guest bloggers too!
@praestans #9
1- Learn to spell.
2- Learn the meaning of words. Since when was black a nationality?
The latest Conservative meme I’ve been seeing is that the White House has a gender gap in payment, but seriously looking at the data I don’t see it. Each job pays the same generally – if there are differences, it’s not due to gender. The only way they possibly could have come up with that is if they just lumped all the jobs together and separated the men from the women.
Of course, in doing that I also hope they removed the two outliers – one man who makes twice as much as the next highest salaried employees, and two women who are unpaid interns.
Pretty cool how this autoplays and then won’t pause at all.
Nevermind, turns out Ghostery was ironically forcing it to annoy me.
re 9:
Because. | Reasons. | …
Seriously, those labels seemed to be Neutral, by not referring to one’s skin shading. Also, they are the labels they themselves seem to prefer over more explicit labels of their skin pigmentation. Also, (also), it tries to preserve one’s continent of family origin combined with one’s current citizenship. (Asian-American, African- American, Irish-Am*, Italian*, European-Am*, etc.).
Is your complaint that it is too generic a label, too broad a brush to paint someone?
Or do you just prefer pigmentation labels(e.g. Black, White, Red, Yellow,…)?
If so: what would you call an albino?
The Republican argument is that women make less because they’re worth less.
Think that women’s average is less because they take different jobs?
Look at this collection of data. Partway down the page is a bar graph of women/men salaries in the same job. (titled “Women’s earnings as a percentage of men’s”)
Some examples:
Female auditors and accountants make 73.8 percent of what male auditors and accountants make.
Female elementary and middle school teachers make 81.6 percent of what male elementary and middle school teachers make.
Female secretaries make 82.8 percent of what male secretaries make.
Let that last one sink in. What job is the most stereotypically associated with women? Secretary. But even in that one field that is usually solely considered the domain that caters best to the expertise of women, men doing that job make almost 20% more.
(considered by gender essentialists, I mean.)
There was a great, linkful post at Metafilter with tons of helpful links covering all aspects.
@#21 carlie
Thanks for providing the link. I really do think it’s important that we compare apples to apples.
Given these facts, maybe a good first step would be to require all employers to post their starting salaries on any ads for the position. This would only work for fresh out of college hires, but at least young women would have some assurance that they aren’t starting the career race five paces behind their male peers.
apologies for the large block quote, but this is interesting commentary from Obama’s economic advisory Betsey Stevensen:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/womens-economic-agenda
@Nerd #2:
Why the hell should this measure even be necessary, in The Land Of The Free? Are employers currently allowed to be that autocratic? Is freedom of speech not an acceptable principle if it takes place on someone else’s property?
If I were discussing wages with my work colleagues and our boss told us we couldn’t talk about that (not that he ever would), he’d receive a resounding chorus of “Fuck off!”. If he were then to drag us off to HR to get them to tell us we were out of line (not that he ever would), I know full well they would be deeply embarrassed and desperate to find a diplomatic solution, while someone took him aside for a quiet chat.
“A quiet chat” is an English understatement for a bollocking, if that helps.
Freedom of speech is a phrase only applicable to political speaking. If you represent the company, they can and do tell you what you can and can’t say, no matter where you are. This has included wages, salaries, company financials, complaints, etc.
Sorry, can’t sign the petition. It’d been created by some Americo-centric asshole who doesn’t understand that not every country in the world uses US Postal Service area codes.
>Twas Brillig
I appreciate your engagement.
Sorry fr the spelling – fr some arkane reason, I can’t stand OED etc I think it’s irrational and utterly out’v date. ‘wun’ is a far mor onist spelling than ‘one’.
Webster had it right when making American spelling simpler in general e.g. no u in parlor. but he got rid’v the rong letter – ‘parlur’ wud’v been better. Morover the words like ‘parlous’, ‘perilous’, ‘anxious’ etc have the same sound as the ‘ou’ in torpor or behaviour.
I daresay I digress.
‘African American’. why not just say ‘American’?
Where is the prejudice or lack of neutrality in calling the colour of oil ‘black’?
If ‘black’ referring to a human being (within or without a womb (sorry, cudn’t resist)) with all the attendant things it connotes then so too is labelling a person as ‘african american’. an albino, wud be an…albino.
You say ‘it preserves one continent’v origin’ -‘Italian-American Irish-american’
well these are not continents. Aren’t our origins are the stars. then RNA.
Every human being is African-X, evolutionarily speaking.
Is a nativ american an amercan-american?
Frgiv me but this is all codswollup.
@praestans
Most coherent thing you’ve said so far.
praestans
If you cannot be arsed to use conventional spelling, punctuation and grammar, why should anyone here be arsed to try to understand you?
Praestans
You spell “honest” differently, but not “irrational”? You’re not even consistent with your bullshit.
You are also tedious and totally off topic. Piss off.
Praestans: your spelling affectations are annoying, and are not offset by the quality of your comments. Knock it off, and note that you’ve given me no reason to want to keep you around…and are working on reasons to warrant ending the irritation of your presence.
huh
So now all I have to do is think about sending an alert.
Still can’t be sure if praestans is a Poe or not. They’re obtuse to the point of being horizontal and the less said about their childish, narcissistic writing affectations the better. Language does evolve, yes, but what this commenter is doing (and what that sod Webster did) is to unilaterally declare the current state of language Not Good Enough and impose personal, artificial standards on how it should be written. The funny part is that praestans’ phonetic conceits are, like Webster’s, not applied consistently. Might I suggest if you want properly phonetic speech you read the first-person chapters in Iain M Banks’ Feersum Endjinn for tips.
As for the troll’s point in the OP: “Women are paid less because they’re worth less.” I can’t decide if that’s as stupid or stupider than anything praestans has said so far.
@Hank_Says,
Seeking out a perfect phonetic spelling of any particular language is pretty much a fool’s errand anyway. Make a perfect phonetic version of english, and the phonetics will shift in spoken language and your perfection will be broken. “Two” was not always spoken in a way that sounds identical to “too”. What will be accomplished is to make vast amounts of previously written literature largely inaccessible to new generations (it will make the difficulty people have in understanding the language of Shakespeare look trivial).
As for the original point of the thread:
Rich Woods wrote:
In many of the jobs I’ve worked (in Canada, not even the U.S.), disclosing your annual salary to a coworker was considered grounds for immediate termination of employment. You see, they keep people from discussing with each other what they make, that way they can pay you far less than what your work is worth. Otherwise, if the employees learn that the boss’s mostly useless nephew is paid 40% more than anyone else in that department, or that the hardest working person in the department is paid less than their peers, there might be “unrest”.