Is it still true that women aren't paid as much as

JerrySeinfeld · January 4, 2007

If its still true, I think it's totally silly. Just because woman is working with men doesn't mean she should be paid less.

Depends on the profession, and another interesting factor - whether or not the woman has children. On the average, women with children earn 75cents for a man's dollar (for the same job), vs. 92 cents for the dollar when they don't have children.

They say it's because of the career interruptions.

And then there are professions where the discrepency is just ridiculous. For example, in BC full-time female paralegals and fullt-time male counterparts earn $40,300 and $48,500, respectively.

This is pure bullshit hocus pocus.

Maybe it's because I work in a meritocracy, but I frankly have NEVER seen a case of favoritism for females OR males.

In my industry there are very few women participants, but the women who DO participate are among the MOST successful and HIGHEST earners.

One of my best friend's wife is a lawyer at a major firm and outearns ALL of those in her firmwho were called to the bar at the same time she was.

There are countless reasons why some people make more than others. Number of hours worked, number of vacations taken, amount of commission earned, amount of billable hours worked, amount of time developing relationships with clients, quality of decision-making, education, time off, etc. etc. etc.

Why are people drinking the social-engineering koolaid so quick to assume that the gap between men's and women's earnings is due to some conspiracy against women?

Maybe it comes from the incorrect belief that we actually CAN control who earns what in the world - and they're assuming that there is some entity out there called "big bad big business" which is hell bent on sticking it to the women. :lol:

Can't you social-enginers even open your MIND to the possibility - or in fact LIKELYHOOD - that the gap exists for many reasons OTHER than discrimination?

Get off it already - it's getting old and sounding pathetically like passing the buck of responsibility. But then again - when did social-engineers ever actually conceptualize the idea of WORKING for money instead of blackmailing it from government.

Renegade · January 4, 2007

Indirectly, yes.
More accurately, I am saying if you can hold all other variables equal, it makes perfect sense to pay a woman less than a man and for a woman to expect to be paid less -- unless she can prove herself to be infertile. However, it is not possible to hold all variables equal on an individual basis for the reasons you list nor to question fertility. Thus, we see a statistical phenomena of women getting paid less. Women who are willing to settle for less pay will get hired quicker than women who wait for equity. By the way, that is called a market force.

Analogously, we commonly refer to an average price for gasoline throughout large jurisdictions. Despite the price being a little different here and a little different there, all of the smaller jurisdictions follow the same trend of the market. At each pump, we have no idea who is willing to pay a little more for that gasoline or who really really really REALLY needs gasoline to survive or who just needs gasoline for joy-riding. On a large scale, we will observe all of the prices following the same market forces if you just look at global statistics.

You can call that an economism perspective if you are reluctant to call it applying economics to the real world.

CA, I think there are more factors than just potential pregnancy which negatively impact the choice of hiring a woman in a role:

1. As BD pointed out, housework and focus on the home. For better or worse, the bulk of the responsibilty for maintaining the home and kids falls on the woman. She will be less likely to be available for productive employment hours if she has to balance her time.

2. Agressiveness. Many women are simply not as agressive as men for demanding higher pay.

3. Risk adverse. With job choices there sometimes is a decision between taking a higher-pay but risky job, and a low-pay, low risk job. Many women will value the lower risk despite lower pay.

4. Elderly parent. As with housework the bulk of the workload falls on the daughter, making her less avaialbe for employment hours.

5. Physical ability. Even with jobs which don't require physical ability, there are cases where an employer may require the employee to substitute into another job temporarily. The more potential jobs an employee can substitute into, the higher the value to the employer.

This is not to deny that discrimmination exist, however it is not the only , or even the main factor to explain difference in pay between men and women.

Charles Anthony · January 4, 2007

CA, I think there are more factors than just potential pregnancy which negatively impact the choice of hiring a woman in a role:

You are misunderstanding what I am saying. I am saying if you hold all of the other variables constant. We do that all of the time to study population statistics.

If you take all of the possible characteristics that make up a human being, the only thing that men and women can NOT share is pregnancy. All of the other characteristics that you mentioned (focus on the home, agressiveness, physical ability, etc.) mean nothing. You may as well say women tend to have bigger breasts or more menstrual cramps than men.

Let me put it a different way. Tally up statistics and on a scale from 0 to 10, quantify every single person in the world -- male and female. Include their wage, their ability to get pregnant and their breast size. To illustrate:

John-Boy (home: 2; aggressive: 7; physical: 9; pregnancy: 0; breast-size: 0; wage: 7)

Elizabeth (home: 5; aggressive: 3; physical: 6; pregnancy: 10; breast-size: 8; wage: 4)

Esther (home: 7; aggressive: 4; physical: 5; pregnancy: 9; breast-size: 9; wage: 5)

Zeb (home: 6; aggressive: 2; physical: 8; pregnancy: 0; breast-size: 1; wage: 9)

etc. etc.

Then, plot them on a multi-dimensional graph or, if you know any statistics, run a regression. I am suggesting that the most obvious co-relation between wage and the other variables will be pregnancy -- that is not to say that there is no relationship with the others. In fact, the breast-size variable will come very close to being indistinguishable from the pregnancy variable which makes sense. Notice how I did not use sex as a variable? It would not matter. My explanation as to why? is in post #17 above describing it as purely a market-driven force of employee-risk.

Now, I ask the following hypothetical question/study: add the variable possibility-of-randomly-having-to-quit-work-for-9-months-straight or something like that (I realize that it is not measureable) and what do you think you will get???

BC_chick · January 4, 2007

Jerry Seinfeld:

I was actually implying that for the most part the discrepency isn't as big as people make it sound - 92cents vs 1 dollar, and nowhere did I say it's discrimination - in fact I touched on the difference between women with children and women without children to make the point that it's NOT gender discrimination, but career interruptions. Yes, I do believe if men were the ones who routinely took time off work, your wages would be the ones jeapordised.

Also, I threw in the paralegal example as an EXCEPTION, and I explicitly stated so.

Don't attack the messenger here....

http://www.workfutures.bc.ca/link.cfm?prin...raphic&noc=4211

The 2000 average annual earnings for paralegals and related workers were $35,200, slightly more than the average of $32,100 for all occupations. Full-time, full-year paralegals earned $41,600, which is close to the all-occupation average of $44,200. Most of the workers in these occupations are women and they earned substantially less for full-time, full-year work than their male counterparts ($40,300 and $48,500, respectively).

JerrySeinfeld · January 4, 2007

Jerry Seinfeld:
I was actually implying that for the most part the discrepency isn't as big as people make it sound - 92cents vs 1 dollar. I threw in the paralegal example as an exception, and I explicitly stated so.

Don't attack the messenger here....

http://www.workfutures.bc.ca/link.cfm?prin...raphic&noc=4211

The 2000 average annual earnings for paralegals and related workers were $35,200, slightly more than the average of $32,100 for all occupations. Full-time, full-year paralegals earned $41,600, which is close to the all-occupation average of $44,200. Most of the workers in these occupations are women and they earned substantially less for full-time, full-year work than their male counterparts ($40,300 and $48,500, respectively).

Fair enough. But is it due to discrimination? I doubt it. Where is the evidence?

Think of all the other reasons why this discrepancy may exist.

The most glaring and obvious one (among all the other possibilities) is taking time off work for childbith/child rearing.

Of course I could also point to the value women place upon balance in their lives, versus the more gritty get-to-the-top male approach to work. Some women and some men don't fit the mold (there are always exceptions), but women generally value the balance of life, including excercise, relationships, time off, time with family, travel, etc. more so than men do. This might translate into less hours at the office, and subsequently less compensation.

Again, there are countless other possible reasons OTHER than discrimination.

BC_chick · January 4, 2007

Fair enough. But is it due to discrimination? I doubt it. Where is the evidence?
Think of all the other reasons why this discrepancy may exist.

The most glaring and obvious one (among all the other possibilities) is taking time off work for childbith/child rearing.

Of course I could also point to the value women place upon balance in their lives, versus the more gritty get-to-the-top male approach to work. Some women and some men don't fit the mold (there are always exceptions), but women generally value the balance of life, including excercise, relationships, time off, time with family, travel, etc. more so than men do. This might translate into less hours at the office, and subsequently less compensation.

Again, there are countless other possible reasons OTHER than discrimination.

I've edited my post since you wrote this response. We actually do agree. In fact, we agreed right from the beginning, I think you misunderstood my initial post.

Black Dog · January 4, 2007

Again, there are countless other possible reasons OTHER than discrimination.

That doesn't exclude discrimination as a reason, though.

JerrySeinfeld · January 4, 2007

Again, there are countless other possible reasons OTHER than discrimination.

That doesn't exclude discrimination as a reason, though.

Fair enough. But at least we're talking in the right semantic. Instead of assuming that it IS discrimination, we're simply not ruling out the POSSIBILITY.

Now we're getting somewhere!

Now about discrimination. Let's figure this out. Large number stats say that women don't earn as much money. We already know about the myriad possibilities as to reasons why.

But here is the rub on the discrim. argument. Has anyone or can anyone please provide specific present day example(s) of a case where a woman and a man have equaly quals, experience, education, time off work, client base, seniority etc. and the woman is earning less?

Renegade · January 4, 2007

You are misunderstanding what I am saying. I am saying if you hold all of the other variables constant. We do that all of the time to study population statistics.

CA, I understand what you are saying. What I am saying is that the potential employer has to make a hiring decision based upon a variety of data which he doesn't know and can't readilly get, so he makes assumptions. Once such assumption is that a young woman can get pregnant and a young man cannot. This is a pretty safe assumption, however there will be some women who cannot get pregnant. Similarly the employer must make assumptions about some other attributes such as how much time the employee will spend on work tasks instead of home tasks. If there is objective evidence which suggests that women are more likely to spend more time at home than work, it is reasonable for the employer to assume it, just as much as for the employer to assume that the female employee will get pregnant.

Let me put it another way. If we used as our sample infertile individuals of both sexes and held all other variables the same, do you think we would still see a pay difference? Of course we would, because despite them being infertile, the employer still makes assumptions about their fertility and other characteristics.

JerrySeinfeld · January 4, 2007

Again, there are countless other possible reasons OTHER than discrimination.

That doesn't exclude discrimination as a reason, though.

Fair enough. But at least we're talking in the right semantic. Instead of assuming that it IS discrimination, we're simply not ruling out the POSSIBILITY.

Now we're getting somewhere!

Now about discrimination. Let's figure this out. Large number stats say that women don't earn as much money. We already know about the myriad possibilities as to reasons why.

But here is the rub on the discrim. argument. Has anyone or can anyone please provide specific present day example(s) of a case where a woman and a man have equaly quals, experience, education, time off work, client base, seniority etc. and the woman is earning less?

ISN'T THE WHOLE IDEA OF "PAY EQUITY" (IE. EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE) DESIGNED TO AVOID AND AVERT THE OBVIOUS ANSWER TO THIS STRAGHTFORWARD QUESTION?

Renegade · January 4, 2007

Has anyone or can anyone please provide specific present day example(s) of a case where a woman and a man have equaly quals, experience, education, time off work, client base, seniority etc. and the woman is earning less?

It would be an impossible comparison. No two individuals are alike, so even if they had the same qualifications, experience, education, time off work, client base, seniority etc, how do you assess that the performance in the job is exactly alike?

Saturn · January 4, 2007

CA are you saying women get paid less because they might get preagnant?

Yes. The perception is that a woman might get pregnant and will miss work as a result, hence hiring a woman may be expensive. The reality is that men can be expensive employees too as they are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviour (smoking, drinking excessively, using illicit drugs and killing themselves in accidents), resulting in higher medical and life insurance costs, not showing up for work or simply having a heart attack in the office and scaring the shit out of everyone present. When you put the benefits and risks associated with each, it isn't clear to me that hiring women is a worse choice than hiring men. But most people doing hiring are still men (older men at that) and they are more willing to hold a potential pregnancy (and months of missed work) against a female applicant while not even considering a male applicant's substantially higher chances of having a heart attack in the office or dying before retirement (and missing work without notice).

JerrySeinfeld · January 4, 2007

Has anyone or can anyone please provide specific present day example(s) of a case where a woman and a man have equaly quals, experience, education, time off work, client base, seniority etc. and the woman is earning less?

It would be an impossible comparison. No two individuals are alike, so even if they had the same qualifications, experience, education, time off work, client base, seniority etc, how do you assess that the performance in the job is exactly alike?

OK we're getting to the heart of it. First of all it's tough to do. So we rely on statistics that are likely misrepresentative of the facts and cry "discrimination" which is an easy sell in today's PC world. But is the goal optics? or FAIRNESS?

Example:

We all know Chinese families have a long history in Vancouver. We also know that Chinese and other Asian families tend to live together as an extended family unit for longer periods of time. That means you OFTEN will have a very large dwelling that holds perhaps 3 generations of chinese people. This kind of arrangement also keeps down living expenses as a bonus. Presumably the home will be in the name of perhaps the "parents" (as opposed to grandparents or grand childeren) - ie the "middle" generation. I could be wrong in this assumption but it is irrelevant for the hypotheical discussion.

Now would you consider it fair for the government to start some kind of program to help "correct" the "imbalance" in a statistic that shows chinese couples in their 20's don't have the same proportion of home ownership as, say the rest of Canada? Should we start writing government cheques to "help" with the first downpayment to "correct" this "injustice"?

Of course not. The issue has nothing to do with inequality or discrimination. It has to do with a chosen lifestyle of a large group of people.

So it is with women. Just because the majority of women make certain life choices which may ultimately hurt the paycheque dosn't mean we need some cosial engineer to ride in with his white hat and "save" the day.

Renegade · January 4, 2007

So it is with women. Just because the majority of women make certain life choices which may ultimately hurt the paycheque dosn't mean we need some cosial engineer to ride in with his white hat and "save" the day.

I grant you that there are many choices many women make which will negatively financially impact them. This will not be caught in the statistics.

But given we think discrimmination is a factor we'ed like to eliminate as an area of contribution to the pay discrepancy, how do we do so, when as you acknowledge it is so difficult to make the comparisons and eliminate other factors?

Canadian Blue · January 4, 2007

I'm not sure, all of the job's I had the women were all paid the same as men for the same job. But their are a variety of reason's why the income differs, and I highly doubt institutional sexism is the main reason.

Saturn · January 4, 2007

Has anyone or can anyone please provide specific present day example(s) of a case where a woman and a man have equaly quals, experience, education, time off work, client base, seniority etc. and the woman is earning less?

The suit documents Wal-Mart's systematic discrimination against women for lower pay and unequal promotion. In fact, in a recent study, women made-up 72% of Wal-Mart's hourly workforce, but accounted for only 33% of managers and only 15% of store managers. In addition, women earned from 5% to 15% less than men for the exact same work. This equates to nearly 40 cents less per hour for female hourly workers or nearly $5,000 less per year for female managers.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/1032/1/91/

Almost 700,000 women work for Wal-Mart - nearly three-quarters of the company's workforce - and on average earn higher performance ratings than men and stay with the company longer. Yet women account for only a third of the company's managers - only 15 percent of store managers. In comparable positions, Wal-Mart pays its female hourly workers 40 cents less per hour than their male counterparts, with female managers earning nearly $5,000 per year less than managers who are men

.

http://blog.wakeupwalmart.com/ufcw/2005/05...fifty_memb.html

JerrySeinfeld · January 4, 2007

Has anyone or can anyone please provide specific present day example(s) of a case where a woman and a man have equaly quals, experience, education, time off work, client base, seniority etc. and the woman is earning less?

The suit documents Wal-Mart's systematic discrimination against women for lower pay and unequal promotion. In fact, in a recent study, women made-up 72% of Wal-Mart's hourly workforce, but accounted for only 33% of managers and only 15% of store managers. In addition, women earned from 5% to 15% less than men for the exact same work. This equates to nearly 40 cents less per hour for female hourly workers or nearly $5,000 less per year for female managers.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/1032/1/91/

From the website "Marxist Thought.com"

hahahahahaa

geoffrey · January 5, 2007

CA are you saying women get paid less because they might get preagnant?

Yes. The perception is that a woman might get pregnant and will miss work as a result, hence hiring a woman may be expensive. The reality is that men can be expensive employees too as they are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviour (smoking, drinking excessively, using illicit drugs and killing themselves in accidents), resulting in higher medical and life insurance costs, not showing up for work or simply having a heart attack in the office and scaring the shit out of everyone present. When you put the benefits and risks associated with each, it isn't clear to me that hiring women is a worse choice than hiring men. But most people doing hiring are still men (older men at that) and they are more willing to hold a potential pregnancy (and months of missed work) against a female applicant while not even considering a male applicant's substantially higher chances of having a heart attack in the office or dying before retirement (and missing work without notice).

Women's child bearing ability is also a key factor why you'll struggle to find many female execs under 40. The cost that companies spend on training, retaining and developing their executives is enourmous, and bringing in a temporary person to fill in for a year or two is simply not acceptable. I'd say that's probably the biggest factor is why women are limited to lower level positions, because between 25-35 they tend to disappear for years at a time. Definitely not good. The company is also obliged to keep that spot open for them, so it's not even like they can bring in a new exec.

JerrySeinfeld · January 5, 2007

CA are you saying women get paid less because they might get preagnant?

Yes. The perception is that a woman might get pregnant and will miss work as a result, hence hiring a woman may be expensive. The reality is that men can be expensive employees too as they are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviour (smoking, drinking excessively, using illicit drugs and killing themselves in accidents), resulting in higher medical and life insurance costs, not showing up for work or simply having a heart attack in the office and scaring the shit out of everyone present. When you put the benefits and risks associated with each, it isn't clear to me that hiring women is a worse choice than hiring men. But most people doing hiring are still men (older men at that) and they are more willing to hold a potential pregnancy (and months of missed work) against a female applicant while not even considering a male applicant's substantially higher chances of having a heart attack in the office or dying before retirement (and missing work without notice).

Women's child bearing ability is also a key factor why you'll struggle to find many female execs under 40. The cost that companies spend on training, retaining and developing their executives is enourmous, and bringing in a temporary person to fill in for a year or two is simply not acceptable. I'd say that's probably the biggest factor is why women are limited to lower level positions, because between 25-35 they tend to disappear for years at a time. Definitely not good. The company is also obliged to keep that spot open for them, so it's not even like they can bring in a new exec.

It's true - our destinies are simply sometimes just controlled by nature.

Not always - but alot of the time.

Why do you think when you took sex-ed in grade 6 the boys session finished in about 15 minutes and we had to sit out in the hallway for another hour while the women figured their shit out.

It was an omen of things to come....

Saturn · January 5, 2007

Women's child bearing ability is also a key factor why you'll struggle to find many female execs under 40. The cost that companies spend on training, retaining and developing their executives is enourmous, and bringing in a temporary person to fill in for a year or two is simply not acceptable. I'd say that's probably the biggest factor is why women are limited to lower level positions, because between 25-35 they tend to disappear for years at a time. Definitely not good. The company is also obliged to keep that spot open for them, so it's not even like they can bring in a new exec.

But men are also much more likely to die just as they get to executive positions. It is much easier to replace a 28-yr-old employee for a few months or a year than it is to replace a dead executive given that " the cost that companies spend on training, retaining and developing their executives is enourmous."

Canadian Blue · January 5, 2007

QUOTE(JerrySeinfeld @ Jan 4 2007, 06:18 PM)
Has anyone or can anyone please provide specific present day example(s) of a case where a woman and a man have equaly quals, experience, education, time off work, client base, seniority etc. and the woman is earning less?

QUOTE

The suit documents Wal-Mart's systematic discrimination against women for lower pay and unequal promotion. In fact, in a recent study, women made-up 72% of Wal-Mart's hourly workforce, but accounted for only 33% of managers and only 15% of store managers. In addition, women earned from 5% to 15% less than men for the exact same work. This equates to nearly 40 cents less per hour for female hourly workers or nearly $5,000 less per year for female managers.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/1032/1/91/

QUOTE

Almost 700,000 women work for Wal-Mart - nearly three-quarters of the company's workforce - and on average earn higher performance ratings than men and stay with the company longer. Yet women account for only a third of the company's managers - only 15 percent of store managers. In comparable positions, Wal-Mart pays its female hourly workers 40 cents less per hour than their male counterparts, with female managers earning nearly $5,000 per year less than managers who are men

.

http://blog.wakeupwalmart.com/ufcw/2005/05...fifty_memb.html

So if women are pissed off about the condition's at Wal Mart, why do they continue to shop there?

Once again I disagree with alot of what Wal Mart has done, and have refused to shop there. If people are truly enraged about what Wal Mart is doing then it's up to the consumers and the individual to do something about it.

BTW, I don't really trust Marxist Thought to be an unbiased source. It's like when Polynewbie uses conspiracy sites to back up his idea's, it doesn't really add to the case at all.

I think we should all be sent to a Death Camp of Tolerance, so that all males can see why were such terrible people and be reeducated. [i was kidding about the death camp of tolerance, despite the fact I'm sure some people would love to see on instated]

Charles Anthony · January 5, 2007

Again, there are countless other possible reasons OTHER than discrimination.
That doesn't exclude discrimination as a reason, though.

It is discrimination.

CA, I understand what you are saying. What I am saying is that the potential employer has to make a hiring decision based upon a variety of data which he doesn't know and can't readilly get, so he makes assumptions. Once such assumption is that a young woman can get pregnant and a young man cannot. This is a pretty safe assumption,

-- and it is the best assumption. No other assumption will have ALL of one group (in this case, men) at zero chance of whatever. Thus, you can bet your bottom dollar that it will CERTAINLY be in the back of every marginally responsible employer's mind. It is reasonable to expect employers to look down at a potential female employee.

It is all about perception.

Let me put it another way. If we used as our sample infertile individuals of both sexes and held all other variables the same, do you think we would still see a pay difference? Of course we would, because despite them being infertile, the employer still makes assumptions about their fertility and other characteristics.

Be more clear.

Are you saying despite them being infertile, we would still see a pay difference between all men and all women? If so, that is correct.

If you are saying despite them being infertile, we would still see a pay difference between infertile (men and women) and fertile (men and women), you would be wrong. The employer's can not see fertility and thus, the decision making will not be affected by fertility relative to sex.

Go to a used car dealership. Paint signs that say "Might Break Down Randomly" on the hood of half of the cars in the lot. Do this every single night and keep track of the sales. Keep in mind:

- all cars can break down

- some brands of cars break down more than others

- some of the painted cars may be in perfect shape

After doing this experiment for hundreds of cars and hundreds of years, would you be surprised to learn that buyers avoided your painted cars? or that your painted cars sold for lower prices? In the end, whether your painted cars get pregnant or not is irrelevent to how the market will clear itself.

Surely to goodness, I pray this example clarifies why women are observed to have lower pay than men.

But given we think discrimmination is a factor we'ed like to eliminate as an area of contribution to the pay discrepancy, how do we do so, when as you acknowledge it is so difficult to make the comparisons and eliminate other factors?

In a practical sense, you can not. The only way that you can eliminate sex discrimination as a factor is by examining statistics from people who are UNLIKELY to get pregnant. For example, golden ages? The trouble you will face statistically is that as people get old, both men and women end up being statistically the same (i.e. both drop in physical ability, both get sick randomly, etc.).

geoffrey · January 5, 2007

Women's child bearing ability is also a key factor why you'll struggle to find many female execs under 40. The cost that companies spend on training, retaining and developing their executives is enourmous, and bringing in a temporary person to fill in for a year or two is simply not acceptable. I'd say that's probably the biggest factor is why women are limited to lower level positions, because between 25-35 they tend to disappear for years at a time. Definitely not good. The company is also obliged to keep that spot open for them, so it's not even like they can bring in a new exec.

But men are also much more likely to die just as they get to executive positions. It is much easier to replace a 28-yr-old employee for a few months or a year than it is to replace a dead executive given that " the cost that companies spend on training, retaining and developing their executives is enourmous."

I'm unsure if there is that much truth in what your saying. A 30 year old male exec is a considerably more reliable person than a female his age. As we move up in age, perhaps. But I'd care to wager that many women that make to the top suffer from some of the same afflictions as the men.

Renegade · January 5, 2007

It is all about perception.

Of course it is. But not only do employers percieve women more likely to get pregnant, they also percieve them to be more likely to stay home when the kids are sick, etc.

Are you saying despite them being infertile, we would still see a pay difference between all men and all women? If so, that is correct.

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Go to a used car dealership. Paint signs that say "Might Break Down Randomly" on the hood of half of the cars in the lot. Do this every single night and keep track of the sales. Keep in mind:
- all cars can break down

- some brands of cars break down more than others

- some of the painted cars may be in perfect shape

After doing this experiment for hundreds of cars and hundreds of years, would you be surprised to learn that buyers avoided your painted cars? or that your painted cars sold for lower prices? In the end, whether your painted cars get pregnant or not is irrelevent to how the market will clear itself.

Surely to goodness, I pray this example clarifies why women are observed to have lower pay than men.

CA, I'm not sure if your example was for my benefit, but I already agree with you. In your example, what I'm saying is that in reality you are not just painting "Migh Break Down Randomly" on the signs, you are also adding "Might Rust Prematurely", "Might have Saftey Defects", etc

Charles Anthony · January 5, 2007

CA, I'm not sure if your example was for my benefit, but I already agree with you.

Thank God! For a moment, I thought I would have to dig up some Gloria Steinem books for help!

CA, I'm not sure if your example was for my benefit, but I already agree with you. In your example, what I'm saying is that in reality you are not just painting "Migh Break Down Randomly" on the signs, you are also adding "Might Rust Prematurely", "Might have Saftey Defects", etc

Comprendo. That is the "more likely to stay home when the kids are sick, etc." characteristic. I ask: so what? because men can do all those things too and baby-sitting is becoming more and more in vogue.