You honestly think that you can’t challenge your employer over pay disparity? Any employee in the country can go to their employer and say that they should be paid more for any reason whatsoever. I could go to my boss, and say that I deserve to be paid more because I have type A blood, if I wanted to (and so could any of my female co-workers). That doesn’t mean that my boss is necessarily going to give us the raise we ask for, but we could absolutely ask for it.
Back to more recent posts, statistics on some professions (including firefighter and construction worker) will be misleading, because those jobs require some degree of physical strength, and I don’t think it’s controvertial that men, overall, tend to be more physically strong than women. If one of the job requirements is “Must be able to lift 200 pounds over your head”, or the like, then it shouldn’t be a surprise if a smaller proportion of women applicants get the job than men, because fewer women than men can lift 200 pounds over their heads. If you want to look for discrimination in those jobs, you have to look at the proportion of women who pass the strength requirements who get the job, versus the proportion of men who pass the strength requirements who get it.
Totally agreed. The sex of the perpetrator of an atrocity has nothing to do with whether it’s an atrocity.
Er…huh? Does the sex of the perpetrator of an atrocity have anything to do with whether it’s an atrocity?
There’s a danger that, in focusing on atrocities against women as if they’re much worse than atrocities against men, we’ll downplay the atrocities against men. That’s a terrible thing to do. Yes, women getting raped in war is horrifying. So is men getting conscripted to be slaughtered (or to commit slaughter) in war. We need to end both.
Both military conscription and military rape are sex-based, of course–but trying to figure out which is worse is not really helpful. And if it were helpful, I’d argue that conscription is frequently much worse. But it’s not helpful.
Let’s see your cite for that. You have repeatedly merely asserted this, and I expect to see you back it up before I go to the bother of finding more cites for you. Namely, you claim that
Documentary evidence, please, for the claim that women’s preferences not to work such jobs constitute the primary reason that they’re underrepresented in them.
Also, let’s make sure we are recognizing the distinction between women not applying for dangerous jobs and women not wanting to work dangerous jobs. If women are discouraged from applying for “men’s jobs” because of discrimination and hostility on the part of the men they’d be working with, that’s not the same thing as women not applying for “men’s jobs” just because the job doesn’t appeal to them. Don’t move the goal posts by trying to conflate these two reactions.
What is the point of this thread? Why do we care if women are/were treated as badly as blacks were some years ago? The whole point seems to be that we should feel sorry for women as a group. Let’s all pity them.
Having been raised in the pre-feminist 50’s, it seems to me that women were not particularly miserable, while blacks had terrible problems. Adult women were primarily housewives who had a quality of life pretty much the same as their husbands. They ate good food, had decent housing, and wore nice clothes. They were typically denied the “glamorous” careers that men had but by and large were happy with their role raising children and keeping house. In terms of overall life satisfaction I wouldn’t be surprised if most were more fulfilled than their husbands in the dog eat dog job market. A few were no doubt abused by their husbands, but from what I can see, then and now, most of the time women have been quite capable of manipulating men to get what they want (what women lack in physical strength they often make up in psychological skill). Women were well respected as long as the lived up to social expectations, the same as men. The situation with blacks would have been far worse. Neither gender could get decent jobs and I suspect many lived in relative squalor. They were looked down on by almost everybody. The comparison of women to “niggers” is totally inappropriate.
Let’s face it. Virtually everybody here agrees on what is important. Women should have all the same rights as men and we should do away with traditions and stereotypes that push people into certain roles based on their sex. That is what real feminism is about and I’m all for it. I think we all agree that burkas and female genital mutilation and bride burning are totally abominable. So what is the issue?
The OP seems to want to support the idea that there is a type of class warfare going on with misogynistic males oppressing women for their own benefit. This is utterly wrong. No doubt misogynists exist but I can’t say I’ve ever met one. Nor have I ever met a man that envied the men in highly sexist societies like many Muslim cultures. Men don’t cheer on rapists and wife beaters. Men do engage in a lot more violence than women, but the majority of it is directed at other men. If they hate women, apparently they hate men more. In reality most men like women a lot and will fall all over themselves trying to please them.
Let me present an alternative view. Instead of a culture battle of men against women, the reality is a battle between traditional sexist stereotypes and enlightened support of gender equality and fairness. There are both men and women who support and perpetuate sexist stereotypes and there are both men and women who take the enlightened view. The ones who support the sexist views do so not because they dislike women, but because they genuinely (and stupidly) believe this is natural or what God intended.
Feminism is a far better philosophy when it is looking for justice than when it is looking for anger and pity.
You make some valid points. I don’t agree about mothers encouraging their children to be ‘martyrs’ is the same as women sending their menfolk out to war, but that’s not worth arguing about.
Yes, women to choose to join up; they don’t just send their menfolk off, they join up.
Yes, men traditionally have done the dangerous, high paying jobs; yes, men still get killed more in war than do women (… except I don’t have a cite; we can stipulated that?)
Yes, life can suck for men in ways it doesn’t suck for women; life can suck for men of color in ways it doesn’t suck for women (example: I have never been pulled out of the car for a moving violation, or arrested for picking up my daughter).
But nowhere did I blame ‘men’ for my lower (but quite nice) pay. It’s just institutionalized.
There is a very detailed salary survey available in my field; salaries are broken down by every reasonable criterion. ‘Female’ skews the average *more than every other criterion including geographic *[within a single country.]
Either my gender can affect my salary more than would living in a state with half the cost of living, or 90% of the men in the survey are lying about their salaries.
I doubt that every female, or even the average female, in my field is less competent or less qualified.
I also doubt that every male of color in most fields is less competent or less qualified.
But I do think that it is equally unfair for both me and my brothers of color.
Here’s an interesting factoid for you and others to chew on: nowhere in my OP did I point the finger at men.
Men and women both contribute to the torture, oppression, and suffering of women. That’s a plain fact, for sure.
And it doesn’t change the fact that women suffer the vast majority of the pain and suffering of humanity as a whole, while doing the vast majority of the most important work necessary to the species.
The two facts are not in any way mutually exclusive, nor does the fact that women contribute to the suffering of women excuse or mitigate the burden of suffering that women bear. In fact, it kinda makes it worse.
As a species, it is our moral duty, no matter what our sex, to be aware of the ongoing injustice that women endure. If we are contributing, whether we are men or women, we must stop.
(Having said that, are you familiar with the Sonderkommando?)
Today I was working with my second graders on writing biographies, and one of them asked a perceptive question. “Can we have opinions in our biographies?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” I answered. Then I remembered a misunderstanding from earlier in the year when we studied facts and opinions. “But remember: an opinion isn’t something like, ‘Tiger Woods is a rhinoceros.’ An opinion is something like, ‘Tiger Woods is the best golfer ever.’ If you say he’s a rhinoceros, that’s…” I hesitated, looking for the right explanation.
She supplied it. “That’s a FACT,” she laughed, “only it’s not a true fact!”
I suspect your quote above is a fact only in the sense that “Tiger Woods is a rhinoceros” is a fact. The analogy would be more apt were I a rhinoceros myself and making the claim sincerely.
Because I suspect that it is not the case that women suffer the vast majority of the pain and suffering of humanity as a whole, while doing the vast majority of the most important work necessary to the species.
Many of us live in countries where women weren’t considered human in our grandparents’ lifetimes. Spousal rape was still legal in most states into the 1990s. Even if you are under the impression that you’re lucky enough to life in a place and time where women are afforded equal opportunity and respect (okay Swedes, you may be right), you’ve at least got to acknowledge that we live in a multicultural, globalized world, and that you are more the exception than the rule.
There tends to be a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation – feminists who decry misogynist acts in other countries are accused of being culturally insensitive, or of looking abroad when there are plenty of problems at home. Those who concentrate on pay gaps and language are accused of nitpicking and not looking at ‘the bigger picture.’ And, of course, it is difficult to point out real-life victims without being accused of painting all women as victims.
I’m not sure it’s really up for debate that women are the world’s (and certainly world’s religions’) most ubiquitous scapegoat. Other aspects, sure, but the original statement? Not so much. (Though it is odd to note that by comparing women and ‘niggers,’ the assumption is that the slur is against men. I’m not sure that’s an example of sparing women so much as an assumption that male is the default gender).
I can’t remember where I read this (trying to find it) tidbit that said one of the reasons for discrepancy in pay was due to men negotiating harder. They were less likely to accept an initial offer without presenting a higher counter. As it happens, that is exactly what I did with this job. They gave me a number, I came back with a higher one, and they said done.
But they wouldn’t have been upset if I’d accepted the first offer.
And men are expected to work well over 40 hours a week, every week, and are definitely not valued as much in the home considering the constant stream of jokes about them being unable to accomplish even basic home and child care tasks.
You ever stop to think there are people on both sides of that fence who wish they were on the other?
If she’s got the ability, the desire, and the experience, then by all means. It’s what I did.
Thing is, when you add up all these ‘individual’ women, you tend to get exactly the kind of satistics you seem to have a problem with. Y’know, the ones that say ‘in general women are paid less due to these factors.’
There are actually quite a few female CEOs. If you bring in the bucks for the board of directors and the investors, I don’t really think they give a shit which bathroom you use.
When I was in engineering school, we had all kind of emphasis on getting women in the programs. There was a Society of Women Engineers and a bunch of other stuff geared at getting female college students to consider engineering. What endedup happening was that almost a third of the freshman class of electrical and computer engineers was female. By graduation, it was about one in nine. I graduated with a class of about 30 computer engineers. There were only two other females. The rest had quit along the way, with a huge number of the men. Why did they quit or flunk out before graduation?
Why is it that when my company advertises a software engineer position, and resumes start coming in, almost all of them are male names?
You’re essentializing women. Basically you’re saying that all women throughout history have the same things in common regardless of race, class, religion, and any other factor you can think of. Women should not be treated as a monolithic group just as men shouldn’t be treated as a monolithic group. In the Ottoman Empire the women of the Sultan’s harem wielded quite a bit of political power (though it was behind the scenes) and I doubt they had a whole heck of a lot in common with poor women in the empire. 1st wave feminist in 19th century England were mostly made up of middle class (white of course) women. How could they campaign for their pet issues and care for their families at the same time? The middle class women hired working class women to clean their houses and take care of their children while they went out and campaigned for things like the vote, better education, etc. The 1st wave feminist of England couldn’t understand that the working class women wanted little to do with their causes because they didn’t see their interest as being the same. Likewise a lot of women in third world countries aren’t really interested in a western brand of feminism. I think you could make an argument that the burqa is less oppressive than the bikini.
Third wave feminist of today tend to essentialize men and women a whole lot less than they did in the past. Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you have the same interest or problems as every other woman.
Odesio
I’m not an expert on this subject by any means, but I’ve done a little reading about it and I had a Kenyan classmate in college who spoke publicly about her experience with FGM. In her case a woman (not a relative) was the one who actually held the knife, but it was my classmate’s father who was behind it. I don’t think this is atypical.
The reason dad wanted her “circumcised” was because she couldn’t get married otherwise, and he’d long since betrothed her to the son of a friend. My future classmate put it off as long as possible, not because she was afraid of being mutilated (she didn’t fully understand what was going to happen), but because she didn’t want to get married yet. But her father insisted, and the best she was able to do was get him to agree to let her finish her education before getting married. She underwent the circumcision ritual at age 15.
Her mother didn’t object to FGM or try to prevent it from happening to her daughter, but it was the father who forced the issue – all for the sake of making her an acceptable bride. FGM is not just something that women do to women for their own mysterious womanly reasons.
My argument was made based on my memory of past events. It took a while to find all the cites of the main points.
This article serves as a cite that AT&T women were removed from clean room work. The excuse was a small study which showed higher miscarriage rates in those doing the clean room work.
This link shows a page from Reproductive Hazards in the Workplace by Regina Kenen, which calls the study AT&T used as the basis for removing the women from the work “poorly designed and badly flawed.” It also serves as a cite for the fact that the clean room work was making non-pregnant workers ill as well.
The Journal of Health Law has an article which sums up the issue rather well. One of the points it makes is that that there were other ways far less drastic than banning all women to deal with the issue. Also when a pesticide was found to be making male workers infertile, the pesticide was banned rather than the men removed from jobs using that.
Not from this source, but again from my memory: In other situations where a job involves exposure that is harmful to health, typically strategies to reduce exposure generally, or test for exposure and temporarily rotate off those with too high of exposure levels. The way radiation exposure is handled is an example of this.
The Supreme court made a ruling in a similar exposure case in UAW v Johnson Controls was sex discrimination, specifically capacity for pregnancy discrimination, and not acceptable under current law.