Breaking My Own Rules

The following notes exemplify my reluctance to comment to anything on Facebook. My son’s girlfriend had posted something about politics, and in reading through the comments, I saw that one guy had engaged in a lengthy rant in which he said, among other things, that feminists propagated the lie of a wage gap. I didn’t say anything about the rest of it, but I did comment that the wage gap isn’t a feminist myth. Throughout the day I’ve been pummeled with the following replies. After the first one, I posted some links along with the comment that just because it’s illegal doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen; I would admit that my links may not have been the strongest arguments, but I was about to head to work and didn’t have a lot of time. I had already decided not to continue to engage before the afternoon messages came through. (All of these comments are his, not mine.) I don’t take seriously arguments based on anecdotal evidence, circular reasoning, and Youtube videos. But here you go. I hope it’s not bad of me to do this; I’m showing you why I don’t post on Facebook. Keep in mind that I replied ONCE! Is it just me, or is this overkill (and a little crazy)?

6:59 a.m. “If you have evidence of this I'd be happy to look it over. But under the equal pay act employers aren't allowed pay women less for the same job. There is still a 4 to 7 cent gap in specific fields which obviously should be studied but unless the woman interviewing for the job accepts a wage less than everyone else, women do not make less than men. I would encourage you to ask around. all the women and men at my work place make the same wage as everyone else in their group. housekeepers make the same, nursing aids make the same, lpns make the same, administration makes the same. if the 70 cents on the dollar myth was true then every woman working in my building would be making 30 cents less than every man, and i don't think they would take that sitting down. in this study statistically men took more physically demanding jobs on average and worked more overtime and took less time off than women did in aggregate, this is where the 70 cents on the dollar myth came from. earned income is different than how much you make. if you make the same amount of money an hour and you just work less and don't do any overtime, youre going to make less than a person who works the overtime and works more hours than you. Like i said any evidence you have to support your claim that this isnt a myth i would gladly look over.”

7:02 a.m. “And like I mentioned earlier there is a huge push to get women into the STEM fields, like they will literally throw away a man's application if they don't have enough women in the workplace. that means that by virtue of being a woman, you can get a job, instead of having earned it via experience, which is completely unfair. And even with these giant pushes they still can't get enough women to be scientists and politicians, and no one wants to admit that maybe, just maybe, woman on average are less happy in those fields.”

7:12 a.m. “Also, if employers could get away with paying all women less than men on a regular basis, why would they employ men at all? wouldnt they just employ as many women as possible so they didnt have to pay as much to have a work force? it doesn't really add up.”

3:27 p.m. “I'm not saying that the fact that it's illegal to pay a woman less because shes a woman is going to keep it from ever happening. the first article you linked even said that a closer look reveals that women in aggregate earn about 91% of what men earn aggregate, that's far less than 77 cents on the dollar. and that's also taking into consideration all men and women working all jobs. And If any woman at my work, or any job in America could prove that she was being discriminated against in pay because she was a woman she could have people fired, or even sometimes get a cash settlement. The only reason any worker could potentially work the same job for less money is if they didn't know what the going rate was for the position and agreed to a lower wage, that's not sexism, that's due to the fact that their is a stigma in America against talking about how much you make. This makes it easy for employers pay people less for the same job. If men and women all knew what everyone was making an hour, they'd have a much better chance of having equal pay for everyone. I'm still curious as to why any business that could pay women less money for the same job wouldn't hire as many women as possible to keep their labor costs down. Why would they have waited until this huge feminist push to get women in stem fields if they could save money? Once again, I admit in specific fields their may be systemic factors that are leading to women being unfairly paid and that should be looked at. But agreeing to a lower wage because you didnt know better isnt really the same as getting away with paying women less. Women out earn men in counselor positions, distribution management, special education teachers and so on. Is this supposed to be evidence that men are being discriminated against in these fields because of their sex?”

3:35 p.m. [He tagged me in this one, no doubt disappointed that I wasn’t responding.] “The last article admitted that raising the minimum wage (which i am all for) would significantly decrease the wage gap. This is just more proof that woman on average work lower paying jobs, it's not inherent proof of discrimination.”

3:38 p.m. “https://youtu.be/-WWzELjRfWA this is obamas speech about the pay gap, he likens it to only having your vote count 3/4 of the time. Considering all the article that you've sent me that's a bad analogy. Also a question for you, do you believe in the patriarchy?”