Happy Equal Pay Day!
President Obama just issued a national proclamation declaring today Equal Pay Day. I don't know how you're celebrating it but Carrie Lukas is honoring the occasion by pointing out in the Wall Street Journal how ridiculous the holiday is.
Unemployment is consistently higher among men than women and men are more likely to drop out of the labor force -- giving up their job search entirely -- than women. And that's before we even get to the explanation of how women tend to choose jobs and job situations that pay less. This is obvious -- just last week I turned down a rather nice high-paying job because it would require me to get full-time childcare and I prefer to stay home with my young children for a good chunk of the day.
Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Simply put, many women—not all, but enough to have a big impact on the statistics—are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.
What many feminists don't realize is that women such as myself make this choice because it's a wise economic decision for us and for our families.
Lukas goes on to point out how the wage gap is closing somewhat and why that may not be all roses:
Should we celebrate the closing of the wage gap? Certainly it's good news that women are increasingly productive workers, but women whose husbands and sons are out of work or under-employed are likely to have a different perspective. After all, many American women wish they could work less, and that they weren't the primary earners for their families.
I know far too many families that are in just this (unhappy for them) situation -- wives who are primary earners while their husbands are underemployed or unemployed. A holiday like today's only adds insult to injury.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Actually, the sad part is that they do realize it. They simply perceive it as you being a victim of a structural, patriarchal domesticity that has forced you to accept an unequal economic condition--your children being the source of your bondage.
Feminists are pro-choice, but only so far as that choice is to not have children.
Nov '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
It's only as unhappy as you want it to be. I know a number of guys who are stay-at-home dads, while their wives work outside the home, and their families are doing quite well. As for myself, I turned down much higher paying work about a decade ago because I wanted the time with my kids (I was a single parent); the job that I had was well paid enough and gave me tons of freedom to do what I believed to be right. And isn't that what being a guy is all about - not your job status, not your possessions - but being willing to take the minor losses in order to support what you believe?
Jun '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
If working Motherhood is not like having two full-time jobs, one unpaid, then you're probably doing it wrong. Working fathers usually have more like one and a half jobs. Domestically, they're part-timers on probation. There's your difference--most of it. And beyond that, men generally (as a rule) risk more and demand more at work.
Dec '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
I have never understood the equal pay argument. Women on average miss more days of work than men(even not taking into account pregnancies), men on average are more aggressive than women, and men on average have more of their personal identiy tied up in their jobs than women. Very few people disagree with any of those facts yet many people are "outraged" that on average men earn more than women in the same profession.
@HalifaxCB: I think Mollie was just trying to say she personally knows couples who wish that the wife could stay at home more while the man works more, and that the growing artificial push to "equalize pay" is hurting those families. Not that every couple is made up of a man who wants to work and a woman who wants to stay home. I personally wouldn't mind staying at home while the wife racked in the cash, but her personality isn't built that way so I man up and do what I have to do.
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
HalifaxCB
It's only as unhappy as you want it to be. I know a number of guys who are stay-at-home dads, while their wives work outside the home, and their families are doing quite well.
HalifaxCB, I certainly understand that. And, in fact, both of my parents took turns staying at home with us and I'm the better for it. I was saying that this wife-as-bread-earner situation was undesired by these particular families. That it wasn't due to desire or planning but economic circumstances.
Dec '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Kofola
Actually, the sad part is that they do realize it. They simply perceive it as you being a victim of a structural, patriarchal domesticity that has forced you to accept an unequal economic condition--your children being the source of your bondage. ... · Apr 12 at 7:07am
Not even that is true, in my opinion. They know what you state. In fact, a lot of the arguments that survive regarding special accommodations for women is based on the notion that they have heavier child care burdens.
They realize it. They know what you quote above. They know that women seek less risky career paths. They simply don't care.
Feminists are simply not honest brokers in the arena of ideas. It took a second vile attack at Sarah Palin from Bill Maher before there was a mild rebuke.
We simply can't take liberals at their word regarding their intentions.
Dec '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Gonna have to disagree with you there. I think the only difference between Fatherhood and Motherhood is that the mother gets credit for all her hard work and is allowed a cry every now and then. Dads rarely get noticed, unless they screw up, and are expected to constantly keep the stiff upper lip.
Edited on Apr 12, 2011 at 7:36amJun '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
"What many feminists don't realize is that women such as myself make this choice because it's a wise economic decision for us and for our families."
And it's not just a wise economic decision for many families. (Sometimes it can be a bad economic decision.) It's made for many, many reasons, among them the desire to have your values and nurturing impressed upon your kids by the person who loves them more than anyone in the world -- you.
As had been said before, kooky feminists only understand choice if they are the ones making the choices and forcing them on all women.
"Dads rarely get noticed, unless they screw up, and are expected to constantly keep the stiff upper lip."
That sounds like the sitcom world --- doesn't apply in real life among my friends and colleagues. Dads are highly respected and their equally important role in raising kids is absolutley acknowledged.
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
StickerShock,
I completely agree about the values. As a former econ student, I always appreciated the Greek roots of the word economics -- oikos, meaning the household, and nomos, meaning rules or laws. We think of economics as about material goods but really its about more than just material goods -- the ordering of households and estates large and small.
Jan '11
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Could we have a little sense of history here?
In 1966 I couldn't even get a job interview upon graduating because the companies that were looking for mathematics majors wouldn't talk to a woman.
In the 70's I had not one, but two managers tell me that they wouldn't pay me as much as the programmer in the next office "because women don't need as much money as men."
I think all the fuss about equality of outcome is ridiculous, but let's not forget that the "equal pay" idea got started because of real injustices that really did need to be addressed.
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Good points all around, Margaret. And on a different day, you might catch me lamenting the lack of female bylines in most conservative outlets (Ricochet being a welcome exception, it seems).
But because there are or were real problems does not excuse the silliness of ignoring logical reasons for pay disparity, or their benefits to both sexes.
Jul '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
It's Equal Pay Day? I completely forgot.
My wife better get me something good.
Sep '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Why does every decision have to be analyzed in terms of money? What if you just want to be with your kids?
Sep '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.: StickerShock,
I completely agree about the values. As a former econ student, I always appreciated the Greek roots of the word economics -- oikos, meaning the household, and nomos, meaning rules or laws. We think of economics as about material goods but really its about more than just material goods -- the ordering of households and estates large and small. · Apr 12 at 8:24am
Mollie - forgive my offtopicness: did you read Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg Lecture regarding the de-hellenization of Christianity?
Sep '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Well, in keeping with Stanley Kurtz's excavation work on Obama's hidden socialist past, I think it behooves us to remember that for Hegelian-Marxists there really isn't anything other than the material world and its a zero sum game: you have more money, I have less. So, its all money, all the time.
Jun '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Absolutely, Margaret. There were certainly real injustices everywhere women turned. In 1976 I started at an engineering school where the male/female ratio was 10 to one. Not every professor there was of the belief that women belonged. Women also missed out on important busines contacts when the corporate officers conducted business at male only clubs or on the golf course when women were not welcome. But the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.
Just as it has with women sports and Titile IX -- a necessary correction in opportunity for women has been perverted to penalize men.
Jan '11
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
It probably has. Both my daughters are working in traditionally feminine fields, so I don't hear much about what it's like for young women in engineering or mathematics in this century. I expect things have changed a lot while I've been sitting home writing books.
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Pseudodionysius
Mollie - forgive my offtopicness: did you read Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg Lecture regarding the de-hellenization of Christianity? · Apr 12 at 12:23pm
I haven't. I take it I should?
Sep '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
Most definitely:
Edited on Apr 12, 2011 at 5:11pmJul '10
Re: Happy Equal Pay Day!
I’ve written several op-ed pieces on the subject of equal pay over the years, and am mystified that the subject still hasn’t been put to rest. The last one was about 3 years ago and even then, there were 39 fields that women were earning more than men.
The phrase “studies show women earn 77 cents for every dollar paid to men” is endlessly trumpeted in the media. Interestingly, these ‘studies’ are based on a single data point from Department of Labor statistics that compares the median wages of a full-time working woman to the wages of a full-time working man. What goes unreported is the careful massaging of the facts to support those ‘studies’ as Carrie Lucas detailed in her article.
For this and other issues, the public has accepted what some are using for political gain to influence us. What’s needed is to look past the soundbites and become a bit suspicious of the ‘studies’ that support them. But politics is a power game, never mind reality. To quote Churchill, politicians “occasionally stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."