I’ll give Sofia, the antifeminist bloggress behind the blog Sofiastry, credit for one thing: unlike a lot of Men’s Rightsers, she doesn’t deny that there is a wage gap between men and women. She just thinks that it’s justified – that women should be paid less.
Why? Well, I admit I don’t quite understand her explanation, which has something to do with women getting worse grades in school, working less, and, well, whatever the hell she’s trying to say here:
women who are likely seen in executive and higher-earning positions are estrogenically flawed in their lack of sufficient desire to prioritize family life. Its the equivalent of a man who has no creative, intellectual or ambitious drive — all hallmarks of testosterone.
Oh, and because, like Barbie, women think that math class is tough:
can it not simply be reduced to the fact that the average man has more of of an aptitude for finance and numbers than the average woman?
No, I’m pretty sure it can’t.
In a followup post, Sofia raised a critical issue that she somehow had overlooked in her earlier analysis: women are a bunch of blubbering crybabies.
I couldn’t count on one hand the number of times a female co-worker cried on the job (myself included), but I couldn’t name a single male (homosexuals excluded & even then…). Women are more emotional, more likely to take days off for such reasons (or no reason) and quantifiably put in less hours on the job. Depending on the field, I’d also wager that women are less likely to revolutionize an industry or make the same amount of exceptional contributions men do.
Seriously, gal. Don’t be a bunch of Lady-Boehners. Stop all of your sobbing! (Oh, oh oh.)
you should take a look at the stats cited in the finance sector as publicized by the authors of freakonomics (levitt and dubner):
Women have slightly lower GPAs than men and, perhaps more important, they take fewer finance courses. All else being equal, there is a strong correlation between a finance background and career earnings.
Over the first fifteen years of their careers, women work fewer hours than men, 52 per week versus 58. Over fifteen years, that six-hour difference adds up to six months’ less experience.
Women take more career interruptions than men. After ten years in the workforce, only 10 percent of male MBAs went for six months or more without working, compared with 40 percent of female MBAs.
here’s another supporting article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12760790/ns/business-forbes_com/t/are-women-earning-more-men/#.TnDF4WMi-K4
…but many women are earning more than their male peers now anyway:
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
…you’re being pretty mendacious with your quotes.
It’s absolutely true that women take more career interruptions.
This is not so we can eat bon-bons on the beach. It’s because we live in a society where the traditional role of a father is “bring home the paycheck” and the traditional role of a mother is “absolutely everything else.” You’re looking at maternity leaves, not whimsical little sabatticals. And the fact that women have to take more leave and are penalized more for it is a function of sexism, not of women being estrogenized sillyheads.
creative, intellectual or ambitious drive — all hallmarks of testosterone.
Wow, I guess I’m filled to the brim with testosterone? WTF?
It’s hard to be mendacious WITH QUOTES, my darling dear…unless something is egregiously out of context. And if you’re making the case that these quotes are egregiously out of context, your next move should probably not be to double down on the quoted on the material by linking to material you think SUPPORTS your quotes.
mat leave is technically compensated for in most professional fields. work is work, and dependent on output/profit. if a group of people are quantitatively, absolutely working less hours (and producing less), you suspect they would also be paid less. i’m sure (and this is supported) individual women who invest the effort, are compensated justly. there’s no discriminatory forces here.
mendacious in the sense that he’s omitting the stats.
I couldn’t count on one hand the number of times a female co-worker has had to take time off for child-care purposes, but I can only count a single male who has done the same. (Actually, after the birth of their second child, he opted to stay at home with the kids because his wife’s job was much more lucrative than his).
Almost everyone who works at my company has children, and 99% of the time it’s the mother who ends up taking time off work to deal with doctor’s appointments, to stay home with a sick child, or to stay home because they don’t have childcare. One of my co-workers has to take off two weeks every summer (one at the beginning and one at the end) because the daycare and school schedules do not mesh well so her kids are without care for that time. She’s married, but her husband NEVER stays home for these periods of time.
A huge reason that women’s careers get stalled is because they have children and they still perform the lion’s share of child-rearing.
Sofia, what does crying have to do with promotion? Or anything?
And what does the fact that women are less likely to be stupid with their health (which is generally the reason they take time off when controlling for children and so forth) have to do with their being “emotional?”
Also, there are other issues at play for women’s compensation then their being less likely to be stupid about their health.
Also, your saying that women prioritizing family life wrong is your way of saying “either women can have kids or not but if they do, they deserve lower pay.” Which is interesting because that is the same reason given for giving the male a raise and not giving the female the raise when both are equally competent at the job. So basically you are looking to reinforce the idea that women should be staying home when they have babies.
women DO perform most of the child-rearing not included in mat leave, but shouldn’t she be addressing this issue with her partner? not her employer?
women who are likely seen in executive and higher-earning positions are estrogenically flawed in their lack of sufficient desire to prioritize family life.
could you point to the research you believe supports this pseudo-scientific horseshit, because right now the top google result for ‘estrogenically flawed’ is http://manboobz.com/2011/09/14/stop-your-sobbing-or-expect-to-get-paid-less-ladies/
But that’s their CHOICE…and if they pay a penalty for that, well, them’s the breaks…I guess…?
So because some women will work less due to maternity leave, it’s fine that the majority of women are paid less for the same work? What about women who don’t want children? How is it not discriminatory to pay them less on the chance that they might get pregnant and take time off work?
Would doing so make her estrogenically-flawed?
‘estrogenically flawed’ was facetious but jezebel published an interesting article on the “unhappiest” person in the world who’s incidentally a professional, childless woman: http://jezebel.com/5838505/the-unhappiest-person-ever-is-a-female-lawyer
So because some women will work less due to maternity leave, it’s fine that the majority of women are paid less for the same work? What about women who don’t want children? How is it not discriminatory to pay them less on the chance that they might get pregnant and take time off work?
it’s not quantitatively the same amount of work. and of course i don’t think women should be paid less for the sake of it, but it’s merit based.
One childfree female professional is unhappy, therefore all female professionals need to get knocked up and get back in the kitchen. Of course. It makes perfect sense.
one? try a demographic.
…and it’s not such a simple dichotomy.
It was facetious? Why? Was it a joke? Was the part about creative and intellectual pursuits facetious too? Because if it wasn’t, then you have a rather odd comparison there.
I’m estrogenically flawed! Could you be more ignorant with your generalizations? Newsflash: not all of us women want to reproduce.
huh? i’m not saying all women should reproduce. i’m talking about the wage gap. but i do think women at the top of professional fields are less traditionally feminine.
facetious in the sense that i don’t think they’re biologically NOT women.
It is not supported
When we account for differences between male and female work
patterns as well as other key factors, women earned, on average,
80 percent of what men earned in 2000. That is the GAO’s report on it.
Is it possible that childless professional women are unhappier because of the sexism they encounter, and not just because they’re tormenting themselves by denying their true June Cleaver nature?
And the fact that women have to take more leave and are penalized more for it is a function of sexism
I have to confess I don’t understand this, and it does come up a lot in wage gap discussions. If you take time off, you won’t be paid for it. Are you saying that women should get more paid leave, aka get paid as much as men for working less?