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.)
What about men yelling and/or screaming at work?
“Men are more productive because they spend more time in the office.”
Men spend more time in the office screwing around. Talking football, watching E-Trade, so on. I think amandajane has a point, in that women have to get out on time, to pick up kids, feed them, get dinner, and to do so they have to plow through the work in the standard workday.
Again, like I said, it seems to me that women are more efficient than men.
“Over the first fifteen years of their careers, women work fewer hours than men, 52 per week versus 58.
Sounds to me like women are BETTER and more efficient at their jobs than men.
Or that the men are generally stupider, volunteering an extra 6 uncompensated hours per week. OF COURSE employers prefer the men.
”
wth? dude, that’s just dumb. So now working more hours equals being stupider and less efficient? I guess it has nothing to do with some people having more ambition/wanting to earn a little more cash? My father worked overtime to support us when we were kids, he’d often leave for work at 7 AM and come home in the evening. I guess he was just a moron, huh? Jackass.
I always thought the wage gap was off. I mean if I was a profit seeking company and I could systematically pay women 25% less than men for the same work…I would hire only women and cut my labor costs by 25% by just excluding men.
So I find it interesting when people say women are paid X cents to the dollar…then immediately start talking about how greedy a company is. I mean seriously, if there actually was the “old boys network” what would they care more about? Money or loyalty to other men? Money pretty much tops everything.
So I think there is something else at play here besides straight up discrimination.
Men spend more time in the office screwing around. Talking football, watching E-Trade, so on.
You got any stats on this, or are you just pulling misandric garbage out of your ass?
What about men yelling and/or screaming at work?
THIS. My wife has worked in a male dominated field, and she has always said that ‘females are more emotional at work” is a complete myth, but that men’s emotional outlets are culturally oriented toward violent outbursts, and that she observed FAR MORE often that men resort to this than women do to crying.
Again, that boss I had used to throw things at his employees when he got angry, memorably once an X-acto knife.
I think we mostly would have preferred that he go in the rest room and have a good cry.
My friend and co-worker who has to take off several weeks a year just to stay at home with the kids due to childcare/school conflictions always tells me what a relief it is to be back at work. The sad thing is, her husband’s job is much more conducive to working from home — he deals with website maintenance. And yet, in the six years I’ve known them he never opts to stay at home with the kids. She has to take off work (we can’t work from home in my company).
If anyone hasn’t heard of Hochschild’s book The Second Shift (and its followup, The Time Bind), I definitely recommend them both.
It’s true that very little of the wage gap is because of wage discrimination. I don’t know why people continually use this as the GOT YOU NOW, FEMINISTS point, because just because it’s not caused by wage discrimination doesn’t mean it’s not caused by sexism.
Also, Sofia is Brandoning. “Social pressure isn’t a thing! Just make your own choices! You don’t have to give in to it!”
wth? dude, that’s just dumb. So now working more hours equals being stupider and less efficient? I guess it has nothing to do with some people having more ambition/wanting to earn a little more cash? My father worked overtime to support us when we were kids, he’d often leave for work at 7 AM and come home in the evening. I guess he was just a moron, huh? Jackass.
Bite me. I was referring to salaried employees who just take it for granted that they will stay later.
If you don’t take that for granted, you have to be more efficient to get the same amount of work done in a shorter amount of time. And if you devote that extra time to the employer without compensation, you are being taken advantage of.
Overtime, which is compensated, is different. As is working extra time to start a business or as a partner.
Someone else said the same thing upthread, admittedly more artfully than I did. Still no need to be pissy, I wasn’t insulting your dad.
Brandon – I always thought the wage gap was off. I mean if I was a profit seeking company and I could systematically pay women 25% less than men for the same work…I would hire only women and cut my labor costs by 25% by just excluding men.
Why pay anyone more than minimum wage?
Generally, because you feel that the position you’re hiring for requires experience and skill, and you will have to pay more to get people who are qualified.
It’s not irrational for a sexist employer to hire men at higher wages if they feel they’re getting more “value” for their money.
I’m uncomfortable with the “women actually work HARDER and are BETTER at it” rhetoric some people are using here. I don’t think that’s true (at least in the realm of paid work), and I don’t think it’s a good idea to say “there really is a gender that’s better than the other one, you’re just wrong about which one it is.”
“i don’t think women face as much discrimination as much as people say we do.”
How old are you and how long have you been in a professional work environment? You come off very naive.
Oh, here we go. Because Brandon doesn’t believe it’s discrimination, we’re going to be treated to dozens of incoherent posts about why paying women less is A-Okay, complete with his utterly ignoring his previous posts and changing the wording to weasel out of owning his opinions. Maybe he’ll even ask “Ashley” about it and then we can hear that she has no problem with sexism in the workplace, so therefore it doesn’t exist.
“yes, i do think i’m relatively less feminine than a lot of girls. i don’t feel any particular way about it. it’s not something i can really control. i think i probably lie averagely on the spectrum. it’s like asking someone how they feel about having average IQ. probably neutral.”
Sofia, you’re talking like this is the Kinsey scale–in other words, that it actually exists. What’s this “Femininity Scale” like? Does it have “staying home and having babies” on one end and “being educated and actually speaking up for yourself” on the other? Because that’s gonna leave a hell of a lot of educated stay-at-home moms out in the cold.
Molly, on behalf of one of those moms, thank you.
After which we will, no doubt, here all about Ashley actually enjoys being paid less for the job her colleagues do. It probably gets her hot.
“Again, that boss I had used to throw things at his employees when he got angry, memorably once an X-acto knife.”
Frak, Zombie, that sounds terrible. Was there anyone you could report him to (like HR)? o.O
Molly, I would also like to know what sofia’s scale of femininity is/entails.
Brandon wrote, “I always thought the wage gap was off. I mean if I was a profit seeking company and I could systematically pay women 25% less than men for the same work…I would hire only women and cut my labor costs by 25% by just excluding men.”
Then he concludes with,
“So I think there is something else at play here besides straight up discrimination.”
Um, Brandon? This is kind of the DEFINITION of discrimination. Do you ever read what the fuck you write, you bigot?
You ignorant twit. No, actually, because working less produces a total income gap. The wage gap refers to equal hours, same work, different pay. You’re confusing two different gaps. The total income gap has FAR more to do with the fact that there are few women who work jobs at the top of the economy; most of the wealth in the USA is controlled by the mega wealthy, and women don’t really get the jobs that make new ones. So no, the total income gap between the genders is only explained in tiny teeny parts by maternity leave. The overwhelming majority of it is that they aren’t CEOs, owners, etc.
But the wage gap is when peons who work the same job, in the same hours are paid different amounts by gender. And it’s still extant, and it’s not even what you claim it is, and it can’t be justified by what you claim it is.
Misandry requires actually perpetuating something that disadvantages men. There are vanishingly few things that MRAs claim are misandristic, that actually are, because Men are the dominant gender group in the USA.
But the wage gap is when peons who work the same job, in the same hours are paid different amounts by gender. And it’s still extant, and it’s not even what you claim it is, and it can’t be justified by what you claim it is.
Maybe I’m being ignorant here, but isn’t being paid less for the same job illegal and grounds for suing?
Misandry requires actually perpetuating something that disadvantages men. There are vanishingly few things that MRAs claim are misandristic, that actually are, because Men are the dominant gender group in the USA.
So can you explain how “men are lazy and unproductive, women are better workers” isn’t misandric?
Men spend more time in the office screwing around. Talking football, watching E-trade, so on.
And, lest we forget, reading and commenting on manboobz 😛
Maybe I’m being ignorant here, but isn’t being paid less for the same job illegal and grounds for suing?
If the company books actually say “woman wage,” sure. But if the company books say “seniority pay,” “supervisor pay,” “perfect attendance bonus,” “performance-based raise” and the like, and those things just happen to go to men way more often, it’s really hard to make a case around that.
Lol, yeah. Good thing I’m not at work. :p
I hear ya, Holly. I think that there are some really good points, counter points and, in some cases, data points in this thread.
But I don’t believe that the quality of work and the productivity of any given worker can be determined on a strictly gendered basis. I also don’t think that most of the folks pointing out the flaws in the OP and some of the other comment are making that claim.