The Alleged Wage Inequality between Men and Women

 "There are three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

 

 -Benjamin Disraeli

The use of statistics is a wonderful tool when your goal is to oversimplify and distort the often much more complicated reality of economics and human nature.  Our dear leader spoke once more in support of Lily Ledbetter and the idea that men and women SHOULD be treated equally in terms of pay and compensation and advancement. 

What he said was basically true, that for every dollar a man gets in wages, a woman gets around 71 cents, at least in the United States.  (Personally I don't remember the exact figure but that was the gist of it.)  The assumption is wrong however that (1) this is proof of the inherent sexism of the American workplace, and (2) that that old panacea for all societal ills, MORE LEGISLATION will fix this alleged "problem".  

What I am emphatically NOT saying, of course is that the workplace is fair.  I know this vividly from my own personal experience, and I am sure many of you could come up with examples of the outrageous behavior of managers and others that proves that the average workplace is far from a land of milk and honey where only sweetness and light are experienced. (And in the future I hope to outline my own personal experience with the sorts of crap storms that the poor employees have to endure, being out in the middle of nowhere and without an umbrella when the deluge cuts loose.)

So what do I mean about the fact of wage inequality not proving the inherent sexism of the American workplace? Just this:  Men and women are NOT the same, do not have the same tendencies, skills, or abilities.

   This really should be so obvious I should not have to elaborate, but as H.L. Mencken observed many years ago, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people, so I will elaborate.  

Women tend to be smaller and not as physically powerful as men.  Nor do they, as a group tend to do the same sorts of things or enjoy the same sorts of things that men do.  Maybe some of these differences are going away.    


 I am talking about "central tendencies" of the populations of women and men, and in this respect I am not wrong.  You can argue all you want as to the degree to which these differences exist if you want, but my point is that they do in fact exist, and to ignore them is to do reality and justice an injustice.  

Consider, then, if you will, populations of men and women who are measured against certain parameters, like annual income, or IQ, or physical strength, longevity, height or weight.   In terms of these easily measurable things, men make more money, are no more or less intelligent than women, are stronger, don't live as long, are taller and weigh more than women.    However of course not all things are easily measurable.  Are women more rational than men or less rational?  Are they more intuitive than men?  Do they smell better?  Do they care more about their appearance?  Are women kinder to animals and children?  Are they as likely to commit murder and serious crimes?  Do they spend more time taking care of children?  Are men as physically disabled by pregnancy as women are?  Are women better looking than men?   Are their voices more pleasing to the ear than a male voice?  Are they better OB/GYNie's than men?  Better teachers, better parents, better whatever?  Yes and no.  It depends.  It is best not to make categorical statements.  

But getting back to wages, are women discriminated against?  Is there a vast conspiracy to cheat women of 29 cents out of every dollar of wages?  Yes women are discriminated against, and are discriminated in favorable ways too.  In other words, there are certain things women generally do better than men, and other things men do better than women.  Women are better at being women, for one thing.  And men are better at being men (in general I hasten to add).    

There are other things admittedly, where the discrimination is not justified and is wrong.  We are all the prisoners of gender.    The perceptions of employers and society in general, shapes their expectations as to what men and women do in life and in relation to one another.  A generation or more previously women were expected to get married and  have children, take care of those children.  The husband was expected to be the support of the family and the woman was supposed to be his "help-mate" and she still is in those among us who subscribe more thoroughly to the Judeo-Christian tradition.  In a more modern updating of that tradition, both men and women have careers and the care of children is either subcontracted out, or done in the spare time either partner has for the task.  Women however, are still the only ones who can, through their God-given physical and hormonal differences, bear children.  Men are never going to produce much milk, or get pregnant, regardless of how frequently they get screwed.  

In much of the Islamic world, it is even worse for women.   Women are expected to hide their bodies from men, so as not incite in them to unwanted sexual feelings. 

Indeed they are kept in cloisters in some cultures and not allowed out into the world at all.  In Saudi Arabia, for example, women are not allowed to drive automobiles.  And in other cultures things can be even more weird or unjust to men or women, depending on your perspective.    These are attitudes and value judgments that are not amenable to legislative remedies, however.   If you, as a woman choose to ride a bicycle through rural areas in Morocco wearing bermuda shorts and your hair uncovered, don't be surprised if little children pelt you with stones.  

So, in short, what am I saying?  Women and men, even in this country, tend to go into different lines of work, spend more or less time raising children, spend less or more time on their careers, and as  result do not, when summed up and averaged out to means, draw the same amount of money in income. 

An excellent book, read it.

Some fringe benefits of being female or in a relationship are not things you can quantify, and just because you can't assign a dollar value or a number to something does NOT mean it doesn't exist.  And just because some idiot who can use a calculator decides to calculate the mean dollar income of women and men and thus identifies what he or she thinks is a vast wage conspiracy against women, does not mean they know what the fuck are talking about.

Life is not fair, women are not the same as men, and groups have no rights, only individuals do. 

To impose "equality" on situations that are inherently unequal and never will be "equal" is to commit a very large injustice.  Now if only our President understood this.