D: Men that are doing bad economically die: Look at the suicide statistics. Men are much more likely to kill themselves, and considering that people that do tend to be employed in jobs that pay like crap.. Well. Men that are doing badly economically are also much more likely to get into bar fights and get themselves killed, or end up drunk driving and dying, or any of the million things that reduce their life expectancy.
Poor women have children at a high rate and thus a wide array of safety nets become available that are unavailable for men. A big part of the reason feminists fight so hard for the mothers to get custody by default is best illustrated by a comment by a feminist in 2013..."With the children goes the money".
On a societal level men pay the vast majority into safety nets and women get the vast majority out of them. It would be interesting to see what the "pay gap" would be if we took that into account.
I think the OP is under the impression that men quit there work less than women. Which may very easily not be the case. Also I'm seeing it a lot more that people with young children are either not quitting there jobs or just trying to do more work from home which is against the idea that women stop work when they have kids. My mother and I are seeing more Au Pairs bring children to music lessons with each passing year.
I think the OP is under the impression that men quit there work less than women. Which may very easily not be the case. Also I'm seeing it a lot more that people with young children are either not quitting there jobs or just trying to do more work from home which is against the idea that women stop work when they have kids. My mother and I are seeing more Au Pairs bring children to music lessons with each passing year.
That is because with this economy, living on a single income is quite the luxury. Single people often have to get room-mates, and for couples, it's hard to afford having one parent stay home.
Tuss-I discussed this before the myth of women as a socioeconomically disadvantaged class is just that A MYTH. Women get far more because they live longer due to their healthcare needs being privileged over mens, kids as mentioned above, and special entitlements such as student aid being reserved exclusively for women. You didn't pause for a second to think about that did you.
Since you brought it up, the average jail sentence for a female rapist is measured in days,. Somehow I doubt your to torn up about that.
If women make choices that are disadvantageous, and it results in them earning less, I can't see how it's a problem.
Either, women have the power to make their own choices, and systemically will earn less due to those choices -
Or women shouldn't make their own choices, and should have higher earning choices made for them??
Wow, if I ever need to hire someone to pick cherries for me, I know who I'm gonna call. That being said, I consider it a woman's job and am therefore willing to pay little for it.
As much as I am opposed to replying to posts that do not bother to take my entire post into consideration, I'll do so now anyhow. Because I assume that Tuss didn't have any counterarguments to the remaining ~95% of my post.
You might think so, but I've seen smaller companies go bankrupt because an employee decided to get three children in row, while being impossible to fire because doing so would've been discrimination.
Brainstorm: let's organise society in such a way that people "having lives" doesn't cause economic collapse. Wow! What a fresh idea! I should write a book about it.
Let's organize society in such a way that people are not allowed to have lives. How's that sound?
No matter how "unfair" it might sound, paid maternity leaves are damaging to small businesses, and do cause bankruptcies. Assuming that the business-owner aims to create a successful business that they can live off, they will keep this in consideration. It doesn't matter whether it's legal or not, it will continue happening as long as this is the case.
So what if he's a capitalist and believes art is not as important. He can claim that it isn't and have some evidence to back it up.
He has no more evidence than that capitalism discourages humans to engage in emotionally and intellectually fulfilling pursuits instead of being profitable to the wealthy.
You still haven't attacked his argument. You're just extending the argumentum ad passiones here.
Also, this isn't true. Capitalism discourages people from choosing pursuits that are not profitable to themselves. The rich people discourage others from following pursuits that are not profitable to the rich people. Because dictating what pursuits others follow is a profitable pursuit for the rich people.
In simpler terms: Rich people have money. People want money. They want to make products that the rich people want. Rich people want to buy your working hours to sit in a factory making products the poor people want
And it's not like Capitalism is the sole thing to blame, here. Artists have been really bad off historically, with the exceptions of those who were sanctioned by incredibly rich families in Renaissance, or those enlisted by the catholic church. Art has always been worth what people are willing to pay for it, and will continue to be so.
On a societal level men pay the vast majority into safety nets and women get the vast majority out of them.
You don't pause for a second to consider that perhaps men as a group pay more into social services and women as a group receive more social services because one group is wealthier than the other.
I think he did. I think I did, too, and wrote down a list of things why it could be so. Also:
If women make choices that are disadvantageous, and it results in them earning less, I can't see how it's a problem.
If women are genetically disposed to exhibit physiological traits that cause them to make decisions that are less profitable in an industrialized society, what then? We either:
A: Allow them to make these choices and consequently earn less. B: Make decisions for them, and violate their basic human rights. C: Pay women more for the same jobs to achieve gender pay equality.
In case of C, assuming individual variance, the system shafts over men exhibiting feminine traits and overtly rewards women exhibiting masculine traits, and therefore is a simplified system. In addition to just feeling morally wrong for paying people different amounts for the same productivity.
30% of families headed by single mothers live in poverty, compared to 16% of families headed by single fathers. The median incomes are $34K compared to $48K.
The US census is quite clear.
That you think that US social services at present are enough to overcome a systemic inequality is both hilarious and worrying due to how poorly it matches up with reality.
Meanwhile, only 18.3% of single custodial parents are fathers, as it is much more difficult for a father to receive single custody. In fact, it usually only happens when the father is doing very well economically and the mother is doing very poorly. This is a very simple case where poorly-doing fathers do not get custody, because it defaults to the mother. Further, single custodian fathers are less likely to get paid the child support they're owed by the father, as the document linked shows.
At the same time, women are the primary consumers in the united states. Let me quote:
Women are the primary consumers in the United States. Women represent an economic powerhouse, making over 85% of the consumer purchases (in the United States) and influencing over 95% of total goods and services. 1 Women's consumer spending is $3.7 trillion and business spending is $1.5 trillion. 2 Women also purchase 50% or better in traditional "male" categories like automobiles, consumer electronics, and PCs.
Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from autos to health care:*
91% of New Homes
66% PCs
92% Vacations
80% Healthcare
65% New Cars
89% Bank Accounts
93% Food
93 % OTC Pharmaceuticals
American women spend about $5 trillion annually…Over half of the U.S. GDP**
So while women might earn less, they spend more. Where they get all that extra money to maintain this disparity is left as an exercise to reader. How they can be socioeconomically shafted while maintaining vast majority of buying power is a bizarre equation.
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The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Tuss-30% of families headed by single mothers live in poverty, compared to 16% of families headed by single fathers. The median incomes are $34K compared to $48K.
The US census is quite clear.
That you think that US social services at present are enough to overcome a systemic inequality is both hilarious and worrying due to how poorly it matches up with reality.
Your analysis of male/female wealth ignores the homeless population that is between 80-90% male. It ignores that women are privileged in regards to child custody. Your analysis ignores that single fathers as a group are on average much older then single mothers and are on average very well established in their communities. Your analysis ignores that having a child ensures a safety net for mothers that keeps them from ending up homeless but does come at a price. You also ignore that I am a US citizen who has worked with single mothers and they often have enough left over in food stamps to feed their friends, they get rent controlled apartments that cost them $9 a month if they fall below a certain level of income, and that it is IMMEASURABLY easier to recover from that state then homelessness.
is likely due to discrimination, because they cannot explain it.
Ya, discrimination is simply accepted as the go to explanation with the only necessary proof required being different outcomes.
If women are genetically disposed to exhibit physiological traits that cause them to make decisions that are less profitable in an industrialized society...
If. IF. It's an EXTREMELY big "if". But there is no overwhelming preponderance of evidence that suggests that it is true. The only thing we know for sure is that women have lesser socioeconomic outcomes then men do, to a statistically significant degree. Discrimination is just as likely a cause as Genetic Predisposition.
Also, as a note...from what I have read, and heard from other women, most discrimination these days isn't necessarily discrimination per se, at least not in the classical sense. People don't specifically try to push women down, but they unquestionably treat women differently then men, and it ends up having a similar, albeit smaller, effect, as straight discrimination. It mostly takes the form of what one could call "microaggressions" - behaviors that persistently remind a person that they are different, "the other", that they shouldn't be here and that they don't belong here. A really simple example that plenty of you have probably witnessed is the "OMG UR A GRL!" comments and behaviors toward women who visit game stores.
In isolation they are harmless. One random insensitive or poorly thought-out comment can easily be ignored. But they don't occur in isolation; the average woman/minority/disadvantaged group member gets subjected to them constantly. It becomes very difficult to shut out, and becomes psychologically wearing VERY quickly to ANY person, male or female. The effect can start at a very young age and progressively accumulate throughout a person's life. This often leads to the person in question simply seeking a place where they don't have to put up with it.
Now, you can claim that women should just "get over it" or "deal with it", and to some extent, they do. That's why there are still some women who work in high-pressure careers. However, the fact that this causes plenty of women to "drop out" of such things is not because women are inherently weaker/worse/prefer less stressful work. It is often because work is artificially made more stressful by such treatment. Furthermore, it is certainly the case that men would react pretty much the same way if they were put in the same environment.
If women are genetically disposed to exhibit physiological traits that cause them to make decisions that are less profitable in an industrialized society...
If. IF. It's an EXTREMELY big "if". But there is no overwhelming preponderance of evidence that suggests that it is true. The only thing we know for sure is that women have lesser socioeconomic outcomes then men do, to a statistically significant degree. Discrimination is just as likely a cause as Genetic Predisposition.
I am not saying discrimination doesn't happen. I'm fairly certain that both discrimination and genetic predisposition play a part. I do feel that the problem gets blown out of proportion by people assuming that all of the difference is because of discrimination.
Testosterone can be linked to self-confidence and self-esteem, and those traits can be linked to higher pay. Self-Esteem and Earnings from Journal of Economic Psychology discusses this. In fact, the positive correlation with self-esteem and earnings is at least as large as the one between cognitive ability and earnings.
Being cocky and arrogant pays off.
Also, as a note...from what I have read, and heard from other women, most discrimination these days isn't necessarily discrimination per se, at least not in the classical sense. People don't specifically try to push women down, but they unquestionably treat women differently then men, and it ends up having a similar, albeit smaller, effect, as straight discrimination. It mostly takes the form of what one could call "microaggressions" - behaviors that persistently remind a person that they are different, "the other", that they shouldn't be here and that they don't belong here. A really simple example that plenty of you have probably witnessed is the "OMG UR A GRL!" comments and behaviors toward women who visit game stores.
In isolation they are harmless. One random insensitive or poorly thought-out comment can easily be ignored. But they don't occur in isolation; the average woman/minority/disadvantaged group member gets subjected to them constantly. It becomes very difficult to shut out, and becomes psychologically wearing VERY quickly to ANY person, male or female. The effect can start at a very young age and progressively accumulate throughout a person's life. This often leads to the person in question simply seeking a place where they don't have to put up with it.
Now, you can claim that women should just "get over it" or "deal with it", and to some extent, they do. That's why there are still some women who work in high-pressure careers. However, the fact that this causes plenty of women to "drop out" of such things is not because women are inherently weaker/worse/prefer less stressful work. It is often because work is artificially made more stressful by such treatment. Furthermore, it is certainly the case that men would react pretty much the same way if they were put in the same environment.
I agree on this. I hinted at this around the part dealing with female surgeons. I maintain that the situation will eventually fix itself, as more females make it to the top of their fields. The entire phenomenon is pretty much omnipresent within humans, as we pay more attention to that what is different and goes against our expectations. It's always harder for the pioneers.
Self-confidence levels can be linked to the ability to not give a damn about what others think of you, which can be linked to testosterone.
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The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
I am not saying discrimination doesn't happen. I'm fairly certain that both discrimination and genetic predisposition play a part. I do feel that the problem gets blown out of proportion by people assuming that all of the difference is because of discrimination.
You may or may not be correct. But even if you are...there is one BIG difference between the two explanations. Genetic Prediposition has the quality of being immutable; it suggests that there is something inherently different about women that makes them inherently deserve to earn less money. It conveniently absolves all responsibility from the matter, and makes it ok for people to leave it as it is. But it is NOT ok, because as you stated, there's a non-zero amount of discrimination, and any line of thinking that systemically minimizes, trivializes, dismisses, and ignores such discrimination is just not a productive one to take.
Testosterone can be linked to self-confidence and self-esteem, and those traits can be linked to higher pay. Self-Esteem and Earnings from Journal of Economic Psychology discusses this. In fact, the positive correlation with self-esteem and earnings is at least as large as the one between cognitive ability and earnings.
Being cocky and arrogant pays off.
Now I have to ask, why? There's drawbacks to arrogance just as there are to low self-esteem. Each one is bad when taken in an extreme. For example, the arrogant person will externalize all critique, the depressed person will internalize all critique, and neither will be able to use it to improve themselves in a healthy manner. I have observed both of these play out. Yet we are more accepting of, and more willing to excuse the end of the spectrum associated with masculinity, while at the same time being excessively critical of the qualities associated with femininity. This valuation of qualities is not objective; it is a subjective valuation created by our society.
You may or may not be correct. But even if you are...there is one BIG difference between the two explanations. Genetic Prediposition has the quality of being immutable; it suggests that there is something inherently different about women that makes them inherently deserve to earn less money. It conveniently absolves all responsibility from the matter, and makes it ok for people to leave it as it is. But it is NOT ok, because as you stated, there's a non-zero amount of discrimination, and any line of thinking that systemically minimizes, trivializes, dismisses, and ignores such discrimination is just not a productive one to take.
Replace "women" with any genetic predisposition and there are quite a few that lead to someone making less money. Hell, being short leads to people making less money. It probably does come down a lot to confidence.
But I just want to say, that as a man, I would love it, absolutely love it, if more women were in jobs dominated by men. Do you know how much it sucks that in my physics graduate class, out of the 25ish Americans, there are only two females? I want more women in sciences and engineering, why are women so harsh on other women who are interested in such things? Stop it.
I want more women in sciences and engineering, why are women so harsh on other women who are interested in such things? Stop it.
STEM is being pushed on girls hardcore these days. Your children's world will hopefully be a bit more equal than ours.
I've done STEM programming with kids, ages 5 to 7, for 5 years and have noticed that boys are much bolder with making observations and hypothesis' while girls are more conservative due to fear of being criticized for being wrong but are incredibly through in their experimentation and documentation. Girls are also more likely to confer with others when working on something. Because of these gender differences we adults generally split up large gender-based social groups and balance everyone's abilities evenly. The kids are totally unaware and having fun being scientists.
STEM is being pushed on girls hardcore these days. Your children's world will hopefully be a bit more equal than ours.
Focusing on the small number of areas where males clearly are doing better then females (STEM) and ignoring the areas where females are doing much better then males (Everywhere else in academia) will only create a radiculously unbalanced society.
The world this kind of thinking is creating is one where women have zero accountability and men are discriminated against unapologetically. Now that I think about it we already have that in most aspects of life.
You may or may not be correct. But even if you are...there is one BIG difference between the two explanations. Genetic Prediposition has the quality of being immutable; it suggests that there is something inherently different about women that makes them inherently deserve to earn less money.
I am not sure if this is true. There might very well be something about women that makes them earn less money, even if they didn't deserve to earn less. The part about immutability, well, I'm pretty sure one can inject testosterone.
Besides, there are a lot of genetic dispositions. Height is one of them, shorter people make less money on average. IQ is heritable, and can be linked to income. I'm not even going to touch on subjects such as Alzheimer's or other genetic diseases.
Assuming everyone is born with a skillset that is equally valued in the current society is a dream. A naive one, at that.
It conveniently absolves all responsibility from the matter, and makes it ok for people to leave it as it is. But it is NOT ok, because as you stated, there's a non-zero amount of discrimination, and any line of thinking that systemically minimizes, trivializes, dismisses, and ignores such discrimination is just not a productive one to take.
I don't think I do any of these things. Besides, I believe that understanding all the causes that make up a the pay disparity is necessary to understand the situation.
In addition, a certain amount of discrimination will always exist. People form clicks with people that are similar to themselves, and then shun those that are different. Races do this, religions do this, even people of certain bodytypes do so. People that have same hobbies do so, and people that went to the same school do so. Contacts are everything.
And it certainly doesn't remove any responsibility. Even if we assume that women are, on average, worse at drawing triangles, it doesn't matter. You don't hire the entire gender to draw your triangles. You hire an individual, and there's nothing saying that an individual female can't be better than an individual male at drawing triangles. Everyone is still responsible for treating people as individuals, not stereotypes.
People gravitate to confident people and are more willing to accept them as leaders. This is more than likely an evolutionary trait that was useful in hunter-gatherer society.
In addition, it's easier to convince people about any topic when you're convinced that you're right, even if you're wrong. It's very hard to sell an expensive car if you go like: "Well, this car is.. Kinda good.. I suppose?". It's also very hard to be a politician and sell an idea, or a lobbyist, or to convince people in court as a lawyer. Or to convince your boss you deserve more money. People are much more likely to believe you if you believe yourself.
Also, confidence is regarded as an attractive quality in a potential mate by both sexes. And people are more likely to hire people they find sexually attractive.
This valuation of qualities is not objective; it is a subjective valuation created by our society.
There is no such thing as objectivity when regarding social status. You can't say that "Person A is objectively better than person B, and should therefore be paid more."
In capitalism, It's all supply-and-demand. If only one in million people was willing to teach kids, we'd start paying teachers more, because there'd be a shortage of them. Right now we pay doctors a lot, because when you have a bullet in your chest you're not going to ask how much it costs to get it removed. And lawyers, because if you're going to jail, you don't ask how much it costs to avoid that.
Yet we are more accepting of, and more willing to excuse the end of the spectrum associated with masculinity, while at the same time being excessively critical of the qualities associated with femininity.
We model people on our expectations. In musicology, we call these "canonical structures". Have you ever heard of Georg Philipp Telemann? You might have, but I doubt it. He was undoubtedly the most popular German composer of his age, and he had to compare to Bach and Handel. His music also shows much more diversity than that of either of the other two. He also shared much of the same ideology with the latter Mozart.
But he has been forgotten by history, because he did not fit the archetype of a musician. He wasn't depressed, chronically ill, or poor. He didn't seem to have any problems composing a lot of music, either. His life was too easy for him to be accepted as a great musician. He didn't fit the canon.
We associate traits such as self-confidence to great leaders. We associate chronic depression, blindness and being poor as hell to artists. This association is not scientifically sane, or even rational. Certainly, being deaf isn't beneficial to a musician.
We judge individuals based on other individuals, relying on a minimal set of anecdotal evidence. It is an issue, but I do not think it's a gender issue.
The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
You make some good points. I agree that not everyone is going to end up clocking the same paycheck, nor do I think it should be that way. But as far as the genetic predisposition thing - I'm willing to acknowledge that it's there to some degree, but that's about it. It's not worth devoting further energy to something we can't control (yet), when there are other factors that we can.
You are right that self-confidence is highly attractive - but only in men. Women who display self-confidence are routinely labelled "pushy", "*****y", and generally regarded as having something wrong with them. One of the things that people associate with femininity is deferential doormat behavior, which is conveniently something people consider less valuable. Women who display valued "manly" traits are generally considered less likable. So women either engage in the devalued behavior, thus justifying low pay, or they engage in the valued behavior, at which point they are seen as aberrant and again, this is used to justify why they are less qualified and should be paid less.
And sure, chronic depression and deep emotions are attributed to artists. Male artists. You hit at the problem in your last sentence: "We judge individuals based on other individuals". People implicitly think that the more similar you are to successful people, the more deserving of success you are. Given that 90%+ much all successful people in the last millenia were male, women are immediately seen as less deserving just by virtue of being different from them. Add in the fact that decision makers tend to be men, while simultaneously preferring to reward people like them (aka other men)...yeah. There's loads of reasons to believe there's discrimination going on.
Ultimately though, you're probably right in that its something that's just going to have to take some time. But in the meantime though, it isn't doing anyone any favors to claim that we live in a meritocracy, because there's tons of evidence that it's not the case. Claiming that we are in a true meritocracy is equivalent to claiming women and minorities to inherently have less merit, and yeah, that's a sexist and racist statement to make. We need to not plug our ears and go "lalala" while pretending nothing is happening; all that does is shut down the conversation and stalls what little progress we could be making.
You are right that self-confidence is highly attractive - but only in men. Women who display self-confidence are routinely labelled "pushy", "*****y", and generally regarded as having something wrong with them.
Self-confidence has been shown to be attractive in both sexes. How many movies evoke the trope where there's this confident woman that totally challenges the male protagonist, and then they end up in bed? This wouldn't be a thing if men weren't attracted to confident women.
Too often people confuse self-confidence with assertiveness, or aggressiveness.
Quote from FreeDictionary "Assertive" »
Inclined to bold or confident assertion; aggressively self-assured.
Quote from FreeDictionary "Assertion »
Something declared or stated positively, often with no support or attempt at proof.
It's the aggressive part men are (usually) not attracted to.
Way too often it also happens that people who are not actually self-confident, try to act self-confident anyhow. Hiding one's own insecurities is not self-confidence, and it is annoying. I'm willing to bet it's also annoying in men, though not having dated any I can't consider myself an expert.
Further, trust me when I say that the lack of self-confidence is incredibly annoying in women. If I've told someone that they look great seven times that evening, and they keep on asking for more assurance, well.
Based on that I disagree with your second paragraph, as well. It's the same thing in the workplace, if someone asks me to go over their power point presentation for the third time because they made a minor change they weren't sure was good or not, I'm going to be annoyed. If they crumble under pressure when giving the presentation because it contains a minor mistake, that's also annoying. And that doesn't differ whether one is a male or female.
You hit at the problem in your last sentence: "We judge individuals based on other individuals". People implicitly think that the more similar you are to successful people, the more deserving of success you are. Given that 90%+ much all successful people in the last millenia were male, women are immediately seen as less deserving just by virtue of being different from them.
People are quite unlikely to compare potential applicants to historical figures in most fields. More than likely they're comparing them to other people that have worked in the company before, and that they've known. This is good because it means the change won't take another millenium to happen.
Ultimately though, you're probably right in that its something that's just going to have to take some time. But in the meantime though, it isn't doing anyone any favors to claim that we live in a meritocracy, because there's tons of evidence that it's not the case. Claiming that we are in a true meritocracy is equivalent to claiming women and minorities to inherently have less merit, and yeah, that's a sexist and racist statement to make.
We need to not plug our ears and go "lalala" while pretending nothing is happening; all that does is shut down the conversation and stalls what little progress we could be making.
No one claimed that we live in a perfect meritocracy, and I don't think anyone is trying to pretend there's nothing happening in terms of discrimination either. I'm pretty sure achieving a perfect meritocracy, or a world without any discrimination, wouldn't even be possible. Improvement towards that state can be achieved, though.
Though if we want to go on a tangent, we might have to argue whether it'd be more important to fix the inherited economic class first, completely revamp the democratic systems by setting hard caps on amount of money allowed to advertize and market oneself for a position of political power. Or to just illegalize marketing, or eating meat. After all, it's all about prioritizing, since there's definitely a lot to improve in the world. After all, with the money we'd need to spend to try and fix the income difference between women and men to achieve a 1% reduction in difference, we could probably provide clean water for all of Africa.
But I'm going on a tangent here. It seems that we mostly agree on the topic, that it is an issue and an important issue, and that there are improvements that could be made. I think we're running out of things to discuss, here.
The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Indeed - but, I don't think its the case that "No one claimed that we live in a perfect meritocracy, and I don't think anyone is trying to pretend there's nothing happening in terms of discrimination either." Plenty of people (mostly well-off men) do in fact claim just this. There are others, like certain elements of the MRA movement, who claim it is actually women who are favored in everything.
Now, I can agree that there are some places we are close enough to equality, or where women are in fact favored. But quite frankly, so long as we're living in a capitalist society, this pay gap and wealth issue is going to trump those areas in importance. So long as we allow money to buy damn near anything, income/wealth inequality will trump all these other gains.
LadyLuck, can you think of any careers that are particularly sexist? It seems this thread did not go the direction I expected. As I mentioned before I think discussion/research needs to happen on a career by career basis.
Personal experience:
I work in Software testing at a company that works with embedded devices. My boss is a woman. In the last couple years when hiring I know based on reactions to candidates my boss wanted to hire a female (currently all of the testers and most of the engineers are men). At one point a female did apply that was close enough to meeting requirements for the job and she was hired with the idea that she could learn what she didnt know. It did not work. She was gone within 4-6 months. I didnt work with her closely enough to know exactly why it didnt work out but I heard rumors that she just was not picking up the things she needed to learn. It shouldnt take 4 months to learn Python...
What this story tells me is that even when reverse discrimination happens it can't make up for fitting actual job requirements. If there are no women that meet the requirements to do higher paying jobs then that's an issue in either education or desire.
Focusing on the small number of areas where males clearly are doing better then females (STEM) and ignoring the areas where females are doing much better then males (Everywhere else in academia) will only create a radiculously unbalanced society.
The world this kind of thinking is creating is one where women have zero accountability and men are discriminated against unapologetically. Now that I think about it we already have that in most aspects of life.
Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Focusing on the small number of areas where males clearly are doing better then females (STEM) and ignoring the areas where females are doing much better then males (Everywhere else in academia) will only create a radiculously unbalanced society.
The world this kind of thinking is creating is one where women have zero accountability and men are discriminated against unapologetically. Now that I think about it we already have that in most aspects of life.
That's cool that you found yet another study that shows that women make less money than men... but can we stop beating a dead horse?
I dont care that women make less money. I want to know why and simply saying "it must be discrimination" is not good enough.
I'm not saying it's anything; I'm just saying men certainly aren't oppressed by any standard worth looking at.
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Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
See my previous post on the topic of "microaggressions". Women basically will always have a more stressful work environment so long as a huge chunk of men subconsciously believe they shouldn't be there. This extra stress could easily lower productivity and make more women willing to quit/move elsewhere, facts which could in turn be used to justify lower pay. It also means women won't last as long in high-paying fields, because that extra stress on top of an already high-stress job often tips the balance into "not worth it" territory.
See my previous post on the topic of "microaggressions". Women basically will always have a more stressful work environment so long as a huge chunk of men subconsciously believe they shouldn't be there. This extra stress could easily lower productivity and make more women willing to quit/move elsewhere, facts which could in turn be used to justify lower pay. It also means women won't last as long in high-paying fields, because that extra stress on top of an already high-stress job often tips the balance into "not worth it" territory.
So you believe women make less across all fields because in every single field men are more mean to women than to each other?
Is it possible that it has nothing to do with thinking they "shouldn't be there" and is instead just about "ball busting" or teasing or whatever you want to call it that happens quite frequently between men, especially male friends?
So you believe women make less across all fields because in every single field men are more mean to women than to each other?
Is it possible that it has nothing to do with thinking they "shouldn't be there" and is instead just about "ball busting" or teasing or whatever you want to call it that happens quite frequently between men, especially male friends?
Not exactly. First off, I would generally argue that said teasing that goes on between men isn't particularly healthy in the first place, but that's a conversation for another thread. But suppose we agree its not innately problematic, provided said teasing is done in a good-natured manner.
But is it really good-natured? In the case of a man teasing a woman, the answer is usually no. Why? Because a social power differential exists. The same applies with other minorities. A social power differential means that if Empowered Person A makes fun of not-Empowered Person B, Person B is not in much of a position to tell Person A to stop if he doesn't think its that funny for some reason. If Person B does say something along the lines of "dude that isn't funny, knock it off", (s)he can expect to be told to "lighten up", "Get a sense of humor", and generally be told that their feelings don't matter. Furthermore it is highly likely they will lose what little social capital they might have as a result of trying to stand up for themselves.
Contrast a situation between equals. In that case, it is far more likely that Person A will take Person B seriously, apologize for their poor taste, and not do it again. It is easy to talk about how people should tolerate "ball busting" and teasing when you can expect that your boundaries will be respected. But since the average woman or minority cannot expect that, then yes, they have to deal with much more persistent, vicious and mean-spirited teasing then the average WASP man will. And thus, this will result in a more stressful work environment.
Also, if you want a little bit of proof that this is the case... not too long ago, in a closed women's-only discussion group, literally dozens of women said that this "microaggression" treatment was the main reason they weren't inclined to attend competitive Magic events, even low-key ones like FNM. So next time someone claims "there's fewer female Magic pros because women are worse at Magic!", I call BS.
So you believe women make less across all fields because in every single field men are more mean to women than to each other?
Is it possible that it has nothing to do with thinking they "shouldn't be there" and is instead just about "ball busting" or teasing or whatever you want to call it that happens quite frequently between men, especially male friends?
Not exactly. First off, I would generally argue that said teasing that goes on between men isn't particularly healthy in the first place, but that's a conversation for another thread. But suppose we agree its not innately problematic, provided said teasing is done in a good-natured manner.
But is it really good-natured? In the case of a man teasing a woman, the answer is usually no. Why? Because a social power differential exists. The same applies with other minorities. A social power differential means that if Empowered Person A makes fun of not-Empowered Person B, Person B is not in much of a position to tell Person A to stop if he doesn't think its that funny for some reason. If Person B does say something along the lines of "dude that isn't funny, knock it off", (s)he can expect to be told to "lighten up", "Get a sense of humor", and generally be told that their feelings don't matter. Furthermore it is highly likely they will lose what little social capital they might have as a result of trying to stand up for themselves.
Contrast a situation between equals. In that case, it is far more likely that Person A will take Person B seriously, apologize for their poor taste, and not do it again. It is easy to talk about how people should tolerate "ball busting" and teasing when you can expect that your boundaries will be respected. But since the average woman or minority cannot expect that, then yes, they have to deal with much more persistent, vicious and mean-spirited teasing then the average WASP man will. And thus, this will result in a more stressful work environment.
Also, if you want a little bit of proof that this is the case... not too long ago, in a closed women's-only discussion group, literally dozens of women said that this "microaggression" treatment was the main reason they weren't inclined to attend competitive Magic events, even low-key ones like FNM. So next time someone claims "there's fewer female Magic pros because women are worse at Magic!", I call BS.
Maybe it's just because we're so passive aggressive here... but even equals wouldnt typically tell each other to "knock it off" unless something really nasty was said... Most people that I know just roll with the punches.
I also wonder how much of these "microaggressions" are real or just imagined to be real. Do women not go to these MTG events because they have been harassed at them before or because they think they will be? Does 1 guy harassing a woman at an event ruin it for everyone else?
Poor women have children at a high rate and thus a wide array of safety nets become available that are unavailable for men. A big part of the reason feminists fight so hard for the mothers to get custody by default is best illustrated by a comment by a feminist in 2013..."With the children goes the money".
On a societal level men pay the vast majority into safety nets and women get the vast majority out of them. It would be interesting to see what the "pay gap" would be if we took that into account.
That is because with this economy, living on a single income is quite the luxury. Single people often have to get room-mates, and for couples, it's hard to afford having one parent stay home.
Since you brought it up, the average jail sentence for a female rapist is measured in days,. Somehow I doubt your to torn up about that.
Either, women have the power to make their own choices, and systemically will earn less due to those choices -
Or women shouldn't make their own choices, and should have higher earning choices made for them??
http://social.dol.gov/blog/myth-busting-the-pay-gap/
http://washingtonexaminer.com/bogus-aauw-study-perpetuates-wage-gap-myths/article/2512127
"Buried in the report is the finding that, accounting for college majors and occupations, women make 93 cents (not 82) on a man's dollar. The remaining seven cents, the authors contend, is likely due to discrimination, because they cannot explain it."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html
On a personal note - the economy sucks for both sexes right now. Me and my wife together hardly make it check to check. On two incomes.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
As much as I am opposed to replying to posts that do not bother to take my entire post into consideration, I'll do so now anyhow. Because I assume that Tuss didn't have any counterarguments to the remaining ~95% of my post.
Let's organize society in such a way that people are not allowed to have lives. How's that sound?
No matter how "unfair" it might sound, paid maternity leaves are damaging to small businesses, and do cause bankruptcies. Assuming that the business-owner aims to create a successful business that they can live off, they will keep this in consideration. It doesn't matter whether it's legal or not, it will continue happening as long as this is the case.
You still haven't attacked his argument. You're just extending the argumentum ad passiones here.
Also, this isn't true. Capitalism discourages people from choosing pursuits that are not profitable to themselves. The rich people discourage others from following pursuits that are not profitable to the rich people. Because dictating what pursuits others follow is a profitable pursuit for the rich people.
In simpler terms: Rich people have money. People want money. They want to make products that the rich people want. Rich people want to buy your working hours to sit in a factory making products the poor people want
And it's not like Capitalism is the sole thing to blame, here. Artists have been really bad off historically, with the exceptions of those who were sanctioned by incredibly rich families in Renaissance, or those enlisted by the catholic church. Art has always been worth what people are willing to pay for it, and will continue to be so.
I think he did. I think I did, too, and wrote down a list of things why it could be so. Also:
If women are genetically disposed to exhibit physiological traits that cause them to make decisions that are less profitable in an industrialized society, what then? We either:
A: Allow them to make these choices and consequently earn less.
B: Make decisions for them, and violate their basic human rights.
C: Pay women more for the same jobs to achieve gender pay equality.
In case of C, assuming individual variance, the system shafts over men exhibiting feminine traits and overtly rewards women exhibiting masculine traits, and therefore is a simplified system. In addition to just feeling morally wrong for paying people different amounts for the same productivity.
Meanwhile, only 18.3% of single custodial parents are fathers, as it is much more difficult for a father to receive single custody. In fact, it usually only happens when the father is doing very well economically and the mother is doing very poorly. This is a very simple case where poorly-doing fathers do not get custody, because it defaults to the mother. Further, single custodian fathers are less likely to get paid the child support they're owed by the father, as the document linked shows.
At the same time, women are the primary consumers in the united states. Let me quote:
So while women might earn less, they spend more. Where they get all that extra money to maintain this disparity is left as an exercise to reader. How they can be socioeconomically shafted while maintaining vast majority of buying power is a bizarre equation.
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Your analysis of male/female wealth ignores the homeless population that is between 80-90% male. It ignores that women are privileged in regards to child custody. Your analysis ignores that single fathers as a group are on average much older then single mothers and are on average very well established in their communities. Your analysis ignores that having a child ensures a safety net for mothers that keeps them from ending up homeless but does come at a price. You also ignore that I am a US citizen who has worked with single mothers and they often have enough left over in food stamps to feed their friends, they get rent controlled apartments that cost them $9 a month if they fall below a certain level of income, and that it is IMMEASURABLY easier to recover from that state then homelessness.
Ya, discrimination is simply accepted as the go to explanation with the only necessary proof required being different outcomes.
If. IF. It's an EXTREMELY big "if". But there is no overwhelming preponderance of evidence that suggests that it is true. The only thing we know for sure is that women have lesser socioeconomic outcomes then men do, to a statistically significant degree. Discrimination is just as likely a cause as Genetic Predisposition.
Also, as a note...from what I have read, and heard from other women, most discrimination these days isn't necessarily discrimination per se, at least not in the classical sense. People don't specifically try to push women down, but they unquestionably treat women differently then men, and it ends up having a similar, albeit smaller, effect, as straight discrimination. It mostly takes the form of what one could call "microaggressions" - behaviors that persistently remind a person that they are different, "the other", that they shouldn't be here and that they don't belong here. A really simple example that plenty of you have probably witnessed is the "OMG UR A GRL!" comments and behaviors toward women who visit game stores.
In isolation they are harmless. One random insensitive or poorly thought-out comment can easily be ignored. But they don't occur in isolation; the average woman/minority/disadvantaged group member gets subjected to them constantly. It becomes very difficult to shut out, and becomes psychologically wearing VERY quickly to ANY person, male or female. The effect can start at a very young age and progressively accumulate throughout a person's life. This often leads to the person in question simply seeking a place where they don't have to put up with it.
Now, you can claim that women should just "get over it" or "deal with it", and to some extent, they do. That's why there are still some women who work in high-pressure careers. However, the fact that this causes plenty of women to "drop out" of such things is not because women are inherently weaker/worse/prefer less stressful work. It is often because work is artificially made more stressful by such treatment. Furthermore, it is certainly the case that men would react pretty much the same way if they were put in the same environment.
I am not saying discrimination doesn't happen. I'm fairly certain that both discrimination and genetic predisposition play a part. I do feel that the problem gets blown out of proportion by people assuming that all of the difference is because of discrimination.
Testosterone can be linked to self-confidence and self-esteem, and those traits can be linked to higher pay. Self-Esteem and Earnings from Journal of Economic Psychology discusses this. In fact, the positive correlation with self-esteem and earnings is at least as large as the one between cognitive ability and earnings.
Being cocky and arrogant pays off.
I agree on this. I hinted at this around the part dealing with female surgeons. I maintain that the situation will eventually fix itself, as more females make it to the top of their fields. The entire phenomenon is pretty much omnipresent within humans, as we pay more attention to that what is different and goes against our expectations. It's always harder for the pioneers.
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
You may or may not be correct. But even if you are...there is one BIG difference between the two explanations. Genetic Prediposition has the quality of being immutable; it suggests that there is something inherently different about women that makes them inherently deserve to earn less money. It conveniently absolves all responsibility from the matter, and makes it ok for people to leave it as it is. But it is NOT ok, because as you stated, there's a non-zero amount of discrimination, and any line of thinking that systemically minimizes, trivializes, dismisses, and ignores such discrimination is just not a productive one to take.
Now I have to ask, why? There's drawbacks to arrogance just as there are to low self-esteem. Each one is bad when taken in an extreme. For example, the arrogant person will externalize all critique, the depressed person will internalize all critique, and neither will be able to use it to improve themselves in a healthy manner. I have observed both of these play out. Yet we are more accepting of, and more willing to excuse the end of the spectrum associated with masculinity, while at the same time being excessively critical of the qualities associated with femininity. This valuation of qualities is not objective; it is a subjective valuation created by our society.
Replace "women" with any genetic predisposition and there are quite a few that lead to someone making less money. Hell, being short leads to people making less money. It probably does come down a lot to confidence.
But I just want to say, that as a man, I would love it, absolutely love it, if more women were in jobs dominated by men. Do you know how much it sucks that in my physics graduate class, out of the 25ish Americans, there are only two females? I want more women in sciences and engineering, why are women so harsh on other women who are interested in such things? Stop it.
STEM is being pushed on girls hardcore these days. Your children's world will hopefully be a bit more equal than ours.
I've done STEM programming with kids, ages 5 to 7, for 5 years and have noticed that boys are much bolder with making observations and hypothesis' while girls are more conservative due to fear of being criticized for being wrong but are incredibly through in their experimentation and documentation. Girls are also more likely to confer with others when working on something. Because of these gender differences we adults generally split up large gender-based social groups and balance everyone's abilities evenly. The kids are totally unaware and having fun being scientists.
Focusing on the small number of areas where males clearly are doing better then females (STEM) and ignoring the areas where females are doing much better then males (Everywhere else in academia) will only create a radiculously unbalanced society.
The world this kind of thinking is creating is one where women have zero accountability and men are discriminated against unapologetically. Now that I think about it we already have that in most aspects of life.
I am not sure if this is true. There might very well be something about women that makes them earn less money, even if they didn't deserve to earn less. The part about immutability, well, I'm pretty sure one can inject testosterone.
Besides, there are a lot of genetic dispositions. Height is one of them, shorter people make less money on average. IQ is heritable, and can be linked to income. I'm not even going to touch on subjects such as Alzheimer's or other genetic diseases.
Assuming everyone is born with a skillset that is equally valued in the current society is a dream. A naive one, at that.
I don't think I do any of these things. Besides, I believe that understanding all the causes that make up a the pay disparity is necessary to understand the situation.
In addition, a certain amount of discrimination will always exist. People form clicks with people that are similar to themselves, and then shun those that are different. Races do this, religions do this, even people of certain bodytypes do so. People that have same hobbies do so, and people that went to the same school do so. Contacts are everything.
And it certainly doesn't remove any responsibility. Even if we assume that women are, on average, worse at drawing triangles, it doesn't matter. You don't hire the entire gender to draw your triangles. You hire an individual, and there's nothing saying that an individual female can't be better than an individual male at drawing triangles. Everyone is still responsible for treating people as individuals, not stereotypes.
People gravitate to confident people and are more willing to accept them as leaders. This is more than likely an evolutionary trait that was useful in hunter-gatherer society.
In addition, it's easier to convince people about any topic when you're convinced that you're right, even if you're wrong. It's very hard to sell an expensive car if you go like: "Well, this car is.. Kinda good.. I suppose?". It's also very hard to be a politician and sell an idea, or a lobbyist, or to convince people in court as a lawyer. Or to convince your boss you deserve more money. People are much more likely to believe you if you believe yourself.
Also, confidence is regarded as an attractive quality in a potential mate by both sexes. And people are more likely to hire people they find sexually attractive.
There is no such thing as objectivity when regarding social status. You can't say that "Person A is objectively better than person B, and should therefore be paid more."
In capitalism, It's all supply-and-demand. If only one in million people was willing to teach kids, we'd start paying teachers more, because there'd be a shortage of them. Right now we pay doctors a lot, because when you have a bullet in your chest you're not going to ask how much it costs to get it removed. And lawyers, because if you're going to jail, you don't ask how much it costs to avoid that.
We model people on our expectations. In musicology, we call these "canonical structures". Have you ever heard of Georg Philipp Telemann? You might have, but I doubt it. He was undoubtedly the most popular German composer of his age, and he had to compare to Bach and Handel. His music also shows much more diversity than that of either of the other two. He also shared much of the same ideology with the latter Mozart.
But he has been forgotten by history, because he did not fit the archetype of a musician. He wasn't depressed, chronically ill, or poor. He didn't seem to have any problems composing a lot of music, either. His life was too easy for him to be accepted as a great musician. He didn't fit the canon.
We associate traits such as self-confidence to great leaders. We associate chronic depression, blindness and being poor as hell to artists. This association is not scientifically sane, or even rational. Certainly, being deaf isn't beneficial to a musician.
We judge individuals based on other individuals, relying on a minimal set of anecdotal evidence. It is an issue, but I do not think it's a gender issue.
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
You are right that self-confidence is highly attractive - but only in men. Women who display self-confidence are routinely labelled "pushy", "*****y", and generally regarded as having something wrong with them. One of the things that people associate with femininity is deferential doormat behavior, which is conveniently something people consider less valuable. Women who display valued "manly" traits are generally considered less likable. So women either engage in the devalued behavior, thus justifying low pay, or they engage in the valued behavior, at which point they are seen as aberrant and again, this is used to justify why they are less qualified and should be paid less.
And sure, chronic depression and deep emotions are attributed to artists. Male artists. You hit at the problem in your last sentence: "We judge individuals based on other individuals". People implicitly think that the more similar you are to successful people, the more deserving of success you are. Given that 90%+ much all successful people in the last millenia were male, women are immediately seen as less deserving just by virtue of being different from them. Add in the fact that decision makers tend to be men, while simultaneously preferring to reward people like them (aka other men)...yeah. There's loads of reasons to believe there's discrimination going on.
Ultimately though, you're probably right in that its something that's just going to have to take some time. But in the meantime though, it isn't doing anyone any favors to claim that we live in a meritocracy, because there's tons of evidence that it's not the case. Claiming that we are in a true meritocracy is equivalent to claiming women and minorities to inherently have less merit, and yeah, that's a sexist and racist statement to make. We need to not plug our ears and go "lalala" while pretending nothing is happening; all that does is shut down the conversation and stalls what little progress we could be making.
Self-confidence has been shown to be attractive in both sexes. How many movies evoke the trope where there's this confident woman that totally challenges the male protagonist, and then they end up in bed? This wouldn't be a thing if men weren't attracted to confident women.
Too often people confuse self-confidence with assertiveness, or aggressiveness.
It's the aggressive part men are (usually) not attracted to.
Way too often it also happens that people who are not actually self-confident, try to act self-confident anyhow. Hiding one's own insecurities is not self-confidence, and it is annoying. I'm willing to bet it's also annoying in men, though not having dated any I can't consider myself an expert.
Further, trust me when I say that the lack of self-confidence is incredibly annoying in women. If I've told someone that they look great seven times that evening, and they keep on asking for more assurance, well.
Based on that I disagree with your second paragraph, as well. It's the same thing in the workplace, if someone asks me to go over their power point presentation for the third time because they made a minor change they weren't sure was good or not, I'm going to be annoyed. If they crumble under pressure when giving the presentation because it contains a minor mistake, that's also annoying. And that doesn't differ whether one is a male or female.
People are quite unlikely to compare potential applicants to historical figures in most fields. More than likely they're comparing them to other people that have worked in the company before, and that they've known. This is good because it means the change won't take another millenium to happen.
Both men and women are more likely to hire male applicants with equal CVs.
No one claimed that we live in a perfect meritocracy, and I don't think anyone is trying to pretend there's nothing happening in terms of discrimination either. I'm pretty sure achieving a perfect meritocracy, or a world without any discrimination, wouldn't even be possible. Improvement towards that state can be achieved, though.
Though if we want to go on a tangent, we might have to argue whether it'd be more important to fix the inherited economic class first, completely revamp the democratic systems by setting hard caps on amount of money allowed to advertize and market oneself for a position of political power. Or to just illegalize marketing, or eating meat. After all, it's all about prioritizing, since there's definitely a lot to improve in the world. After all, with the money we'd need to spend to try and fix the income difference between women and men to achieve a 1% reduction in difference, we could probably provide clean water for all of Africa.
But I'm going on a tangent here. It seems that we mostly agree on the topic, that it is an issue and an important issue, and that there are improvements that could be made. I think we're running out of things to discuss, here.
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Now, I can agree that there are some places we are close enough to equality, or where women are in fact favored. But quite frankly, so long as we're living in a capitalist society, this pay gap and wealth issue is going to trump those areas in importance. So long as we allow money to buy damn near anything, income/wealth inequality will trump all these other gains.
Personal experience:
I work in Software testing at a company that works with embedded devices. My boss is a woman. In the last couple years when hiring I know based on reactions to candidates my boss wanted to hire a female (currently all of the testers and most of the engineers are men). At one point a female did apply that was close enough to meeting requirements for the job and she was hired with the idea that she could learn what she didnt know. It did not work. She was gone within 4-6 months. I didnt work with her closely enough to know exactly why it didnt work out but I heard rumors that she just was not picking up the things she needed to learn. It shouldnt take 4 months to learn Python...
What this story tells me is that even when reverse discrimination happens it can't make up for fitting actual job requirements. If there are no women that meet the requirements to do higher paying jobs then that's an issue in either education or desire.
Yeah, men are so oppressed that male liberal arts grads make more money than equivalent women. That's true too in social sciences, in agriculture, in communications/journalism, in STEM--hell, it's even true in fine arts. It is true in every single college major.
We poor men right?
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
That's cool that you found yet another study that shows that women make less money than men... but can we stop beating a dead horse?
I dont care that women make less money. I want to know why and simply saying "it must be discrimination" is not good enough.
I'm not saying it's anything; I'm just saying men certainly aren't oppressed by any standard worth looking at.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
See my previous post on the topic of "microaggressions". Women basically will always have a more stressful work environment so long as a huge chunk of men subconsciously believe they shouldn't be there. This extra stress could easily lower productivity and make more women willing to quit/move elsewhere, facts which could in turn be used to justify lower pay. It also means women won't last as long in high-paying fields, because that extra stress on top of an already high-stress job often tips the balance into "not worth it" territory.
So you believe women make less across all fields because in every single field men are more mean to women than to each other?
Is it possible that it has nothing to do with thinking they "shouldn't be there" and is instead just about "ball busting" or teasing or whatever you want to call it that happens quite frequently between men, especially male friends?
Not exactly. First off, I would generally argue that said teasing that goes on between men isn't particularly healthy in the first place, but that's a conversation for another thread. But suppose we agree its not innately problematic, provided said teasing is done in a good-natured manner.
But is it really good-natured? In the case of a man teasing a woman, the answer is usually no. Why? Because a social power differential exists. The same applies with other minorities. A social power differential means that if Empowered Person A makes fun of not-Empowered Person B, Person B is not in much of a position to tell Person A to stop if he doesn't think its that funny for some reason. If Person B does say something along the lines of "dude that isn't funny, knock it off", (s)he can expect to be told to "lighten up", "Get a sense of humor", and generally be told that their feelings don't matter. Furthermore it is highly likely they will lose what little social capital they might have as a result of trying to stand up for themselves.
Contrast a situation between equals. In that case, it is far more likely that Person A will take Person B seriously, apologize for their poor taste, and not do it again. It is easy to talk about how people should tolerate "ball busting" and teasing when you can expect that your boundaries will be respected. But since the average woman or minority cannot expect that, then yes, they have to deal with much more persistent, vicious and mean-spirited teasing then the average WASP man will. And thus, this will result in a more stressful work environment.
Also, if you want a little bit of proof that this is the case... not too long ago, in a closed women's-only discussion group, literally dozens of women said that this "microaggression" treatment was the main reason they weren't inclined to attend competitive Magic events, even low-key ones like FNM. So next time someone claims "there's fewer female Magic pros because women are worse at Magic!", I call BS.
Maybe it's just because we're so passive aggressive here... but even equals wouldnt typically tell each other to "knock it off" unless something really nasty was said... Most people that I know just roll with the punches.
I also wonder how much of these "microaggressions" are real or just imagined to be real. Do women not go to these MTG events because they have been harassed at them before or because they think they will be? Does 1 guy harassing a woman at an event ruin it for everyone else?