It is widely reported that women in the U.S. make about 22% less than men in the workforce. But what does that really mean?
Some folks think this is an example of discrimination based on stereotypes, and is a problem in society that needs a government solution. Of course most of us know by now that government “solutions” just create exponentially more problems while making it worse for those it claims to be helping.
But is this an actual problem of stereotyping and discrimination against those who have a vagina?
Before jumping to conclusions of discrimination based on a statistic, we should ask more questions and look at the bigger picture to see the unseen.
The first question that comes to mind from this 22% discrepancy in pay between genders is, why would any hiring manager bother to hire a man when a woman can do the same thing for 22% less? If men and women are categorically equal in all variables, and the cost of labor for women is 22% less, the incentive to hire women would be much more than to hire men.
Is the cost of wages the only variable considered when hiring someone, or are there more ways to add value in the exchange of finding a candidate to fill a position?
To understand that, we must remember that the purpose of hiring someone is so that the candidate being hired adds more value to the company than there would be without that person.
So when you apply for a job, you shouldn’t be focused on how much you can make, you’re intent should be to show the hiring manager how much value your human capital (experience, knowledge, education) and ambition will bring to the company, and the wage agreed upon should be an accurate reflection of your potential value to the company over time.
Is the gender pay gap a problem, or is it natural reflection of the fact that women and men generally have different interests, behaviors, and priorities?
Men and women are quite different, and equal opportunities based on merit between genders should take priority over some subjective categorization “equal” outcome of compensation.
For example, higher risk jobs pay more than lower risk jobs. Men are more likely to take a high risk job than women. Of course this also means men make up the majority of workplace fatalities.
Does that mean we should force women to take more risky jobs to make it more equal, or should we let women be free to do as they prefer? Or should women who take safer jobs be paid as much as men in risky jobs? Wouldn’t that be discrimination against men?
Men generally prefer science, tech, engineering, and math related careers more than women. The high pay in these fields is a reflection of the scarcity and value these careers have in society. Should we force women to take more STEM fields in education and STEM careers in the name of equality, even though they naturally prefer something else?
Since women are biologically more likely to nurture the home environment with offspring than men, it should be natural that there are discrepancies in pay that reflect discrepancies in priorities.
Since women put more priorities on child care, there will naturally be less priority on gaining human capital, or having a career without maternal interruptions.
Should we force women to put more value on careers rather than quality time in the home, or should we realize the discrepancies in pay is not a problem that needs an artificial solution?
Men choose careers that have more overtime than women. Men work more graveyard and swing shifts. Men are more likely to take stressful jobs. This all contributes to more pay than those who do not choose these jobs.
Should we force women to behave more like men in the workforce and force them to take higher stress jobs with longer hours and work more overtime, just so they can be identical to men?
Shouldn’t we embrace the diverse differences between the genders?
If women are granted a maternity leave via State regulation, isn’t that discrimination against women who don’t want kids and want to focus on career?
Should childless women be granted maternity leave simply because they have a vagina?
Should women who have kids and take maternity leave be paid the same as women who don’t have gaps in career? If so, isn’t that discrimination against childless women?
You see, if we invoke arbitrary categories in the collective, we can find all sorts of discrepancies in pay even among different categories of women, and we can create any imaginary problem we want and call it stereotyping and discrimination. But that of course is not a rational way of identifying equal treatment of individuals.
What would a feminist do when on a golf course? I mean, how dare she be told to tee off at a different tee than the men, and how dare she be told to use women’s clubs. That’s stereotyping and discrimination right?
It’s well known that women in the general aggregate are not as strong as men, due to women naturally having less testosterone.
So, knowing this general difference between genders, if a golf course had the same tee box for women and men, would the feminist think it’s unfair to tee off from the same tee as men because women are generally not capable of hitting the ball as far as men, or would the feminist think it’s unfair if there were a women’s tee and a separate men’s tee farther away? I don’t know. Feminists are just anti-rational.
Furthermore, isn’t it discrimination against men to have to hit the ball farther than the women?
These are the impossible problems conjured up in the irrational minds of the feminists.
But let’s digress from the golf course before I start making golfing jokes about swinging the wood and driving it down the trimmed fairway and stroking into the hole.
Of course there are more general variables to consider than just isolating gender pay gaps in a vacuum.For example,
- Non married women generally make more than non married men.
- Young single urban women with no kids make far more than their male counterparts.
- Women who never have children earn more than men in that context. Do you leftist progressives want to start advocating wage equality for men, or are you just stuck in your ideology that says women are helpless victims oppressed by men?
- Lesbian women make more than straight women. Does that mean straight women are victims of lesbians?
- Women bakers make more than male bakers, and the same is true for many other career fields that women are generally better at than men.
- Women who work part time make more than men part time.
- Asian Americans make more than white Americans. Does this mean whites are being discriminated against by Asians?
If you see more of the actual variables, you realize there is no gender pay problem. Leftist progressives claim to be all about diversity, but it sure doesn’t show in their actions. They want to suppress the differences in people and artificially create an identical robotic outcome for everyone.
If by this point, you still think the gender pay gap is a problem that needs legislative solutions via government: Let me remind you that when Hillary Clinton was a Senator, the women on her staff made 72 cents for every dollar the men on her staff made for the same positions. Of course this statistic is also deceptive until you look for the unseen variables, which by this point I hope you have learned by now.
You see, most of the gaps no matter how it’s categorized shows that is is based on volitional choices and priorities in life, and if there is discrimination, it is a byproduct of State leverage.
For example; Let’s say there is a misogynist jerk who wants to hire a man, or at least pay a man more than a woman applicant with equal merit.
If there is equal wage legislation in place, the jerk won’t even bother giving a woman the position even if she is willing to work for less pay, since the cost of discrimination is lower. The State just eliminated an alternative for women without helping them.
In a free market, the stereotyping jerk would either hire a man for more pay than a woman, or not hire the woman at all. In this case, the jerk is the one giving himself less alternatives to add value to his company.
A competing company who is hiring based on merit, would get more value from having a larger selection of candidates, and since the hiring is based on merit that adds value to the company, rather than hiring based on gender discrimination, the merit based company will find more qualified candidates to add value to the company, which improves quality and efficiency, which lowers prices for consumers, and when the consumers learn that the company with the lower prices has done so by not discriminating, the consumers push the misogynist jerk out of the marketplace via economic ostracization.
Furthermore, if a woman happens to be interviewed by a woman-hating jerk who pays less to women, why would a self-respecting woman even bother giving the jerk the opportunity to add value to his company by her working there? Any woman with integrity would turn around and walk away and seek out the company that hires with merit based equal opportunity.
In my opinion, the feminist progressives who want to control society by leveraging State power, are making it worse for women. Some may have good intentions, but intentions are worthless without making sure the results match the intentions.
You see, most progressives put collections of people into arbitrary categories of, gender, race, sexual preference, etc.
This is almost opposite to many Nordic Scandinavian countries where people don’t bother making such distinctions. Women in these countries are not given better or worse treatment than men, but equal treatment (generally), and that’s because they don’t care about making such arbitrary categories based on gender, race, or sexual preference the way leftist progressives do. You’re either a friendly and virtuous human, or a non friendly human. For example, in Finland, they don’t even bother using gender specific pronouns in their language, like, he, she, him, her. It’s just “it” or “them” or something like that.
When we don’t put a magnifying glass on race, gender, sexual preference the way leftist progressives obsessively do, people will naturally be given more equal treatment.
There are even dramatic pay differences for identical career fields across different cultures.
For example, the Nordic Scandinavian and Latin American cultures place more value on relationships with family and friends, and less value working their life away on making money in a career?
Should we try to change the priorities of family and relationships seen in these other cultures to fit American culture priorities of work=get paid=consume=work more?
I would submit that the cultures who place more value on relationships with others rather than money and socioeconomic status are the ones on the right track to a fulfilled life.
The gender pay gap is not a problem that needs a solution. It is a reflection of the beautiful differences between genders and cultures that should be embraced rather than erased.
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