Comments | cheshire_girl: a question

cheshire_girl

a question

Oct 02, 2009 14:52

A longer entry is in the works, I think. I've been sleeping a lot this week, and tonight I'm reviewing Zombieland, which should be a lot of fun. Thoughts are swirling through my head at warp speed these days.

I was chatting with a friend the other day and mused as to why it is that nationally, women are only paid 77% of what men are paid. This ( Read more... )

Comments 13

I'm not so sure if it's actually sexism nadebug October 3 2009, 04:24:49 UTC

as much as women not being in jobs that make the most money. What's a job that, on average, makes a respectable at-least-middle-class'ish wage? Mine--Software Developer Not-So-Extraordinaire--for example. Of the 5 or so of us in my team that have similar responsibilities, 0 are women. However, our boss (a full professor) is a woman, and so is our graphic designer ( ... )

Re: I'm not so sure if it's actually sexism nadebug October 3 2009, 04:30:30 UTC

Oh, also, I don't actually think proposing that chicks-aren't-into-geeky-crap is sexist. I'm pretty sure I remember reading articles about women brains being wired differently, so to speak.

Think about it: I'm a straight, but not-that-masculine of a guy, but my god tools are fucking neat. Not to mention other gadgets. Why do you think I own like 8 guitars and 10,000 other miscellaneous audio/video/computery gadgets? I only WISH I could afford a truck and/or sports car.

Now take my lab's graphic designer. She gets paid more than me for a profession she's been trained very well to do, but she's also very dude-like (albeit straight as well). She also owns a Mazda RX 8.

Just fuel for (thought and) the fire that will most likely ensue. ;-)

Re: I'm not so sure if it's actually sexism starwarschick22 October 3 2009, 15:50:11 UTC

i completely a agree with the job thing. Thats the first thing i thought of when i read that. But it branches out of the technological aspect of it. Powerful men are just taken more seriously i think. Top executives, head doctor of a hospital, etc. I personally love technology/computers and all that stuff. I built my last two computers with little to no help. But on the other side of things, my fiance is a business analyst, he codes programs and stuff all day. Im pretty sure i would be completely lost on that sorta thing. But on the whole, yes women are usually apt to stay out of the whole technological aspect of the job force.

Re: I'm not so sure if it's actually sexism nadebug October 3 2009, 15:54:12 UTC

You may not realize it, but building your own computer is actually pretty advanced, even in the year 2009. Most people seem to still think the innards of computers are magic.

Thread 5

cheshire_girl October 3 2009, 04:32:21 UTC

No wrong answers here. I'm really curious about what people think.

stevec October 3 2009, 05:56:22 UTC

Predominantly, it's sexist. The link and comment your friend shot back is a red herring; a logical fallacy.

I don't think it's straight-up "women aren't as good as men/don't deserve as much" sexism--at least not entirely--but the other issues I can conceive of that might be playing a factor are all related to gender.

There may be other factors why women make less, but those would be on a case-by-case basis depending on the specifics of the job and the people involved. For it to *statistically* be 3/4 a man's salary across the board, sexism is the simplest explanation. As per Occam's Razor, it's therefore also the most likely.

nadebug October 3 2009, 15:58:02 UTC

I think a big problem is that sexism is a near-impossible thing to quantify. I'm not saying I completely believe it, but the reason I proposed my idea is that it's much more quantitative than a "general (sexist) mindset" towards women.

stevec October 5 2009, 16:19:49 UTC

I hope you know I wasn't referring to your comment--I was referring to the comment of her friend who said, "Yeah but women have all the power legally." Maybe so, but that has nothing to do with what Julia's talking about.

Unfortunately just because sexism is hard to quantify doesn't invalidate it as a the most likely cause.

The problem with your hypothesis is that it only applies to tech jobs. I'll agree that there are some jobs that just don't attract many women (although there's an argument to be made for that being a result of social norms/indoctrination, e.g. "girls don't do math/science.").

There have been studies though that show there is still a significant (I can't remember the exact numbers, but greater than 10%) gap between women's median salary and men's median salary for the same position across several fields.

nadebug October 5 2009, 17:09:09 UTC

"For the same position" changes everything of course. ;-) I was wondering when someone would bring that aspect up.

Thread 5

cheshire_girl October 5 2009, 13:42:38 UTC

I think everything that was mentioned here is valid. I think men are more often in positions of power than women are, for one reason or another. When I mentioned the suggestion in the article that women are wary of talking money, and added my personal experience to that, my friend said snarkily, "Did your dad or your friend's brother or your grandfather tell you to take what you can get? Did they tell you not to talk about money?" And it's like, No, of course not. But it's not that simple ( ... )

starwarschick22 October 5 2009, 23:59:52 UTC

ty ty had this icon for years. Keith and Dan where the ones who got me into computer stuff. i was kinda already but i wanted to know more.