lisa@mit-vax.UUCP (Lisa Chabot) (05/12/84)
> From: ted@teldata.UUCP (Ted Becker) > > 1. I do feel somewhat threatened by the feminist movement. My fear is > more a fear of irrational regulation than of being dominated by women. > When I have the choice I have always voted for women's rights. I applaud > the current 'comparable worth' evaluations being done for Washington State > employees but I fear it because it will probably result in increase cost of > government and increase my taxes. Unfortunately, many people would cite the *possible* tax increase as a reason for not doing the 'comparable worth' evaluations, or even for not paying the same rate for exactly the same job. But I don't see how 'irrational regulation' == increase in taxes... Pay no attention to that address at the top of the page, Lisa Chabot ...decwrl!rhea!arden!chabot (I NEVER read my mail here at MIT!)
dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (05/12/84)
Regulation, rational or irrational, is likely to result in an increase in taxes simply to pay for the regulators. In the particular case of making salaries fairer, I suspect that were an inequality is found it will be rectified by increasing the women's salaries, not decreasing the men's. If the institution is publicly-funded, this may result in an increase in taxes due to salary adjustments too, or just a decrease in services. Now, all of this brings up a point that I'm surprised not to have seen discussed. Making sure that wages are equitable means, in truth, increasing the real income of women and decreasing that of men until they are paid according to the same standard. It doesn't matter if you leave the men's wages alone and increase the women's; if the economy is a somewhat balanced system then in the long run the men lose, probably via a smaller yearly increase than they would have otherwise have received. Now, I view all of this as being desirable - if men are being paid more than is fair just because of their sex, then they have no right to complain when they lose some of the unfair advantage. (And besides, I could lose a moderate fraction of my current income and not be hurt very much, so this is easy for me to say). But do most men realize that the process of paying women fairly will affect their own income? If they do, fine. But if they don't, what are they going to say when they figure that out? It seems that people in the countries with high standards of living are all in favour of improving the lot of people in the Third World as long as it doesn't hurt their own standard of living. If someone points out that there just aren't enough resources to go around, then watching out for onself first suddenly seems more important. Will men lose interest in fairness toward women if they realize it will hurt them? Or will the fact that the women are part of the same society as the men result in the women being treated as "Us" rather than "Them"? Dave Martindale
seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (05/16/84)
Anyone have statistics on how much of the difference between
men's and women's salaries is due to "unequal pay for the same
work", and how much is due to women being in jobs beneath their
abilities? Equalizing the first part would reduce men's salaries,
but fixing the second reason wouldn't. Allowing women to fulfill
their potential will make them *worth* more money, since they will
be producing more of value. (Creating a bigger pie to divide.)
--
_____
/_____\ That auto-crossing beagle,
/_______\ Snoopy
|___| BMWCCA, Windy City Chapter
____|___|_____ ihnp4!ihuxl!seifertlmf@druca.UUCP (05/16/84)
<> I am responding to the question of how much of pay inequality is caused by women being in jobs "below their abilities". True there are many women who are underemployed. Another important consideration is that many women are underPAID. I don't consider women who work as nurses, teachers, childcare providers, etc. underemployed, they are however underpaid. In general, in the USA, work that has traditionally been done by women does not pay well. This does not have anything to do with how challenging or valuable the work is. This became even more obvious to me when I had a roommate who was working in a daycare center. She had a degree in elementary education and was spending her days working with 10 or more two year olds. She was making, you guessed it, minimum wage. As far as I'm concerned she had a much more challenging, important job than I had as a computer programmer. I also would not have traded her even if I could keep my salary. I become catatonic after 15 minutes with that many 2 year olds. There are lots of challenging, important, valuable, necessary occupations that don't pay and a disproportionate number of them are primarily done by women. That's why pay equity and comparable worth are such important issues. Lori Fuller
mazur@inmet.UUCP (05/17/84)
#R:mit-vax:-185100:inmet:10900075:000:492
inmet!mazur May 15 13:59:00 1984
< the latest has women earning .62 compared to her male coworker's $1.00 >
I recently read somewhere that rather than a woman's salary going up, it could
be expected that a man's salary would go down. The reason for this being the
number of two-income families.
This actually might have a chance of succeeding, for it's not based on whether
it's "fair" to pay a woman less, but whether Big Corporation has to pay a
man that much money any more.
Beth Mazur
{ihnp4,ima,harpo}!inmet!mazurtims@tekecs.UUCP (Tim Stoehr) (05/18/84)
Why do so many women continually pursue vocations/careers that are known in advance to not pay well? Perhaps their energy would be better spent pursuing better-paying jobs than trying to raise the salaries of jobs that they trained for and accepted knowing full well that it would not pay as well as some other job. I am NOT here referring to cases where women in the same job are being paid less than their male co-workers.
ariels@mako.UUCP (Ariel Shattan) (05/18/84)
Tim S. says: >Why do so many women continually pursue vocations/careers that are known >in advance to not pay well? Perhaps their energy would be better spent >pursuing better-paying jobs than trying to raise the salaries of jobs that >they trained for and accepted knowing full well that it would not pay as >well as some other job. When you are told from infancy onward that you are not good in math and science, and that the best thing you can aspire to is to help people, you feel later that you are unprepared for the "better" jobs. Also, until just recently (the last 10 years or so), even women who managed to struggle against the education system and become prepared for engineering and management positions were not hired, because they were women. The "pink collar ghettos" are filled with women because: a) Up until very recently those were the only jobs women could get. b) Men have been/are trained since childhood that they can aspire to much higher goals ("any boy can grow up to be President. Look at Abe Lincoln"), and therefore don't even consider (until recently) the service positions. People stay in low-pay positions because: a) They can't afford the training it takes to advance. b) They like their work, even if they don't like the pay. c) They are not given the opportunity to advance, even though others in the same position have been because of some arbitrary criterion. d) They need the job to live on, and they're raising a family alone, so they haven't any extra time, energy, or money for dreams. I personally feel that many of the the pink collar ghetto jobs should pay a whole lot more. No company of any size on this planet can run without secretaries. No hospital or clinic can run without nurses. And raising and teaching children has got to be the absolute most important job around; it's where the future of the species lies. However, NONE of these positions pay as much as a welder, or even as a GARBAGE COLLECTOR! It's a crying shame that this society doesn't consider children as important as garbage. Besides which, when the only job opportunity you have is in the pink collar ghetto, you take it. The rent must be payed and the body fed. Many of us are very lucky to never have had to worry about these issues. But most of the world works to live. The luxury of choosing a "satisfying" job belongs only to a fortunate few. Ariel (there but for the grace of [pick a deity]...) Shattan ..!tektronix!mako!ariels
lmf@druca.UUCP (05/21/84)
<> In response to Tim's remarks concerning why women pursue jobs they know will not pay well and why don't they retrain for jobs that will pay better. Some women are in fact doing exactly that. If all women in low paying jobs retrained for higher paying there would be severe shortages of nurses, secretaries, child care workers, elementary school teachers, homemakers and other valuable, necessary occupations. I think the quality of life would drop considerably. These are valuable occupation and I for one am glad some women are willing to work on changing societal structures to better meet their needs. Lori Fuller
toml@druxm.UUCP (05/21/84)
Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site houxe.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site druxm.UUCP Message-ID: <856@druxm.UUCP> Date: Mon, 21-May-84 16:10:36 EDT athing in ... Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver Lines: 19 > In response to Tim's remarks concerning why women pursue jobs they know will > not pay well and why don't they retrain for jobs that will pay better. > > Some women are in fact doing exactly that. If all women in low paying jobs > retrained for higher paying there would be severe shortages of nurses, > secretaries, child care workers, elementary school teachers, homemakers > and other valuable, necessary occupations. I think the quality of life would > drop considerably. These are valuable occupation and I for one am glad some > women are willing to work on changing societal structures to better meet their > needs. > Lori Fuller I don't think the quality of life would drop that much. I think what would happen is that these vocations would become more highly valued, and the workers would be paid more. Tom Laidig AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver ...!ihnp4!druxm!toml
tron@fluke.UUCP (Peter F. Barbee) (05/22/84)
I agree with Tim Stoehler ie. there still exists a free labor market and therefor employers will only ever pay what they have to to get good workers. I AM NOT saying that women should be paid less or that the current pay scales in careers such as day care and nursing are intrinsically good, only that our country is based on capitalism and the free market. Peter Barbee decvax-+-uw-beaver-+ ihnp4--+ allegra-+ (I'd sure like to think of something ucbvax----lbl-csam-+--fluke!tron cute to put here) sun-+ ssc-vax-+
pc@hplabsb.UUCP (Patricia Collins) (06/06/84)
Why do women continue to pursue low paying jobs, you ask? Young children are very susceptible to programming. MOST children's books still show women as nurses and men as doctors, women as secretaries and men as managers, women as teachers and men as professors, women as housekeepers and men as peacekeepers (law officers), women as homemakers and men as decision makers. And as long as "reality" is that low-paying jobs are dominated by women and ethnic minorities, the image is reinforced. It takes pretty powerful counterprogramming to change those strong stereotypes. Now, just when a parent/teacher/mentor thinks s/he is making progress in helping the child see that career choices are not limited by sex, the child enters puberty. Sexual awareness balloons. The desire to be accepted by one's peers is overwhelming. Very few teens have the self-confidence and self-awareness to resist the social tide without feeling isolated and rejected. This is the same period of time when decisions about further education, career paths, and life goals are planned. And let's face it, being socially "maladjusted" is a BIG handicap for anyone. So, the teenage girl is expected to be more mature. If she is unsure of herself, she can hide behind a traditional path and prepare to become a nurse, homemaker, secretary, or teacher. Perversely, our society says it is OK for boys to be immature and socially unaware at 16, but girls are supposed to be (and generally are) very sensitive about their social interactions. I suspect boys are traumatized by their teen years too, but adult expectations of boys is generally lower in the area of social awareness and maturity. So, the boys are not hit with the double-whammy of failing themselves AND failing their parents/mentors expectations if the are unsure of their aspirations. AND if the teenage boy feels inadequate to the task of deciding his own future, he can just follow the societal prescription and prepare to become a doctor, decision maker, manager, union laborer. I hope this brief analysis gives you some insight into the question you posed. Patricia Collins hplabs
gds@homxa.UUCP (Greg Skinner) (07/16/84)
I'm probably over 300 articles behind here too, but here goes ... From: pc@hplabsb.UUCP (Patricia Collins) > Why do women continue to pursue low paying jobs, you ask? > > Young children are very susceptible to programming. MOST children's > books still show women as nurses and men as doctors, women as secretaries > and men as managers, women as teachers and men as professors, women as > housekeepers and men as peacekeepers (law officers), women as homemakers > and men as decision makers. And as long as "reality" is that low-paying > jobs are dominated by women and ethnic minorities, the image is reinforced. > It takes pretty powerful counterprogramming to change those strong > stereotypes. My parents continued to program my sister when she entered college. She wanted to take courses in economics right away, but my father insisted that she take an art course. The art course did her absolutely no good but the economics course would have put her one step closer to graduation all the sooner. > Perversely, our > society says it is OK for boys to be immature and socially unaware at 16, > but girls are supposed to be (and generally are) very sensitive about > their social interactions. I suspect boys are traumatized by their teen > years too, but adult expectations of boys is generally lower in the area > of social awareness and maturity. So, the boys are not hit with the > double-whammy of failing themselves AND failing their parents/mentors > expectations if the are unsure of their aspirations. I wouldn't necessarily say that. For example, in the young teens, a father's son is expected to be in competition with other father's sons in athletic acheivements. I have heard numerous tales (and also been in one) where a father punished his son for striking out in a baseball game, or dropping a touchdown pass. (I know these are just trivialities, and don't compare against what women have to go through, but it is possible for a young man to fail his parents and himself if he does not perform up to par athletically.) Then, there is also the story of the young man who doesn't want to follow in his father's footsteps -- say, the father owns a grocery store and the son is expected to run the store after the father is too old. The son may have other plans, though, and become a shame to his family. -- Those who know me have no need for my name. Greg Skinner (gregbo) {allegra,cbosgd,ihnp4}!hou2e!gregbo