Equal rights for women (I'm for)

Judgment is perhaps the most common activity we perform. I understand what you mean in terms of "Don"t judge the moral quality of a person; morality can be argued to be subjective". But differentiating between people (and thus judging them by certain characteristics) is something we do on a daily basis -- we choose what people become our friends, what people become our partners, who we interact with and exchange goods with etc. It is also something employers do. They judge the qualities of the candidates coming through the door and find who is the best fit for their organization. If there was no judgment or rational thought involved, you'd have to argue that it's a random process. Let's address the wage gap issue on a macro level. Uncle Milt once again offers a perfect explanation of the basic economic theorem that explains why a wage gap for equal work could not exist (or exist for more than a short time) in a free market: http://www.youtube.com... If the work was truly equal (which in itself is incredibly hard to prove since no two professions or employees are equal, even if they have the same title -- two "actors" or two "computer programmers" or two "scientists" does not mean that they are equal in their performance), then there would be no wage gap. It's pretty simple. If a woman offered a lower wage for the same work, then no rational employer would hire the MAN. Why would anyone pay somebody more to do the same amount of work? If their sexism was so strong that it went against their profit motive, then at least they would suffer a financial loss. Thus, wage discrimination laws HURT women. A woman or anyone -- a low-skilled laborer, an intern etc -- always has a low salary as a perk to offer employees to remain competitive, for whatever reason -- little experience, lack of education, absence from work force etc.. When you mandate that both the man and the woman are paid the same wage, then the employer suffers no cost for his sexism. Whatever wage gap continues to exist between men and women is due not to structural sexism but to the fact that men and women DO NOT do equal work. For example, a study from the Department of Labor shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours on the job while full-time men spent 8.75 hours, a 9% increase. Wouldn't it make sense that the men would earn more in the long run with such conditions? In addition, the choice of majors is key. Traditional wage studies equate everything as equal -- a woman with a 4 year degree in Gender Studies working at Starbucks is seen as the same as a man with a 4 year degree in Computer Science working at a tech firm. The two majors are obviously quite different and thus merit different salaries. Controlling for majors reduces the wage gap even further. Finally, there is the relationship between women and occupation. As Carrie Lukas writes in the Wall Street Journal, "women gravitate towards jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment, and greater flexibility.". Safer, more comfortable jobs generally lead to lower salaries. Risk and devotion to work merits higher salaries. That explains why many high-risk professions done by men, such as miners, earn more than low-risk professions done by women, such as teaching. When all these factors are controlled for in studies, the wage gap limits itself to a negligible amount (2-3%). The next feminist counterpoint is what I addressed in my previous post, that the reason why women are less competitive than men and seek less stressful jobs and majors in the first place is because they have been indoctrinated by society or sexism or the almighty "patriarchy". Here's where we delve into the truly fascinating part. A social scientist named Donald Brown studied over 6,000 cultures in his 1991 book Cultural Universals and found that increased male competitiveness and aggressiveness was found in all of them, suggesting that it's a human universal rather than a learned, cultural behavior. So why are men more competitive and aggressive and why do they take more risks in their careers? You brought up a great point, perhaps even without realizing it. Reproduction is the key to the entire puzzle. You asked "how can this be true if we need another for reproduction"? That's accurate but not seeing the full picture. Yes, men and women need each other. However, the reality is that women do not need men as much as men need women. The reason for this is simple -- the women's expenditure in the reproductive market is much greater. There are several reasons for this: 1) Eggs are scarce and thus valued, sperm is plentiful and thus worth much less. Basic supply and demand. 2) The women has to invest a greater amount of time (9 months) into the reproductive process; the man has to invest 10 minutes. 3) The cost of error is greater. If a woman mated with the wrong man, she'd carry his child for 9 months and have to take care of it afterwards. If a man mated with the wrong woman, he"d be able to reproduce with the "right" women within minutes. 4) Each baby takes a lot physically out of a women, making each successive pregnancy more difficult. Men don"t suffer such a drawback. Women will thus go for quality instead of quantity. There's many other reasons but the point is this -- men know that they are expendable. It's a basic evolutionary consequence of being the sex with the limitless good. As a result of their design, they are forced to be more competitive to prove their value and worth to women. That is why men desire fame, power, money, prestige, achievement etc. much stronger than women. It is their way to impress potential mates. It also explains why men don't really care about a women's voice in business, as you mentioned. Because the mating game is the most important one we all play and because women have a comparative advantage in it from their basic design, any additional factor they add to make themselves more attractive to men is devalued. Finally, we once again address the issue of equal rights. It may come as a shock to find out that there have been dozens of "equal pay" legislative bills passed over the last half-century and, as you mentioned, they've had no effect except to make employers frightened of lawsuits. They decrease efficiency and hurt women, not the other way around. If anything, this should prove that words on a paper do not make people "equal" in outcome. You can't legislate morality. What exactly is an equal right if it's something the state can't mandate? It becomes, once again, an abstract concept that nobody can offer a clear definition for.