Women Workplace Discrimination

Debunking DKFirst of all, I’ve dropped nothing. I was simply waiting to sum everything up in a simple, easy to understand manner. However, I will quickly address the arguments that won’t be addressed in my final summation.A. Business RationalityIn his 3rd round argument, DK states that it is too hard for large (large enough to be in the S&P 500) businesses to come up with new, innovative products and that it is more likely that someone outside this construct will be an innovator, and that is why these businesses fail. To debunk this, I will actually point to a very successful, innovative, and rational company, because this company shows that DK’s assertion is completely false. That company is IBM.The sheer numbers of IBM’s product innovations is staggering, and too numerous to list. [1] It is not their innovative products that I would like to highlight here, however, as much as their innovative business strategies. IBM's main consumer products began as typewriters, with the IBM Selectric being the industry standard for the entirety of the electric typewriter’s useful life. Then, they transitioned to the personal computer, the IBM PC was, and is, the standard in personal computing.[2] This is ironic, because IBM, realizing that the era of the personal computer is quickly coming to an end, no longer makes PCs, having sold that wing of their business Lenovo. IBM’s main focus outside large, groundbreaking (WATSON, anyone?) computers is Business Consulting, as opposed to business machines.[1]IBM has survived since the 1880s precisely because of their innovation, so to say that innovation is somehow unlikely for large companies, is to not understand how business operates...often times poorly, inefficiently, and irrationally.B. EducationDK argues that the wage gap is greater among Whites and Asians because White and Asian men are more likely to go to college. Why he chose not to account for White and Asian women also being more likely to attend college is quite beyond me, because I posted a source in my 2nd round argument which showed that there are more women attending college, and more women attending private college (the “good” schools) than men, so I have to assume that he was either purposefully trying to obfuscate the issue there, or letting his own gender bias accidentally sneak through.C. My Use of Charts Last RoundI find this comment by DK to be particularly dishonest, because his only issue with charts is that they are a way to extend one’s 8,000 character limit, and I think if anyone re-reviews my last round argument, adds up the very few words I used, and then adds up the words in the charts, they will see that I was nowhere close to exceeding 8,000 characters, and probably came in under 2,000.When including this round, my average is 1.33 charts per round.Summary - Wal-Mart Says It AllWhat DK fails to realize is that I have addressed all of his points, but I did so without calling out that I was doing so. I will do that now, however.Given the broad scope of the requirements for this argument - prove “America’s” gender wage gap is “significant”, the only plausible strategy with which to accomplish this goal is to show, as I have, that females make lower wages across industry, geographic region (both red and blue states, including Wyoming which was the 1st state to grant women’s suffrage) and race, and then use an example in which none of the factors which DK called out in his 2nd round argument exist. Given that they are the largest company in the world, and one of the most egregious offenders in the area of gender wage discrimination, I chose that example to be Wal-Mart.A. The Difference Between Salary and HourlyDK took a salary and divided it by an hourly rate and called this out as simple math which proves women at Wal-Mart work less hours than men, on average. While I agree that the math was likely simple, the logic is completely flawed.Salaried workers are exempt from overtime, and receive a set amount of money per year as their salary. Hourly workers are paid by the hour, and are not exempt from overtime pay. So, taking an average salaried amount and dividing it by an hourly wage is a simple, but simply useless calculation.Thus, my prior assertion that women work more hours than men at Wal-Mart remains uncontroverted.B. Walmart Lost? What?Wal-Mart and their lawyers are going to be shocked to learn, as per DK’s assertion, that they lost the Supreme Court Case to which DK referred in his last argument. They, in fact, won it. However, this case was simply used to dissolve the class of 1.5 million women in the class action suit.The reason they won was because the lawyers for the class could not prove that there was a policy of sex discrimination endorsed by Wal-Mart on a National Level. The reason they could not prove this is because no one who writes out management policy for Wal-Mart is bone-headed enough to write this in any sort of official Wal-Mart memo or training manual, and because the discrimination at Wal-Mart is so varied in how it is applied, the class was dissolved.Instead, smaller, statewide classes, like the one in California (100,000 in size), are developing, and are having no problem surviving Wal-Mart’s hypocritical challenges before the state supreme courts. [3]C. The Glass CeilingWhile women at Wal-Mart do make less than men at the lower wage levels, it is likely not enough less to count as “significant”. That’s because gender discrimination is subtle. It may not happen within any specific, individual job, but may only occur in the opportunities for advancement women are given in this country. We just elected our first non-white president 4 ½ years ago, but we have yet to even have a woman serve as VP in this nation.The same logic applies at Wal-Mart. Women, despite having more tenure, working more hours and receiving higher performance ratings across every job description, are promoted to management 200% less than men are. And, it’s not just the difference between a man’s $420K Regional VP average salary as compared to the $280K of the average woman’s. It’s the fact that 90% of the Regional VPs at Wal-Mart are men compared to the 10% of women.[4]These jobs might involve travel, however, so let’s instead look at the store manager position at Wal-Mart, because with the others already like education, hours worked, etc called out, this position eliminates all of the many factors that DK called out as his “reasons” (justifications is more like it) why women make less money.At the Store Manager Level, women average $89,280 compared to men’s average of $105,682, but again, even though this is over $16,000 less per year that women make in this job at Wal-Mart than men (significant enough for ya?), it’s the fact that women only comprise 14.2% of the store managers at Wal-Mart that tells the real story here.[4]At this point, some may be saying to themselves, “well that’s only one position, and he probably cherry picked that one because it was the one which looked the worst.” Those people would be wrong, because at Wal-Mart, at every successively higher management position, there are, percentage-wise, less and less women, and at the same time, the women that do make the cut for these promotions see higher and higher wage gaps, when compared to their male counterparts, with each successive promotion.D. Final SummaryIt is impossible to show the gender pay gap in America with such a limited amount of space, because an analysis like the one I did with Wal-Mart would be necessary for every individual job and career path, so what I did was show, by region, ethnicity and industry, that women make less than men across the board. Then, with Wal-Mart, I showed why. As to how much, that’s a little harder to say with full confidence, but I can say that it’s significantly more than 3 cents on the dollar.Sources[1] http://tinyurl.com...[2] http://tinyurl.com...[3] http://tinyurl.com...[4] http://tinyurl.com...