From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: More Hallucinations (was: Women as Victims)
Date: 8 Oct 92 10:12:15
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
	<ZEN.92Oct7173418@death.corp.sun.com>
	<1992Oct8.143949.16360@netcom.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: payner@netcom.com's message of Thu, 8 Oct 1992 14:39:49 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.143949.16360@netcom.com> payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
>In article <ZEN.92Oct7173418@death.corp.sun.com> zen@death.corp.sun.com (d) writes:
>>
>>In article <1992Oct7.225000.19594@netcom.com> sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
>>>>Only those businesses whose highest priority is to earn a *profit*.
>>>>They'll hire whichever qualified candidate is willing to do the
>>>>work for the lowst pay. And if, as Warren Farrell points out, women
>>>>*really were* (as in the fairy tale) paid 59 cents on the dollar
>>>>for doing the same work as men, then corporations EVERYWHERE would be
>>>>dumping overpaid men on the streets, and hiring women in their place.
>>
>>  Unfortunately, no.  If that happened, then all the women would take
>>over in more ways than just the jobs -- they would start by giving
>>themselves all raises to equal their male (ex)counterparts.  Then if you
>>were a man you'd be worse off than where you started; you'd be out of
>>work, and the women would be in power.  What'd be the point?  It works
>>fine now -- you just keep the women in line by economic as well as
>>social force.  Give them all the jobs and power and you'd lose both.

>So then you propose a conspiracy theory as well? I anxiously await
>the revelation of the secret role of Elvis etc...  :^{

I don't see d mentioning any "conspiracy."  It doesn't take a conspiracy
for individual businesses to see what is (or isn't) good for them, and
act accordingly.  All d is pointing out is that it is pretty easy to see
that it would not, in fact, be good for businesses to hire a lot of
women because they are cheaper, to the point where they dump the men for
the women, because the men are the executives, who decide how much
people get paid, and if they gave a lot of women this power, some of
those women would use it to equalize salaries, and the companies
wouldn't be saving money anymore.  So, this is simply a counter to
Robert Sheaffer's claim that it can't be true that women make less
because they aren't hired in droves by companies seeking to make money.
The suggestion is not a conspiracy, but the concept that companies can
look a little farther into the possible effects of such an action than
Robert apparently can.

I don't really think, though, that this is the idea.  I think that it's
more a resistance to change and a real belief on the part of the people
doing the hiring, salary setting, etc., that women are less competent
and worth less.  This isn't a conspiracy, it's a society, and not a very
good one.

Muffy

--

Muffy Barkocy                               muffy@mica.berkeley.edu
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
 sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
 But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn
Newsgroups: alt.feminism