From: noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer)
Subject: Re: When the father is out of a job.
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 03:15:23 GMT
Followup-To:  soc.men

In article <791@dogear.spk.wa.us> root@dogear.spk.wa.us (Bob Kirkpatrick) writes:
>In article <1992Apr10.071528.2325@cbnewsk.cb.att.com> noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer) writes:
>>Oh, poppycock!  Is it $0.59, $0.63, $0.70 or what?  Men make more money
>>because men work more, men are told that their role in society is to be
>>a bread-winner, their success is measured by how much they make, they
>>take all the appropriate classes to obtain those practical and exciting
>>jobs working for huge, multi-national companies or small, lean, mean
>>fighting-to-stay-alive companies.  They don't study "French Literature"
>>or "Men in History"  unless they plan on going the whole ride, get the
>>PhD and then teach the stuff.  They take jobs that are back-breaking,
>>manual, hard-labor at great risk to life and limb.  Society also
>>virtually requires that they work.  They cannot take time off from work
>>to raise the children for a few years.  They cannot take time off from
>>work to play bridge, help with the local charities and other volunteer
>>work.  They make more because they work more.
>
>Whoa, Aaron. I have to call you on this paragraph.
>
>The figures that have been bandied about are reflective of the way it is.
>They aren't an overall-income average, they're figures for man with job
>versus woman with same job.
>
>Yes, there is affirmative action/equal employment opportunity laws which
>govern pay --but there are an awful lot of work-arounds that are used by
>comapnies to justify the lack of parity. I know of companies who routinely
>justify lower salaries with performace reviews, time on the job, the kind
>of degree the woman has --stuff like that. The women employed there were
>just as skilled and just as valuable and competent in their jobs as men
>were. 
>
>I have to blow off your comments about back-breaking and the rest of that.
>Sorry, but it's purely sexist. I know women who work in the local aluminum
>plants who more than hold their own with the men, and the work is very
>backbreaking. I know women warehousers who are toe to toe with the guys,
>offloading trucks and carting crates and stuff around. I see women in jobs
>doing janitorial work who outperform the guys on the team with them. So I
>just can't buy into the "I'm stronger and worth more money" stuff.
>
>I also don't think a lot about your comments demeaning literature and
>history. I don't see you complaining about people who study the life and
>times of Ben Franklin, Thomas Pain, or John Paul Jones --yet your comments
>appear to stab at Susan B. Anthony, Florence Nightengale and Betsy Ross.
>History is history, and someone interested in a particular facet of it just
>shouldn't be faulted. Your complaint allows that Korean history, American
>history, and Russian history are all divisions of study that are ok, but you
>don't approve of a division based on gender... C'mon, man.
>
>As to your complaints on the stereotyping that men are bread-winners; you
>bet. That is true and it's completely sexist. It denies that fathers can be
>loving, nurturing parents who are very involved with their children and can
>exert a totally positive role model. Just as I know women who are up to
>holding their own in the job market, I also know men who hold their own as
>great parents.
>
>If we're going to get all of this made right, then we need to be as closely
>inspective of the attitudes which serve us, as we are of the attitudes which
>don't. That goes to both sides of the gender fence.

Bob,

I'm not disputing that my statements were a little too narrow.  It's
hard to summarize reality in so few words.  But there is a legitimate
reason to dispute the claims made by feministas (no TYPO) that women
earn much less than men while working the same jobs.  But that is
really not their claim - they claim that working women make less money
than working men - and do not account for the positions or time
worked.  Even in my department, women earn less money per capita than
men.  We have one female supervisor, and three male supervisors.  Our
department head is male.  Women make up less than 30% of the department
and there are only a few women that are equally qualified with the
men.  Several years ago, this department went out aggressively
recruiting women - they had affirmative actions non-quotas to not
fulfill.  They were not able to find many women with MSs in Computer
Science or Electrical Engineering - a fairly standard requirement for
an MTS position in Bell Labs - with a high GPA.  So they took what they
could find.  They ended up hiring several women who do not even have BS
degrees - but at least they found a few women who could work their way
into the system.  No one here faults these women for not being equally
qualified with most of the men here - everyone gets here via their own
set of circumstances and most of us are lucky to be here - I don't have
a degree - but I'm a contractor and I did study Electrical Engineering
in college - these women aren't much different from me - except they
were hired to not meet non-quotas - I'm a contractor because I would
tip the scales in the opposite direction if they hired me.  Now the
company is paying for these women to continue their education so that
they will be equally qualified with the men.

But for the women in my department who are equally qualified as software
developers, the pay is virtually the same.

That's not to say that some employers don't try to "keep women in their
place" despite the laws.  Most of the higher-ups in companies have been
working for those companies for a long time - and started when women
were much less active in the work-force.  Some of them are still sexist,
some of them are still misogynist.  It still happens, but no company
worth its salt promotes it and if the people doing it are exposed, they
can be told to find another boat - aka fired.

Meaning - Sexual discrimination against women in wages still happens,
but at risk to the people who are doing it.

Now, there is a logical imperative that comes about from women's claim
that they are universally paid less for doing the same work that men do,
and that imperative is this:

	As an employer, I would want to hire the most qualified people
	to do the job at the rate that is most advantageous to me - the
	employer.  If I could hire a group of employees that are
	equally qualified to all other groups and hire them for, let's
	say 59 cents to 70 cents on the dollar for what it would cost
	me to hire some other group, wouldn't I do that?  If I could
	hire women that are equally qualified with any group of men and
	get them for even 85 cents on the dollar for what it would cost
	me to hire the men, wouldn't I do that?  The obvious rejoinder
	is, "Yes, I would.  But, I can't, so I don't."

But, I digress.  Warren Farrell, who used to be a staunch activist in
the feminist movement, but discovered that feminists were not so much
out for equality, but rather, were out for equality in arenas where
women were not counted as equals, and inequality in all the realms in
which women already had the leg up on men (such as in the divorce
courts and in military combat duty) - thus - I think he found out that
a lot of feminists wanted their cake and they wanted to snarf it too,
has written about this very topic - the claim made by women that they
make $.23, $.59, $.63, $.70, or even $.85 for every dollar that men
make.

I'll turn it over to Warren....

MYTH: WOMEN EARN 59 CENTS TO THE DOLLAR FOR THE SAME WORK AS MEN
by Warren Farrell
Reprinted without permission from Men's News Vol. 2, No. 2 May-Jul '88

Item: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Gerraldine Ferraro and Walter Mondale agreed
on but one statistic during the 1984 election: that full time working women
earn "59 cents to the men's dollar".

The importance of this statistic?  Millions of couples, planning children,
focus on the man's career due in part to the greater ease it is assumed the
man has producing income.  And for many women, the belief that "women still
get paid but 59 cents to the men's dollar..." encourages women to "marry up"
for economic security.  He feels pressure to be the "up."

She perceives a "great American man shortage" because she overlooks millions
of creative, intelligent, sensitive, single male artists, actors, writers,
photographers, and musicians unless they have the "potential" for earning more
than enough to support themselves.  If they fail, they become ineligible, or
rather, invisible.  Fearing invisibility to women, men learn success is the
best preventive medicine to avoid the cancer of female rejection.

The statistic, then, helps the women's movement recruit.  It does not
encourage women to pursue careers, nor men to pursue careers they enjoy more
even if they earn less.

After a full year of researching pay equity for _Why Men Are the Way They
Are_, I discovered 13 variables that make the "59 cents" comparison a myth.
Here are a few of the more startling.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS) reports men who work full time
average eight hours more per week than women who work full time. Their equal
classifications -- "full time" -- make them appear equal.  But the eight
hours difference makes "full time" unequal.

Men are much more likely to hold two work-place jobs.  But statistically, he
is considered one full-time worker.  So we are often comparing his two jobs to
her one job.  This does not mean women work less than men.  Full time working
women put in more work time at home.  But they put in less at work and this is
what the statistic compares.  Let's look more closely.

When the USBLS says "full time" they mean as little as 35 hours per week, as
few as 26 weeks per year.  Women are much more likely to work 35 hours per
week; men much more likely to work 40-60 hours per week.  Women are much more
likely to work 26 weeks per year, men 52 weeks per year.  Equal pay is not
equal.

None of this is women's fault.  Women are still forty-three times more likely
than men to leave the work place for six months or longer for family reasons
-- a couple decision.  But if she returns to work her income is impacted.
Even professional women have ten fewer years in the workplace by the time they
reach their fourties than professional men.

All of this helps us understand why women who have never been married earn 93%
of what men earn; they are more involved in the workplace.  And why black
mothers with young children earn one dollar for each 59 cents white mothers
with young children earn: they are more involved in the workplace.  (No one
dares assume it is because black mothers benefit from discrimination -
or affirmative action.)

If women really earned 59 cents to the dollar for the same work as men, what
business could possible compete effectively by hiring men?  At any level?

One of the most important reasons women's and men's full time pay differs is
because of their career choices.  Both sexes have equal knowledge that
engineers will average a higher income than a French Literature or Art History
major.  Yet even in 1986, more than 90 percent of engineering majors are male
and more than 90 percent of French Literature majors are female.  As for
secretaries, 99 percent are female.  Why?  If a man is a secretary, he knows a
female secretary will look right past him to a male executive.  He knows the
male physician will marry the female nurse, but the female physician will not
marry the male nurse.

Men, then, narrow their career options to jobs everyone knows pay more whether
or not they enjoy the work.  Including jobs that involve a 600 percent higher
incidence of work-related accidents (over 2 million disabling injuries and
14,000 deaths each year).

The myth that women earn 59 cents to the dollar for the same work as men
reinforces traditional roles.  It does not encourage women to control their
own lives.  It does encourage women to find male "success objects."  In brief,
the myth may be good for the women's movement, but it is not good for women.

#### END

I think Warren said it a little better than I.  And just like Warren, I
didn't mean to say that women actually work "less".  Women put in far
more time working at home - and that is demanding work.  They
aren't compensated well for that work nor given enough credit for it.

Men are typically not empathetic to women who stay home.  They see all
the opportunities for naps, the usually low-stress levels, the couches,
the beds, the TV (all things men typically enjoy immensely) and think
that stay-at-home moms or wives have it easy.  Women who stay at home
are not typically empathetic to the trials and tribulations of going
off to work for someone else for pay every work day.  And that lack of
empathy can cause problems - besides the fact that Phil Donahue, Sally
Jesse Raphael, Joan Rivers, Jerry Rivers, and Oprah bash men a great
deal of the time and these stay-at-home moms/wives get to be exposed to
that all day.  Then there are the soap operas that tell these women how
bad they have it because they are not married to a man with a Soloflex
body who owns a shipping business.  You add it all up and you get
battle lines at the threshold of the household door.

This lack of empathy was the case in my own marriage.  My ex2b actually
referred to my job as "fun."   Then I would get to come home during the
day and find her napping.  I think we both felt that the other had the
better job.  Of course, her's paid more.  I only got $100 per week.  She
made about $600 per week - after she took my check.

Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
TR@CBNEA.ATT.COM 

P.S.  Has anyone noticed that my posts are typically rather long?  I
wonder why?