From: root@dogear.spk.wa.us (Bob Kirkpatrick)
Newsgroups: alt.child-support
Subject: Re: When the father is out of a job.
Date: 12 Apr 92 19:14:27 GMT
Organization: Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, WA

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.

As for the rest of your post, I'm a math dud, and I got confused and
frustrated. Enclosed is the bill from the computer store where I replaced the
screen I punched in a fit of math-anxiety... Please remit your payment
immediately. I know you can afford it, you're a divorced man. :-)
-- 
root@dogear.spk.wa.us                "If you travelled at the speed of light,
Bob Kirkpatrick                       and started to scream, like AAARRGGHHH!
Dog Ear'd Systems                     ...Would your head explode?"      --uhf