The Gender Wage gap. NEWS FLASH: its a myth.
So I'm still coming across people frequently who still believe that women are earning around 80p to the mans £1 for the EXACT same job. And so, here I am to set the record straight and explain to y'all how it works.
The "gender wage gap" is taken from the pay gap statistics from the office of national statistics. And it does indeed show that on AVERAGE across the country including all jobs women are earning less than men.
Now this means that the gap in pay covers all the different types of jobs men and women have, and the choices they make.
The difference in pay can be explained very simply. WARNING: TRIGGER POSSIBILITY. Men and Women have different interests and make different choices because they are not, in fact, the same.
Men generally tend to work harder and longer out of choice and are driven to advance their careers over their entire lifetime. They enjoy fields such as engineering and stock broking and business management, which tend to be the higher paying jobs.
Women on the other hand tend to go for nurturing jobs, like nursing and childcare (WHICH IS FINE, ITS OKAY TO WANT TO NURTURE) and equally its fine if as a woman you'd rather go for the higher paying jobs, its just unlikely that women will. And if they do they actually tend to work their way up very fast, are in top positions by the time they are 30 and then realise that they actually don't want to spend their whole life working, they'd rather have children and spend time with them.
Many feminists would have us believe that we shouldn't desire this, that having children holds us back, and that we should work exactly like men. But this isn't true, there is nothing wrong with wanting to stay at home with children. It's a biological, innate desire. It's what we were designed for and it's amazing. We should take pride in that fact that we can create life. That our bodies nurture a life inside us into existence.
And regardless of what Hollywood tells us ( now that's a whole other rant) women are not treated less than men or harsher than men in the workplace. In fact, quite the opposite. They are treated LIKE men, men don't have it easier, they work hard, they EARN what they get.
In any case, there are so many rants I'll be going to from this, so look out for them. The point of this post is that there is no gender wage gap for the same jobs. That's literally illegal, does nobody know how the law works? It's all about the different choices that men and women make. You don't deserve to be on the same income as your male counterpart if you're not putting the same hours in.
Well stay safe out there xox
and remember to watch out for all the businesses that want to higher you over men because they can pay you less... oh wait that doesn't happen, because job acquiring and your wage is base on merit and not your genitalia. Huh funny that.
Thank you for sticking up for the truth, and for the persecuted, hard-working men and women in America.
The "wage gap theory" is propaganda and a hoax.
— NP
Interesting claims you're making here. I was hoping I'd see some papers that concluded this when I read the title.
I wrote an article that's the opposite of yours. It's a long one but I talk about why women pursue non-STEM fields, why there's few women in leadership positions, why men supposedly have to be the bread winners (according to some people), etc. and back up these claims with studies that have been done about such topics.
Here's the link. It's not a I hate men kind of paper and I took emotions out to write it so I hope if you read it, you will do so with an open mind as well.
That's a fair comment, I shall gladly provide some links :
https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/01/Article-PS-Lubinski-et-al-2014-DEC-FINAL.pdf
https://twitter.com/sentientist/status/939253092763172864
file:///C:/Users/All/Downloads/CLS%20briefing%20paper%20-%20teenage%20uni%20and%20occupational%20aspirations.pdf
Pay gap and it's existence or not is still a controversial topic so i stay away from making claims about this. But why don't we take a step back and see why it could be.
So, the $ in your paychecks would directly relate to the job you do right? Now, the kind of job women have compared to men may be a factor. You mention this in your article. Have you thought about why women go for non-STEM fields of study and therefore, occupation? Why there's less women in executive positions in a lot of companies?
I have indeed thought about this, and I am currently reading your post (with an open mind) however my stance as of yet is that women choose non-STEM fields, from my observation of choices women I have seen make while growing up. We are living in an age and society where we have the most opportunity and support that there has ever been. I have never experienced, nor observed any girl being encouraged to stay away from STEM fields, and although men can be surprised when women are interested in those fields that does not mean that they don't think its right, or they are against it or even that they have been socialised to have those views. It's just uncommon for women to have those interests.
Now for those who do, I think its amazing, I applaud female mechanics and engineers, its super badass, I wish my interests and skills sets lay in those fields because that would be pretty cool.
But for me, as is the case with a lot of women, I just prefer the nurturing side, to me the idea of being a housewife, looking after my husband, raising children is utterly appealing. Not because society says so, trust me, I am the stubborn type to do the opposite of what someone suggests just to be independent, but because of my biological disposition, because of the way I was created, the maternal instinct within me. and I believe that this is the same for most women.
Could there be more encouragement of women in STEM fields? Of course and that would be great. But is society pushing us into fitting certain moulds? No I don't think so.
Yes, you may have never seen a girl being encouraged to stay away from STEM but wouldn't you agree that they aren't encouraged to go into STEM either? That's one of the points in my article.
You did mention you're perfectly happy with being in a nurturing field but that's not all girls. Don't you think that there are women out there that may be interested in building their own computer from scratch had someone shown them how it's done? Because this is what happens to young boys. There's family members and friends who are into these things which makes them explore and ultimately decide whether or no they want to pursue a career in STEM. I was never encouraged to be in Tech. I was in Pre-Med and that was a mix of both family suggestions and eventually, I found it interesting. Until I took a programming class and here I am in CS instead of working to get into medical school. I explored my options and realized what I want to do as a career. Not very many girls are given that option/opportunity is what I'm saying. Even in developed countries, there's less motivation for girls to go in Tech. This is the reason why it's uncommon for girls to be in Tech and Engineering.
Yes, they don't think it's wrong to see a girl in a Java programming class. What my article is trying to show is the surprise aspect of it. If they are surprised, there's more ways to show then just REALLY!?! YOU'RE in CS!? You know, maybe say "Oh that's awesome. We don't see a lot of girls in our classes so it's cool that there's more girls getting into CS and Engineering."
I don't think anyone is encouraged into any field due to their gender. If someone notices you have a skill in an area then they will encourage you to pursue it.
Of course I think there are girls interested in it, I'm sure I said that in my reply. I think its great when they do. And I celebrate our society which makes it possible. Obviously we can always improve and do better as a society, but I think many people should acknowledge how far we have come as well.
I'm sorry that you didn't receive that encouragement, I suppose there may always be a cultural difference between the UK and America but over here I have observed nothing but encouragement for everyone pursuing anything.
And to your point about the boys reactions. I think men and women are wired differently, and they wouldn't respond like that because that's not the way they think. I'd argue that their "REALLY? YOU'RE in CS?" is their way of saying, "wow that's cool and unusual, good on you."
Well, I'm from South Asia, originally and now live in the US. Luckily, there's more programs aimed to get women in Tech these days. I'm happy with this progress.
Obviously, we've lived through and seen different kinds of lifestyles. All I have to say is we can't let our personal experiences of being encouraged or not, keep us from seeing that there actually may be a good reason why we don't see gender balance in work place.
Just like how saying certain words and attacking certain groups of people isn't acceptable anymore (but has been for decades in some cases), we all should start thinking about the things we say; "What!? YOU are in CS!?" comes off very differently and has a different connotation than "wow that's cool and unusual, good on you."
I doubt I or anyone can ever convince you against what you believe. That's why we have education systems, books, and an ocean of knowledge on the internet to draw our own conclusions from. I'm glad we could talk about this briefly as adults! Wish you all the best at school. :)
I highly agree, this was a very pleasant discourse. I enjoyed the conversation :)
The last link is bocken. It goes to your hard drive ;-)
ah apologies, you can get that link from a link on the second link :'-D
Not according to some people — according to most women — most women want to marry a man who earns more then they do. Most women want a breadwinner. If you want to change that you need to change the perception and desires of women. Good look with that.