American Pain and Pride (Anna Deavere Smith, 4 Characters)

No Anecdotes (Pay Women Equally)

I have seen female PEPCO (Washington, DC) workers who climbed poles daily, worked on lines, and were also enrolled in night classes to complete college degrees, and in both cases, were judged by the same standards as men. Since we are proceeding with anecdotal views, I know few of my daughter’s Ivy League friends, or my friends daughters who went to state universities who left careers or the workforce to raise children.

The narrative which suggests woman “cannot or will not” has been used against black workers, immigrants, and other groups, and resorts to blaming the victims, since it ignores the most significant “knot (not),” the “not” permitted to, or not hired for positions that pay more. Non-anecdotal evidence of the discriminatory “not” (an employer directed difference in wages for jobs with the same descriptions or in opportunities for advancement) is widely seen, in suits against employers, Walmart, Lockheed, Martin; Merrill Lynch, and in broad data.

The problem with the counter narrative is it justifies the difference rather than addressing the issue. One can believe as Republican WI state senator Glenn Grother, that women make less money, because “money is more important to men.” Men, he says, “expect to be the bread winner.” Tell that to my daughter whose income for a leading company qualifies her for the top 3% in national income averages.

Differences in pay exist.The only “totally bogus” claim is the persistent phony assumptions that justify this unfairness.

Comment Reply:
walterhett writes: “Differences in pay exist.The only ‘totally bogus’ claim is the persistent phony assumptions that justify this unfairness.”

What phony assumptions? Several studies have examined factors such as educational level, average paid time worked per day, time taken off, and choice of field or occupation, and others.
For example, the Department of Labor’s Time Use Survey shows that full time women work 8.01 hours of paid work daily, whereas full time men work an average of 8.75 hours — this 9% difference alone accounts for more than a third of the ostensible 22% wage gap ($0.78 vs $1.00).
These studies show that after properly accounting for the above factors, only about 5% of the ostensible wage gap remains unexplained — which is easily within any study’s margin of error and in any event is nowhere near the 22% claim often made.
In fact, in some cases, the pay gap actually reverses: Single, childless urban women between the ages of 22 and 30 earn 8% more on average than than their male counterparts. If you’re willing to accept an 8% wage gap in *favor* of these young women, then a 5% wage gap the other way is hardly grounds for arguing pervasive discrimination.

My reply:
While I accept the rigor of your debate and the proof offered by the statistics and studies you cite, are you also suggesting that arugments like WI senator Grother’s, and even Ron’s, are not “phony,” filled with old reliable stereotypes that disable real discussion?

I do recognize a variety of differences in income for gender as honest differences. But don’t we owe to women and our families to use “credible data and rigorous analysis” to separate valid, non-discriminatory differences from those which represent barriers built by attitude and practices which do discriminate? I do find that many of those discriminatory practices are accompanied by “phony” arguments about babies, skills, and “wonts.” It’s those I refer to.

• Rightly so, all differences are not discriminatory. If the hourly differences reflect worker choices and not industry practices, that’s valid.  Giving overtime to a man with a family over a woman with a family is not.

  Other Comments:

  ♦  ♦ What we’ve seen year after year is, when a male “director” of a department leaves an organization, the job is reclassified to “manager” and a woman is half-promoted to fill it. (She may have been doing half the director’s job for him all along.)
  Women (including my daughter who has no children and no plans to leave the labor force, and many women whose childbearing years are past) doing the same jobs as men may be called hourly rather than salary, so their hours can be cut when work is slow: or as salary, so they can be made to work overtime for the same pay. It depends on the specific company’s circumstances, but the practices are widespread. Women are given assignments with less promotional potential, men with less experience are promoted over them, and finally they are excluded from much of the networking and socializing that affects earning potential.
  It’s subtle but it’s very real. The law allows such circumstances to be taken into account.
  

• I’m a male and I too refuse to come in early, do overtime or work weekends. I still make more than my wife does.
  
• (walterhett, it’s Grothman, not Grother. He’s a far rightist who is also trying to codify single parenthood as a form of child abuse. Your 2012 GOP.  http://chicagoist.com/2012/03/07/wi_grothman_parenthood_abuse.php )