"It is logical for couples to decide that the person who earns less, usually a woman, does more of the household chores and child care, [economist Sari] Kerr said. But it’s also a reason women earn less in the first place. 'That reinforces the pay gap in the labor market, and we’re trapped in this self-reinforcing cycle,' she said. Some women work less once they have children, but many don’t, and employers pay them less, too... Employers, especially for jobs that require a college degree, pay people disproportionately more for working long hours and disproportionately less for working flexibly. To achieve greater pay equality, social scientists say — other than women avoiding marriage and children — changes would have to take place in workplaces and public policy that applied to both men and women. Examples could be companies putting less priority on long hours and face time, and the government providing subsidized child care and moderate-length parental leave."
From a NYT column by Claire Cain Miller.
I know a lot of you are about to say that the gender gap is actually not real. I'm not trying to weigh in on either side of that debate. But I'd like to encourage you — on this Mother's Day Eve — to focus on because of motherhood. If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what?
Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged. We may complacently think enough individuals will find personal rewards and shoulder the disadvantages, so we'll get the next generation we need, but that's not assured. And even if it were, why is it what we want? Why should things be set up for the advantage of people who work long and hard at their jobs and avoid the burdens of childbearing and childrearing?
Let's talk about natalism.
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183 comments:
Women like children. Why should they get paid for a hobby.
Any guy can tell you that the market clearing price is the right price.
That's what it pays now.
"Why should things be set up for the advantage of people who work long and hard at their jobs and avoid the burdens of childbearing and childrearing? "
They're set up to advantage the employer. You know, the entity paying the salary in order to accomplish a goal?
More work, more pay.
Sub-Saharan African women reproduce at enormous rates, apparently getting paid a lot more than American women.
Yes, Ann. Which is why the model has always been that women stay home and the husband earns. It makes the most sense for society - maybe not each individual woman - but society.
"Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged."
Doesn't "the individual who makes this contribution" have access to the income of the couple?
The gender pay gap is a myth. Everybody knows that except Oprah watchers.
I am fascinated at the social experiment going on in this country with high status, high IQ women having babies and then turning them over to low IQ women to work as nannies and raise these children. It should be a nice "Blank Slate" experiment.
I'd love to see the chart showing the Pay Gap between all 58 Genders.
"If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what?"
Then NOTHING.
Time for all women to hand in their vaginas.
Ann tell your two sons that they "you could have been a contenda" if it weren't for them.
Doesn't "the individual who makes this contribution" have access to the income of the couple?
This.
Bullshit, are women disadvantaged.
My husband's ex-wife bore him no children and did nothing but sit on the couch, smoke pot, and cheat on him. She walked away from their divorce with half of their assets plus spousal support totaling $169,000 over five years.
Give me a fucking break.
For fairness' sake, we really do need to decouple compensation from effort and production. What we need is something like ... hmmm ... how about "From each according to his ability, to each according to her need." That's a system that's guaranteed to work like a charm.
Even if there were a gap caused by motherhood, there would be no cure that wasn't far worse than the problem.
Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged.
Four words for you:
"No fault divorce" and "alimony".
Frankly, this splooge stooge has very little sympathy. So now we're supposed to realize that men and women are different? And should be treated differently, including by the government?
Only as long as it advantages women.
And then, to be intellectually honest, there's me. I did bear my first husband children, and I did a very good job caring for them and for our home, etc. That has value, and I did work occasionally over our marriage, but he earned 95% of the money that came into our household over that time. And yet, when we divorced, I was provided with half of our assets at the time [which I used to set up a new home for myself and our children, not to get a boob job or go on a cruise, fyi women haters]. No spousal support, though, which I am 100% ok with, because I still feel guilty for taking that 50% that I did not earn but that I was evidently so disadvantaged that I was entitled to under Texas law.
Why should things be set up for the advantage of people who work long and hard at their jobs and avoid the burdens of childbearing and childrearing?
Ask your nearest feminist, because I don't know.
To be blunt, modern feminism is anti-male, anti-marriage, anti-pregnancy and anti-motherhood.
The true question here is not whether the pay gap exists or not and whether it mostly/completely evaporates once put into context, but whether we should even be worried about it at all. The general assumption is this is a bad thing. Why? We never get an answer to this. It is an article of faith.
If there is some great collusion among employers to pay women less then that would be concerning, but all we see, over and over again, is the natural result of reasonable and logical decisions made by the parties involved. When given a choice, married couples usually prefer that the woman stay home as much as possible to take care of the children. Employers reward working extra hours and employers pay less for more flexible hours which result in greater risk on their part. The married couple prioritize the job that is more rewarding, which is typically the man since he is going to work the long hours. I'm not sure why it is even remotely controversial that working more hours at lower risk would result in more pay, but apparently we need to discuss this even though we have yet to establish that there is a relevant problem in the first place. Really, the only people who seem unhappy with this are those who are always unhappy: feminist activists, the politicians that cater to them, and the mainstream media which caters to both.
As to the "solution" to this "problem," basically forcing more women into the "regular" work force is bound to backfire badly. It is well established at this time that women who focus on their careers have less children. While there are cause and effect issues here, I am certain that encouraging women to work more hours is going to result in less time for children which is going to result in a lower birth rate. The ones that want to be mommies will have more children than the dedicated professional women but the effect will be there.
Life involves choices. To get the highest possible earnings usually requires dedication to craft and a lot of hours invested beyond the minimum. More hours at work translates to less time for leisure, socializing, hobbies, or anything else.
I am single with no dependents to provide for and not terribly interested in social gatherings, so when the opportunity arises for extra hours and demanding projects, I'm good with that. Investing the time and effort tends to get noticed by the powers that be, which has led to higher pay and a higher position. But the price of that is not simply being there 8:30 - 5:00 Monday to Friday, but more like 8:30 - 7:00, putting in time on weekends, wearing many different hats with the resultant stress it causes, etc. Men tend to be more willing to make work their life, which would explain why they tend to get promotions and make more on average - people notice the extra work, particularly if it's done well.
The question for all the ladies is how much time and effort they want to put into their career. One of my former bosses was a woman who very literally spent 60 to 80 hours every week running her firm and doing the work. It gave her nice cars, social access, money, and a nice home, but it also meant no children and very little down time aside from the occasional weekly vacation (and most socializing seemed to be work-related).
"And even if it were, why is it what we want?" Are "we" deciding? For everyone who, presumably, doesn't agree? How about "we" stop deciding things that everyone in a free country would already be free to decide? I'm sure many already have decided to do many things such as this, without "our" awareness, while others have not. This "we" is an illusion that covers up coercion, for a "greater good" that buries the destruction of individual liberty in the false gooey glue of "we." Also, even though productivity has soared through the roof over the last half-century, a family has more difficulty making ends meet with one bread-winner. All this "we" stuff has covered up the fact that more and more "we" has only made things more and more difficult for "us."
I have a modest suggestion. To solve the problem, why don’t women stop having children. I guarantee that in one generation the problem will be solved.
Ann said "Why should things be set up for the advantage of people who work long and hard at their jobs and avoid the burdens of childbearing and childrearing?"
Let's flip this. Most people do not want to work long and hard hours, to pull all-nighters to close a merger, to constantly miss parties and family events because you are working on three deals, to struggle with weight gain and poor health because it is so hard to keep to an exercise routine, to spend half your scheduled vacation online or on the phone because your job is not something fungible.
To get people to endure all this - and a lot of this effort is why the USA became the world's greatest economic powerhouse -- you have to pay them a lot of money. And, I think, most of the people willing to work this hard are men, because on average we are less well-balanced and because we are willing to sacrifice our selves so that our children will not spend a single day of their life worrying about financial security.
"Examples could be companies putting less priority on long hours and face time, and the government providing subsidized child care and moderate-length parental leave."
There's no non-problem that the government can't solve.
If anyone thinks natalism (I prefer "pronatalism") isn't important, look at Europe. Do you want the US to import foreigners to pay for your Social Security benefits because your generation didn't produce enough children to do so?
What we need is a social force to counteract the efforts of feminism and promote the value and importance of motherhood. One that honors women instead of insulting them. One that promotes families and provides support for them. The goal should be to be the best woman you can be, not the most masculine woman.
We need a social force that acknowledges the differences between men and women, and promotes the idea that men and women indeed need each other for emotional and economic reasons.
This used to be the church.
If anyone thinks natalism (I prefer "pronatalism") isn't important, look at Europe. Do you want the US to import foreigners to pay for your Social Security benefits because your generation didn't produce enough children to do so?
20 million illegal, illiterate poverty stricken peasants with no love for our country is a good start.
Of course, if it were true that equally qualified women get paid less than men, and of course all women are equally qualified or superior to men, then only women would be hired except at the margin when they do not meet full demand.
But I'd like to encourage you — on this Mother's Day Eve — to focus on because of motherhood. If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what?
Then nothing. Motherhood is a choice. Women become mothers because they have chosen to become mothers. It was an economic choice.
Increase the cost of motherhood, you will get fewer mothers. Decrease its cost, you will get more mothers.
There is nothing here that needs to be fixed. If you guarantee that mothers do not pay a career cost for motherhood, you are distorting the market and giving a "windfall profit" to mothers (but not to women who choose not to bear children).
Ann concludes: "Why should things be set up for the advantage of people who work long and hard at their jobs and avoid the burdens of childbearing and childrearing?"
This is assuming that the overwhelming majority of jobs in the marketplace at which men "work hard and long" are more fulfilling than "childbearing and childrearing." I would argue just the opposite in most cases, which is an argument for sharing in both realms of human activity.
For one possibility here is the capsule summary of a 21st century "capitalist" utopia I once imagined in my youth, which is based around the notion of factories in the countryside run on part-time jobs:
"In these Notes Toward a New Way of Life in America, Luke Lea explores a world of New Country Towns in which the people work part-time outside the home and in their free time help construct their own houses, cultivate gardens, cook and care for their children and grandchildren, and pursue hobbies and other outside interests. They live on small family homesteads grouped around neighborhood greens and get around town in modified golf-carts. Work and leisure are integrated into the fabric of their everyday lives to the point that most don’t feel much need to retire, and they die at home in their beds as a rule, surrounded by loved ones.
For those who would like to move to this world he provides a map with some directions for how to get there from here."
[Alas, I'm an old man and not much of a writer, so it seems likely these Notes may never be published. But if anyone knows someone . . . ]
"Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged." They often are economically rewarded: if they marry a high-SES provider, they get the best of both worlds; if they are poor single mothers, they get the rest of us to pay for their kids.
"We may complacently think enough individuals will find personal rewards and shoulder the disadvantages, so we'll get the next generation we need, but that's not assured." What "disadvantages"?
"And even if it were, why is it what we want? Why should things be set up for the advantage of people who work long and hard at their jobs and avoid the burdens of childbearing and childrearing?" Who dat "we"? And if those go-getter women bitching about disadvantage actually had a point, they would be setting up companies that don't require supposedly phony long hours and face time, making a killing by using all the undervalued female talent out there.
Perhaps we might contemplate the idea that WW I and WW II distorted social norms in a manner that was useful at the time, but has since shown to be less than optimal for women, men, children, families and society.
It isn't a battle between the sexes. The decisions are individual.
Most people have families. When you are part of a family, if you're doing it right, the first consideration is "what's best for all of us." Often this means that the high earner brings in the money and the other parent manages the home front. (I know several couples in which the woman makes the money and the man raises the kids; seems to work well for them.) Sometimes the high earner has to travel more than s/he would prefer or refuse a job opportunity that would require moving to a new city. Sometimes the parents work different shifts so there is always someone at home to be with the children. Everybody sacrifices; nobody gets it all. Socialism is a bad way to run a country but the only way to run a family.
I prefer to trust that people will make the best decisions for themselves. Generalizations from 35,000-foot level are not helpful.
My partner used to say there was no reason to get married. Just find a woman you can learn to hate in ten years and buy her a house.
Nothing like a hypothetical riff off a false premise. I would like to see women protest for equality in family court.
Why is motherhood so unrewarding?
That's what it sounds like to me.
I want to hear a real motherhood bitchfest on Mothers' Day eve.
Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged.
society is more important than childbearing. Men and men's odies have created the space to allow women to best and raise the children.
Males defend the land where society exists from Invaders and males defend the internal from threats of crime and fire.
The male bodies have suffered over the years terrible injuries and mental costs to create a safe place for women to care for the children.
So . . .
You're welcome.
"Examples could be companies putting less priority on long hours and face time, and the government providing subsidized child care and moderate-length parental leave."
The first two are nice and would be helpful for both motherhood and fatherhood. But subsidized child care? Why? That's like saying we don't value mothers taking time away from careers to raise their children. Why would we subsidize that over people staying home and taking care of their own children?
Adding things like moderate length parental leave will only move more people over into the "gig economy." People who work as independent contractors receive none of these benefits.
Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged
That's assuming economic benefit is the only advantage worth having.
Mothers have other advantages for the decision. Economic advantages are hardly the only ones.
Also, I don't see why a person who chooses to work less to have a better quality family life should care that someone else who chooses to work more and have a lower quality family life makes more money.
The gender pay gap....Women earn less over their lifetime than men in a similar job....is real. Not men in a high paying job versus someone in a low paying job. The SAME or Similar job.
It is real because of choices. Women can now 'choose' to have children. Choose to stay home for a while or not. Go right back to work. Choose to get a part time job. Choose to not power up. If you choose not to be married and have a partner to share the financial burden, then you have chosen to not HAVE shoices. Those are all choices. People need to realize there are pay off's for those choices and NOT expect other people to pay FOR them.
One of the payoff's (in my opinion) is being around your children when they are babies and more often when they are young and watching them grow into fabulous young adults. Some people don't care to do that. That is their choice.
Yes. Yes. Yes. I realize that many women don't have the luxury of choice in jobs, no choice in being able to stay home, and some don't even have the choice of not having children depending on their culture.
Nevertheless. It is what it is. Raising children is one of the most important things that people can do. Is it fulfilling? Maybe. Maybe not. It is a job and a responsibility. It is also a job for the father as well as the mother.
Many jobs that MEN have to do are not fulfilling. Do you think that the garbage truck driver, the guy who is laying asphalt in 100 degree weather, the janitor at the elementary school, the guy drilling for oil in a freezing Montana winter..... is "fulfilled"? Probably not.
Why does it only matter about fulfillment if it is women?
Freeman Hunt wrote: But subsidized child care? Why? That's like saying we don't value mothers taking time away from careers to raise their children. Why would we subsidize that over people staying home and taking care of their own children?
That's an excellent point.
How will we subsidize childcare for childcare workers? It's like turtles all the way down.
You're supposed to be raising children in teams. The raising alone should be an outlier. The money that comes into the team through whatever individual belongs to the team.
So maybe the real problem is the breaking up of the teams (marriages.)
There are several ways families can protect mothers and young children from the "gender gap." Life insurance is one of them. Parents can set up trusts.
The state can also protect mothers, if society is so inclined, through workplace protections such as family leave. I believe there was a ballon idea of a mother's pension, that never came to fruition, I think in the 30s in Australia.
Hospitals can work on their birth outcomes for maternal health through systematic review of procedures.
We are lucky that birth is not the danger is was in the past. We forget it can be deadly. There was a story in NPR about maternal death in the USA. The central story was a woman who died from HELLP syndrome about 48 hours after birth, in the hospital. Do NOT read this story if you have a newborn or a new grandchild on the way.
The husband was himself an MD, and tried to get help for his wife, as she was deteriorating in front of him. Tried to get in a specialist. No one acted to bring down her blood pressure before it was too late. The symptoms of HELLP were missed. There's a video clip of the new mother, happy and cooing at her newborn. Dead hours later. An utterly horrifying story.
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/528098789/u-s-has-the-worst-rate-of-maternal-deaths-in-the-developed-world
I'd bet husbands end up making more because they miss less work, plus it is less stressful to stay home with kids than go to work with kids in daycare and manage work and kids. I worked, then stayed home when my kids were little, then worked part-time. I just started my own company and am now making more than I did full time before I went solo, and project my income to be in the six-figures, as is my husband's. The days of two kids and one 40K income are long past, but were well worth it.
Having kids is a life choice. Life is not always fair, for my family not getting a new car or, a huge house or eating out was worth me staying home and raising my kids. It is our view that people who have kids have richer lives overall. Everything isn't about money, on the flip side, childless women could complain they don't get as much time off, have to pay school taxes, pay taxes to upkeep community playgrounds and other societal costs of other people's offspring. That isn't "fair" either.
"Why should things be set up for the advantage of people who work long and hard at their jobs and avoid the burdens of childbearing and childrearing?"
It's not "set up" this way. Women choose it.
As ever, progressivism is the enemy of freedom and virtue. People make choices that the progressives disapprove of. Forcing them to make other choices does not bestow virtue on anyone.
So maybe the real problem is the breaking up of the teams (marriages.)
yep! This.
A good marriage is the best protection and safety net for all members of the family, especially the children.
"childless women could complain they don't get as much time off, have to pay school taxes, pay taxes to upkeep community playgrounds and other societal costs of other people's offspring. That isn't "fair" either."
Actually they are probably getting a fantastic deal as they are not shouldering most of the cost to keep up services as they age. Someone has to raise the people who make society continue to function.
Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged.
Your “economically rewarded” calculation does not include the resources provided to the childrearers by working partners, nor does it include non-monetary, emotional rewards that most people consider at least as valuable as money.
"I believe there was a balloon idea of a mother's pension, that never came to fruition, I think in the 30s in Australia."
That's the sort of thing we'd be talking about if we actually cared about families. But the only thing government people ever talk about is having more benefits tied to labor. Everything is about making it easier for both parents to leave their kids with other people and get jobs. Why should we want people to do that? That's nice for large firms who get to pay lower wages because there are so many workers, but it's not so great for the families or the workers whose wages are depressed. Stop tying all benefits to labor and all protections to working for large firms. (That is, if you're going to have those things.)
The other employees have to work harder, generally for the same pay they were getting, when someone in their area of the company goes on maternity leave. That's not fair, either. When are we going to have maternity benefits for the co-workers?
I'm going to throw this out there: Is having children a choice?
I'm not so sure. It's a choice if one believes in birth control and uses it. It's a choice if natural planning works. It's a choice if one doesn't have an abortion.
Biologically it's not "naturally" a choice if one gets married and acts in a marital way. It's not a choice if one is biologically infertile.
Personally I believe children are a blessing. We can take certain actions to make it more likely we will or will not have children. Not sure that means it's a choice.
But the only thing government people ever talk about is having more benefits tied to labor. Everything is about making it easier for both parents to leave their kids with other people and get jobs.
I hate how kids are in "aftercare" after school and during the summer. My niece and nephew were in a 8-5 situation all last summer due to a divorce. A fun or educational camp is one thing, but this sort of all-day babysitting, or at school until 5:00 is rather sad.
"If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what?"
Then women who prefer money to children should put "tubes tied" on their resumes?
Is having children a choice?
Speaking for us Western women......Other than being forcibly raped and impregnated, of course it is a choice. You can not get married. You can even get married and never have sex...I wouldn't recommend that choice. You can become a nun. Be a hermit.
Today, women can use birth control. It is cheap and available. If you can't use birth control for medical reasons, then there is the Nun choice again. Be celibate.
Gahrie said...
"Perhaps we might contemplate the idea that WW I and WW II distorted social norms in a manner that was useful at the time, but has since shown to be less than optimal for women, men, children, families and society."
Perhaps we may take some solace in the fact that evolution doesn't care how much money you made, it cares how many children you had.
The solution is for a handful of high-earning leftwing men to self-identify as women, which will even out the pay-gap. How much did Jenner make as Caitlin as opposed to Bruce? We could massssssssaggggggge the data.
Blogger wwww said...
I'm going to throw this out there: Is having children a choice?
Bearing children is a choice. If the child is birthed, raising it is a choice.
In what sense cannot it be said not to be not a choice?
Barring outrageous circumstances, fathering children is always a choice for men. Put sperm in a bank and get a vasectomy. Why, in 2017, would a fertile, hetero young man not do this?
Blogger Bay Area Guy said...
The solution is for a handful of high-earning leftwing men to self-identify as women, which will even out the pay-gap.
I hear you, brother.
There are alpha-types out there who will sacrifice anything to get ahead in the biz-world. They'll ruin there health, screw up there marriage(s), and make themselves unwelcome company in any circumstances.
Willingly. Eagerly.
Women really do not understand this. Men are leaders in almost every field of human endeavor for a reason.
They don't give shit what anyone thinks of them outside of the law and their career path.
Why would "identifying as a woman" be a insurmountable obstacle to them?
How is the pay gap affected by all those investment bankers who now identify as women? This article strikes me as too cis-normative.
Men can be women now. Women can be men. Therefore men can have babies and women can be splooge stooges.
Althouse, please quit micro-aggressing me with your cis-thinking.
"Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged."
Why must rewards and advantages and disadvantages be measured strictly economically? If there is no economic disadvantage to having and raising children, how do fairly reward those who do not or cannot have children?
If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what?
Then we let women choose for themselves, knowing they can't have it all? And we let men do the same, knowing they can't have it all either?
Freeman Hunt said...You're supposed to be raising children in teams. The raising alone should be an outlier. The money that comes into the team through whatever individual belongs to the team.
It's called halving it all.
Children are good for society, but why should employers disproportionately bear the burden of subsidizing it?
I'm not in favor of more childbearing subsidies, but if we're going to have them, then belly up to the bar.
Child bearing is important. So important that we should discourage women from working all together and encourage them to have husband's who will work and provide for their family.
When are we going to consider the college-graduation-gap?
More women than men graduate college every year. We should Harrison Bergeron the overachieving people.
I am not part of "the backbone of society" so my opinion does not matter. I cannot give birth to children so my ideas in this area should not be given any consideration.
I thought gender was a social construct, though, so the terms of this discussion are confusing to me.
If we as a society tax the childless to transfer wealth to those who bear children won't that illegally discriminate against homosexuals? I know that is a vitally important consideration for all public policy.
Is there a population growth problem in the world? Are we running out of people worldwide? I have been told that preferring our (Western, American) society and culture over any other societies, cultures, of peoples is the height of racism/sexism/homophobia/xenophobia. If our culture isn't producing enough kids why wouldn't we just import mothers and kids from elsewhere? I mean, even more than we have done I er the last 3 or 4 decades.
Everyone thinks everyone else has it better, and they have the short end of the stick.
Having stayed home 90% of the time for close to 2 decades raising children and managing our household, then spending the next 2 decades slowly climbing the corporate stepstool (small firm), both jobs are difficult and both are rewarding ...for different reasons.
Why can't people make their own decisions and live with the tradeoffs? Nothing's free in life, and the system isn't "arranged" for anyone's benefit. It's the sum total of millions of individual decisions made by individuals and - yes - families, and it reflects our values in the aggregate.
Feeling like a helpless pawn who's being oppressed isn't a life-enriching way of looking at the world. Feeling like you made the best decisions you could, considering the cards you were dealt, on the otter heiny...
Priceless.
"Why should things be set up for the advantage of people who work long and hard at their jobs and avoid the burdens of childbearing and childrearing?"
Huh?
People who work long and hard don't necessarily avoiding the burdens of childbearing and childrearing.
The only people who avoid those burdens are the people who bear children without working long and hard at a job. Meanwhile the state imposes their burdens on those who do work long and hard.
Raising children is important enough that encouraging it is a valid reason to constrain the freedom and liberty of any and all men.
The freedom and liberty of women, in terms of their personal autonomy (with respect to their life choices, questions of reproductive "choice," etc) is important enough that we as a society must not do anything to restrict their choices or encourage them to prefer getting married and raising kids to an alternative.
Men and women are equal.
Perfectly clear.
"But I'd like to encourage you — on this Mother's Day Eve — to focus on because of motherhood. If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what? "
If Freud were still around, I suspect he might have added a chapter about it in his book, "Civilization and its Discontents."
After all, didn't he tell us that "Anatomy is destiny"?? Isn't that what feministas are really railing against?
Natalism? That's patriarchy by another name. Uh, hello, The Handmaid's Tale??
Nice try, sexists.
Do you want the US to import foreigners to pay for your Social Security benefits because your generation didn't produce enough children to do so?
I want to fix the Social Security system.
If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what?
Then there's a choice.
If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what?
This is a relevant question. However, what is missing, is that the couple worked for mutual benefit, and the mother was not deprived, but shared in their mutual achievement. This changed with the feminist revolution, which was followed by selective-child policy, progressive divorce rates, etc. So, there are two questions that can be posed. One, how do we provide an incentive for a desired behavior: child bearing and rearing, and a disincentive for undesirable behaviors: Planned Parenthood. Two, should the institution of marriage, and prolonged coupling, be deprecated or reimagined in this mass social experiment.
The genetic imperative is still strong. I'll worry when it isn't.
"Why should things be set up" in ways that recognize fundamental economic reality?
"Why should things be set up" in ways that comport with r physical laws if the universe?
Why aren't lunches free?
Why doesn't breaking windows lead to greater economic prosperity?
Why don't people have the preferences I think thy should have?
Why don't people agree with my views and arrange their lives to pay me to live the way I want to live?
So unfair.
What about all the men who secretly identify as a woman? A very butch, bearded, deep-voiced lesbian?
When you choose to believe that gender is an imaginative thing -- it has no existence in the physical world -- this is where you end up.
You run into real problems if you require that people declare their gender and have it officially recognized by the government, because this gives the government veto over gender choice, meaning it is no longer an expression of the self. It is what the government approves for you.
Turns out all we have to do is "set things up" the right way.
Step 1: Set things up
Step 2: Enforce the new set up
Step 3: Prosper
Geez, all those revolutionaries of the past were idiots. Why didn't they just set things up the right way and be done with it? Human nature is infinitely malleable and we have the ability to set things up perfectly (with no costs/tradeoffs, no unintended consequences, etc), so clearly the only reason this hasn't been tried before must be something like sexism, I guess.
Let's get in it, already.
Why are those who work 70 hrs/week "advantaged"? Even women who do not have children often turn down jobs with long hours or too much travel or long commutes. Perhaps they are the wiser ones. Maybe higher pay or dangerous working conditions isn't worth it UNLESS you are supporting a family. Maybe the men, who take these jobs, are making a sacrifice that women are not willing to make. Men take all the dangerous jobs and suffer 98% of on the job mortality. While it is hip to say men should be able to stay home with the kids, women who are the breadwinners with a stay-at-home dad don't like it and the arrangement is rare.
Althouse - Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged. We may complacently think enough individuals will find personal rewards and shoulder the disadvantages...
"If staying at home with the children were counted as a job, it would rank as having happier workers than any other trade or profession."
- link
"Stay-at-home moms' happiness factor was another counterintuitive finding. In general, this was a very content group of 558 survey respondents, with one standout: Moms of four or more showed an outsized proclivity to be 'very' or 'extremely' happy."
- link
The system we have now, in which we encourage women to put education/career first, and then focus on family almost as an afterthought, is deranged. We shouldn't incentivize mothers to return to their cubicles.
rehajm:
Social Security may not be an issue, in and of itself, since its return is fixed and predictable. It is also closely correlated with taxable productivity (i.e. employment), which mitigates progressive corruption. The underlying issue is asset inflation (e.g. mortgage crisis, recurring bubbles), progressive debt (e.g. instant gratification, redistributive change), and anti-capitalist practices (e.g. monopolies and practices) that prevent market pricing controls, thereby necessitating perpetual smoothing functions (e.g. welfare, "insurance" for routine events), which do sponsor corruption of individuals, government, and society.
Thanks, Murphy Brown.
So a couple divides their resources so one works hard in the office and makes a lot of money while the other works less in the office and more at home, paying more attention to the children. Having combined their talents and their efforts, they successfully raise children who in turn contribute to our society for another generation.
According to equity researchers, this is a bad thing.
We need to celebrate women who choose motherhood, men who are responsible fathers, and note that the fathers will reciprocate as moral, natural, and personal imperatives are reconciled. We need to remove the social stigma attached to women who order their priorities to place family first, and other ambitions second.
As there will be fewer taxable commodities in the market, the government and affiliates will need to learn to moderate their consumption.
"Examples could be companies putting less priority on long hours and face time, and the government providing subsidized child care and moderate-length parental leave."
What's a good moderate length parental leave? I nursed my children for a year. Is that it? When is an appropriate age for a baby to be regularly tended by a nonparent? I went back to work with my first. I took 12 weeks off, as is the law. I had about a month of vacation time saved, but we made it work. My spouse was in school and working part time, so we weren't rolling in money. We had 9months to plan. It's not a surprise.
Also, I really liked Crazy Jane's comment. A family relationship should not be manipulated because it makes feminists uncomfortable.
My spouse has not climbed the career ladder as quickly as he could have. He made a choice to spend more time at home than working extra hours for a few years. Now, he decided to work more. Everyone has to make these choices.
paying more attention to the children
... and household. It's a full-time job, where the wife and husband each have a role to play in their turn.
I doubt you will find many people to disagree with you about whether a gender gap exists. It does.
Women make anywhere from 60-80 cents on the male dollar depending on how it is calculated.
The only relevant question is "Why?"
We don't hear this discussed much.
All we hear is "THE PATRIARCHY DISCRIMINATES AGAINST WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE!!!!"
Then: STFU you fucking bigot!!!
John Henry
I work as a boiler operator. Only seen a few women in the field. At any particular place, all the workers with the same seniority get the same par per hour. And in the few places I've worked with women, over the course of a year, the women always got paid less. Always. And everyone I know in the field has the same experience of women making the same pay but earning less. Because, when you call them for overtime it's "Sorry, I can't come in." On holidays, they call in. And miss out on double time for the day. Men understand that you don't screw someone else over on a holiday- dead or in the hospital are the only valid excuses for calling in.
Not taking overtime and not working holidays adds up pretty fast to a yearly pay gap. A double digit percentage difference without too much effort.
" If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what?" Then women who want to have a career and also be mothers have to make tradeoffs and accept that they may not earn as much as men who dont have families or dont take time off. Maybe absolute parity is something that can never be acheived, because men and women work differntly and make different choices and you would always have a natural discrepancy, therefore.
And lets also not forget that this is an AVERAGE. some women earn MORE than men. Some women earn less. and some earn the same. Worry only about your own salary. If you want to earn as much as men in your own field, then dont have kids. Dont take 6 months maternity leave. You can't always get what you want.
I had one employer who stated outright why he paid a woman an elevated salary.
"Well..she has kids." The same employer was mildly pressuring me to buy a house..right before the housing meltdown, nonetheless.
Employers often like their workers to have kids. It suggests stability and a certain amount of dependency.
Social Security may not be an issue, in and of itself, since its return is fixed and predictable
It's that predictable return part that is the issue that needs to be fixed since government isn't collecting enough to meet the obligations.
I just so happened to be watching this You Tube video on Why Neve Campbell isn't being hired by Hollywood anymore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNk82xAhCpo
So she also makes the argument that women arent' eanring as much as men. But if you look at her history and why she inst' making as much as men you see she makes very specific choices that impact why she may or may not make money. One, she take YEARS off to raise a kid. Two, she leaves Hollywood and moves to london. three, she makes a conscious choice to NOT take all roles offered to her but instead by very picky about roles and only do a few monvies. OK, then. THose are HER choices. Why should she expect to earn as much as guys who are not leaving hollywood, not taking time off to raise kids, being in movies every year.
And she is really idiotic to use Hollywood of all places as an example of Women getting paid less. Since what you get paid in hollywood is based solely on what you are worth to the movie and what your agent can get you. if we take Julia Roberts, she CERTAINLY earnned more than most actors in Hollywood, unless they were stars themselves. SO, if I compared your average actor to Julia Roberts, i could make the case that women earn more than men> But clearly that's ridiculous. Julia Roberts earnes as much as she does because her movies earn a lot and she NEGOTIATED that salary.
Jennifer Lawrence complained how she earned less than her male costars in her last movie and the eminists used her as an example. But all we have to do is look at her next Movie Passengers where she starred with Chris Pratt. chris pratt, may in fact be the bigger star at this point. ANd he earned 10 million less. So, waht is the argument?
Even the hollywood ladies making millions of dollars in movies cite this statistic as if its relevant or real. and even though they know they are earning money based on how much the bring to a movie. Why is there such a disconnect?
From the historical and global evidence, it is not a lack of income or security that are first to force dysfunctional (e.g. Planned Parenthood) populations, but a progressive morality and narcissism that alters individual perspective. Liberal societies promote a spoiled child syndrome, debase human life, exploit and agitate differences between men and women, and promote progressive confusion.
That said, the reporter and her expert witnesses are relying on an appeal to ego and emotion to force acceptance of their arguments. Clever attempt to blackmail pro-life women and men, but this social experiment requires a comprehensive perspective and solution.
AA: If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what?
That the bearing and rearing children was a necessary social function, and that it reduced the ability of women to compete economically, was recognized by the obligations and privileges inherent in what we now quaintly refer to as "traditional sex roles". The husband had an obligation to earn his wife's, and his family's, bread. He was expected to make provisions for her probable eventual state of widowhood. The rules of state welfare programs like Social Security recognized these roles, as did employer benefits programs. A man who did not provide for his wife properly was looked down on.
So it's not as if the mother wasn't being paid. She just got paid indirectly.
And there was also social prestige in that role - a mother of a family was worthy of respect for being the mother of a family. Motherhood and fatherhood were "sacralized", even in secular societies. There were lousy mothers and lousy fathers, lousy wives and lousy husbands, but there was a mythos that maintained the social prestige of both roles, and that matters. (Now, we all know that there are disadvantages in those traditional arrangements, for both sexes. But that is true of of contemporary arrangements, too.)
One thing that always strikes me when you get on this topic, Prof, is that you seem to want to retain the traditional prestige, sacralization if you will, of motherhood - its status as a uniquely female, and fundamentally important social function - while jettisoning any of the personal obligations and restrictions, and undermining the social institutions, that maintained that status. It's as if you cannot see the ways that pet liberal causes erode the very status you want to claim for women as mothers - e.g., abortion on demand, removing any stigma or "status hit" at all from single motherhood or "child-free" lifestyles, or the tacit admission that woman-as-mother is superfluous even for child-rearing (two gay fathers are every bit as good as a father and a mother.)
jr565:
You can't always get what you want.
That's not the point of this report. It is a thinly veiled attempt to blackmail people outside of the Pro-Choice Church. Support the modern social experiment or the baby gets aborted. It's clever. It's effective. It may be unavoidable, but will it work? Has it worked? Do women, do men, do couples in socialist societies reject Planned Parenthood and other dysfunctional, trans-human choices?
Most mothers are married, so their "low pay" is cancelled by the "High Pay" their husbands get.
Of course, on an overall societal basis, being a mother has an impact on earning power. That's so obvious it's not-debatable, imho.
But motherhood not the only factor involved in earnings disparity, and there are many exceptions to the rule that motherhood is a drag on earnings. Each woman individually can have a considerable influence on whether she is an exception. She does not always have a choice in this but many women, especially well educated women, do.
The question is why we think this is a problem that must be fixed. To the extent that it's a result of discrimination, it should be fixed. But a lot of it is due to personal and family choices. On a societal basis, we have greatly expanded the economic choices for women and families. This is a great development, and somehow we see it as a failure.
For men, being a father has an impact on earnings EXPECTATIONS. That is a difficult conundrum for men, but not one that gets as much sympathy as the women having to deal with pressures and make choices. Another topic for another time.
BTW, most countries in Europe pay women to have kids. Sweden, Germany, France to name 3. It doesn't seem to work as their native birth rates (excluding Muslims) are at all time lows.
Women don't obey the Patriarchy.
When you're old and Grey and hopefully have Grand-kids you're going to be glad you had kids. I know my parents were glad as hell - and said so - that they had kids helping them out in their old age.
No sympathy for Jennifer Lawrence. Chris Pratt either. Two occupants of the catbird seats.
In Sweden, they are thinking of requiring men to take parental leave. Now they get it, but too few men are taking it voluntarily, and the idea is that this gives them an unfair advantage in the workplace.
So this means that even men don't obey the patriarchy.
Women do.
"Obedient little bitches."
That's the sort of thing we'd be talking about if we actually cared about families. But the only thing government people ever talk about is having more benefits tied to labor. Everything is about making it easier for both parents to leave their kids with other people and get jobs. Why should we want people to do that? That's nice for large firms who get to pay lower wages because there are so many workers, but it's not so great for the families or the workers whose wages are depressed. Stop tying all benefits to labor and all protections to working for large firms. (That is, if you're going to have those things.)
Amen, Freeman Hunt.
hhardin said...
Women like children. Why should they get paid for a hobby.
They don't get paid. Just as well. For the good ones, most of us could not afford it.
"Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged." The first part of the statement is more or less correct ("virtually" is a fudge), but much of the discussion of the "economically rewarded" or "disadvantaged" part focuses on jobs, promotions, and pay. If you want to promote childbearing and childrearing, why would you want to pay people (women) more money for working and not childbearing or childrearing? Sure, to the extent that you're talking about a single mom, she's going to have to work AND bear and raise her children, but if we as a society are going to "reward" something in order to encourage it, shouldn't we seek to encourage partnered motherhood? In partnered motherhood, the "rewards" and "disadvantages" add up pretty much to a zero sum game: If the Boss is going to pay Working Mom more the Boss is going to be paying Working Pop less (on average of course). How does this promote natalism?
The US already has a program for supporting natalism, a $4,000 deduction from income for each dependent child. Rather than pay working moms more (and probably making them spend more time away from their kids), why not increase the deduction? Trump's tax plan, as I understand it, will propose a big increase in the "standard deduction", now $12,600 for a married couple filing jointly, to $50,000 for that couple. That should ease the economic stress on a lot of married couples with children. But if you want more, then increase the per-child deduction, and perhaps offset the revenue loss by not increasing the standard deduction as much. That's pronatalism.
It's hard to know what to pay mothers because children & family life seem to be priceless. I don't mean that in a moral values sense; I mean it in a strictly economic sense. It just seems you can't bribe a woman into having a family for any price.
Some European countries (e.g. France) instituted very family-friendly social policies, such as paying a woman a stipend for each child, easy access to government run child care, & the like. Hell, the Frogs even have Le Prix Cognacq for good French mothers who pop out at least five health & hearty French babies (don't laugh; I have an aunt who produced nine pour la Gloire de la France).
Did these child & mother friendly policies work to increase the supply of Frenchmen? Nope. Not a bit. American women who have no such benefits out-reproduce their French counterparts (not by much...).
In moving women into the out-of-the house economic sphere in such numbers as we've done post WWII, we've embarked on a daring social experiment. As with all experiments, sometimes they don't work. This one may not work. It may be that societies that don't chain their women to the bed simply may not end up reproducing themselves. Give women the chance to do something else other than raise more than 2.1 children & they'll take it. At which point, a society begins to disappear.
The modern first world may very well be the Shakers writ large.
rcocean:
Yin and yang. Man and woman. Equal and complementary.
People who don't have children have a lot more disposable income. Leading your own life on $50,000/year is completely different from raising a family on $50,000. Is that fair?
A married couple with two incomes can share the costs of housing etc. Is that "fair" to a single person?
And the more hours you put in, the less time you have for housework also, so you have to pay people to watch your kids, clean your house and maintain your property. You end up working just to pry these strangers to live your life for you while you slave away trying to impress a boss that is more miserable than you and would fire you in an instant if it made his stock more valuable.
So are we going to subsidize gardeners and housekeepers and little league coaches too? They should men could work more hours too if they didn't have all of these unfair gendered responsibilities.
Of course, then everyone would have to work harder to pay for the government takeover of domestic life.
Female physicians make significantly less than male physicians. Virtually all of a physician's income is paid by third-party payers (insurance companies & government). Is this because third-party payers reimburse female physicians at a lower rate than male physicians for the same services? I'm absolutely certain that NO third-party payer would even attempt this, yet alone get away with it.
It's more likely that female physicians practice differently than male physicians. Studies bear out that female physicians are much more likely to choose less remunerative medical specialties than male physicians, are much more likely to work part-time, or job-share, more likely to take a "sabbatical" from medical practice when they have young children; and, are more likely to work fewer hours than a male physician.
Is this unfair? Perhaps it's the baby-boomer, white male in me, but I believe that choices have consequences, and you need to live with your choices. I regret many choices that I have made in my 66 years; but, they were my choices and I accept the consequences of those choices.
If you want to increase the number of Kids being born, don't give them money give them votes.
Every married couple with kids gets 1 extra vote per kid. Who gets the cast the extra votes? Let the Wife and Husband decide that.
Why should things be set up for the advantage of people who work long and hard at their jobs and avoid the burdens of childbearing and childrearing?
Get rid of Social Security and Medicare. If you want to be secure in your old age, raise children who can see to it that you are secure.
Note that this has the added benefit of advantaging people who raise productive children. Sure, you can raise social justice warriors and genders studies majors if you want, but you are the one who will be depending on them for your retirement security.
"Female physicians make significantly less than male physicians."
Our family has had the same half-dozen doctors for the last 10 years. The male ones are always working, the female ones have gone on part-time schedules, off and on, because they want to be with their kids. They also seem to like being primary physicians and work in the less stressful specialties, like Pediatrics.
My wife doesn't work outside the home (she's an artist, which pays for her hobby, essentially). She had a very successful career when we had our first child, but the stars aligned in such a way that allowed her to consider leaving that job and staying home to be a mom. We're middle class--nothing better.
By her staying home to care for our two children, I've been able to take on additional responsibilities, stay longer hours, and do some things that I might not have been able to do, if we'd both needed to compete/cover/compromise for our children's time and care. I'm also the sole breadwinner--and that puts a pressure on me to do more, do better, climb the ladder, and ensure the financial security of my family in a way that I probably wouldn't be if we both worked with similar incomes.
I probably make a little more money as a result. That I am a man has no bearing on this, nor does the fact that she is a mother. Either of us COULD have chosen to stay home--but she wanted to.
"Some women work less once they have children, but many don’t, and employers pay them less, too..."
I would like to see the evidence for "many [mothers] don’t, and employers pay them less".
Gahrie said...
"Perhaps we might contemplate the idea that WW I and WW II distorted social norms in a manner that was useful at the time, but has since shown to be less than optimal for women, men, children, families and society."
This.
I think we should rethink policies that encourage both parents to work. That would be good for families and good for workers.
Thats what husbands are for.
Perhaps women (or men) need better incentives to marry early, and stay married.
Increase of the child allowance is of limited utility as it benefits only people with enough income to have income tax obligations anyway. Thats rarely young-ish men or couples. Usually they have no income tax obligation. IIRC this can zero out with standard deductions and credits, with kids, at $40-50K AGI. Increasing the child credit is an incentive, maybe, to 30+ year olds, but what you really want is pregnant 21-29 year olds.
Something is needed to make young women desire babies above academic or professional studies or jobs.
In terms of economic incentives, if you want women to stay home and raise children, you have to pay them less to go to work than you pay men. And if you are a woman who wants to stay home and raise children, you want your husband to be paid more. You should organize a Mothers for Gender Pay Gap political action committee.
Blogger MayBee said...
People who don't have children have a lot more disposable income. Leading your own life on $50,000/year is completely different from raising a family on $50,000. Is that fair?
5/13/17, 4:55 PM
I have no kids. My wife had a single child, a son, but he passed away several years ago. Cancer. Very tragic.
I make a good income. My wife gets social security. We are both aware that we are facing old age alone. My disposable income goes into my 401k. We'll need it.
Lewis Wetzel- I'm very sorry about your son.
"Individual" There's your problem.
It's amazing how hypocritical progressive intellectuals like Prof. Althouse are. I remember when my Mom used to work for Planned Parenthood--before she realized that we actually need more children, not less--the party line was that the government was required to be neutral, not "pro-natalist." Now, when it suits her, Prof. Althouse adopts the opposite line. Though of course she doesn't have the integrity to say "The Planned Parenthood party line of the 1970s was intellectually nonsense," because tenured professors don't make courageous statements.
Literally, there isn't a Pay Gap. Can say that honestly, because of my having had to send quarterly wage reports to BLS as part of my job for not quite 10 years at my last workplace. Being a data contributor (at least used to) provide(s) access to raw data and explanations as to how the data were being used direct from the org.
What would be interesting to see is how much "fringe" is applied to the actual salaries for things like "oh, my kid's sick, I need to stay home." or when you're actually playing unpaid nanny to a Career Woman bringing her kids to work for some reason. Or the uncompensated overtime spent because you're single and, apparently don't have a life, so you make up for Mom.
Let's atomize society by disintegrating the culture and give the government the job of sewing the whole mess back together! That will work!
"I would like to see the evidence for "many [mothers] don’t, and employers pay them less"."
Medicine is becoming more and more a "gig industry" where no one opens an office and pays staff and rent.
What they do now is work for a salary paid by a hospital or HMO or they work two or three jobs at urgent cares and ERs.
This is new since I retired but I teach and work a few days a week and talk to new docs.
I get constant calls from staffing outfits and they have data on docs work habits
Women MDs work about 25% less than male MDs and male MDs work about the same fewer hours than we did.
People complained about doctors' incomes but these days it is less unless they are superspecialists and there are not as many of those. It turns out that income was a powerful incentive and fee for service was very powerful. Since salaries are the norm, the doctor "shortage" is much worse, especially in specialties known for long hours like general internal medicine and general surgery.
Now, internists don't care for their patients when hospitalized and "Hospitalists," which is a new specialty are often poorly trained and foreign MDs.
How much you get paid reflects how much value your skills and productivity contribute to company profits.
That's all.
Multiple millions of people make billions of decisions at different stages of their lives that affect that outcome, and any centralized authority that attempts to compensate for the resulting financial benefits and drawbacks inevitably leads to corruption and political favoritism.
So I guess I can see the appeal.
Now, internists don't care for their patients when hospitalized and "Hospitalists," which is a new specialty are often poorly trained
Don't get me started!
So women choose motherhood and take their foot off the gas professionally because they want to spend time with their children, and Althouse wants employers or the government to reward them for it. At what point does it become clear the women are just collecting welfare? The truth is there are legions of women who give birth and then squeeze their employers for years and get unbelievable indulgences and accommodations that a man would never get away with. Personally, I have known a few who have no intention of ever really going back full time, but they like the pay and benefits and the fact that no one really questions them for taking time off. Anyone who has worked in an office setting has seen it firsthand.
Law school faculties might be different, I suppose.
Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged.
And screwed by Social Security.
The fundamental problem with children and paygap analysis is the idea that it has to be rational.
"Some women work less once they have children, but many don’t, and employers pay them less, too." There is zero evidence for this claim that employers pay women less than men once you even out responsibilities, hours worked, experience etc. Well, there is still some gap - less than 5%, probably less than 3% - than can't be explained and so may be due to discrimination, but that's vanishing amount younger workers.
Want more children? Abolish conception, and of course abortion. Guaranteed nobody can be expected to restrain themselves and practice chastity so, guaranteed more children. No work life balance adjustment required. Except of course fathers have to get jobs and provide. But gosh, who isn't doing that already? 🙄
Blogger Christopher said...
How much you get paid reflects how much value your skills and productivity contribute to company profits.
That's all.
Assuming an efficient compensation scheme that recognizes and rewards merit.
Some Christian gals have already concluded that taking it in the ass preserves their virginity.
Now it's a pile on. Capitalist gals can only 100% ensure their max earning power via the backdoor and blowjobs.
Call me a traditionalist, but I'll role the dice w/ BC and vagina and Satan.
Carry on.
BTW, what is the Christian heaven like for folks who make the cut?
The Mooooslim dudes get a bunch of virgins. I dunno if the gal martyrs end up F-ing virgin dudes.
Does the good Christian get a bunch of virgins? If a dude like Pence will never be alone w/ a (non-wife) woman on earth, is his reward F-ing a bunch of gals, virgin or otherwise, in the afterlife? Sorta a suffer know, but F later deal. Kinda cool to think that being restrained now means being a major F-er for eternity. Or, maybe in the afterlife Pence never being alone w/ any woman other than his wife until the end of time = eternal bliss. IOW, what wins the ticket is not diametrically the opposite of what it took to win.
Got it.
PB&J-
From MacLaren's commentary on Genesis, "Eden Lost and Found."
I left out Bullet point #1 because it was a long intro.
2. Heaven restores the lost Eden.
'God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared them a city.'
The highest conception we can form of heaven is the reversal of all the evil of earth, and the completion of its incomplete good: the sinless purity—the blessed presence of God—the fulfilment of all desires—the service which is blessed, not toil—the changelessness which is progress, not stagnation.
3. Heaven surpasses the lost Eden.
(1) Garden—City.
The perfection of association—the nations of the saved. Here 'we mortal millions live alone,' even when united with dearest. Like Egyptian monks of old, each dwelling in his own cave, though all were a community.
(2) The richer experience.
The memory of past sorrows which are understood at last.
Heaven's bliss in contrast with earthly joys.
Sinlessness of those who have been sinners will be more intensely lustrous for its dark background in the past. Redeemed men will be brighter than angels.
The impossibility of a fall.
Death behind us.
The former things shall no more come to mind, being lost in blaze of present transcendent experience, but yet shall be remembered as having led to that perfect state.
Christ not only repairs the 'tabernacle which was fallen,' but builds a fairer temple. He brings 'a statelier Eden,' and makes us dwell for ever in a Garden City.
I suppose you can sit around on a cloud and play harp, if that is what you want to do.
Jelly is channeling erudite Titus tonight.
Emphasis on "rude."
Bad Lieutenant said...
Want more children? Abolish conception...
I'm not sure abolishing conception will have the desired effect...
A couple of other comments on comparisons:
1) Most of the time the comparison is based strictly on money. I don't think I have ever seen a comparison of total compensation. Men, as a group, always go for the biggest paycheck and don't worry too much about medical, child care, time off and other "fringe" benefits. These might make of 25% or more of the total compensation package. Women will work for a company with lower pay but better benefits and the total compensation packages might be equal to the man with higher pay, less benefits.
2) Women tend to work less physical jobs. Look up the rate of deaths and maimings on the job. Maiming meaning losing a part of your body. the rate for men is many times that for women. Ditto on the job injuries.
John Henry
Well, but the guys working for the higher pay are working just as hard for their children, aren't they? Having children takes a lot of time. The net outside-earnings of couples that have and rear children are either going to be lower than those that don't, or those earnings will be spent on child care.
If you want to pay people for having children, you may breed a very dysfunctional next generation/society. This is, after all, what welfare has accomplished in many societies.
I don't know the answer, but I am pretty sure that imposing some artificial pay structure on employers ISN'T any good answer.
Why is money used as the only measure success? In the end, exess money only buys excess shit. And that excess shit rarely results in any measurable improvement in life.
"Redeemed men will be brighter than angels."
IOW, no new pussy for Pence penance, for eternity.
Lucky guy!
Gospace mentioned overtime. Many people don't realize how quickly that adds up:
John And Jennie are both married and employed by old man Veeblefetzer at his WidgetWorks. They both make $20/hr.
So far, no inequality, right?
Jennie gets pregnant. That means time off for doctor visits and such. as well as maternity leave. Compensation that John doesn't get.
So now they are married and Jennie works 40 hours a week (sometimes less)so she can get home to take care of the baby. She is making $800/week.
John wants to build up a nest egg for the new house, start saving for baby's college and all the other things a loving husband does. So he takes the overtime any time he can get it. Let's say that he works 50 hours a week. He gets 40 hrs at $20 and 10 at $30 or $1100/week.
OMG!!!! Jenny is doing the same work but only making 72 cents on the dollar (800/1100). That MUST be gender discrimination.
Does anyone have Gloria Allred's number?
As I said earlier, you can get any pay gap you wish. It just depends on how the pay is calculated. In the few cases where I could find the calculations, they seldom compared apples to apples. In the even fewer cases where they did compare apples and apples, there was pretty much no pay gap.
Boiler operator,Gospace? I was a Machinist Mate in the Navy. I ran the steam plant next to the boilers and know something about boiler operation. Not a job that many women would be able to do and probably even fewer would be willing to do it.
It does tend to pay better than even a skilled office job, I suspect.
John Henry
Hey, PB&J, you asked, I answered.
Douglas,
One of the things you need to look at is the time span. Men and women pay is more likely to be the same the shorter the time span.
In my example above, there is no gap on an hourly basis, a 30% gap on a weekly basis and probably an even bigger gap on an annual basis if Jenny takes some uncompensated time off.
Thomas Sowell wrote an excellent book on this back in the 80's. I Think the title is "The economics of Gender and Race"
John Henry
For all those "but why, why, why?" comments it is because I have willed it: you talk and think only within confines I allow you to do so, as I find your unmanipulated thoughts boringingly dull, not so stupid I can can steal your grandmother and her possessions but too close for my comfort, and you will thank me someday too for it.
Usually, when I have a job interview, I go into the room in wheel chair. People are afraid not to hire a person in a wheelchair. They never even ask what you are doing in a wheelchair. Act normal, don't go all Steven Hawking. But don't get up and walk around, either. If they ask if you can fulfill the requirements of the job, always say yes. After all, your not a cripple, just a normal guy in a wheel chair. But don't say that.
If they ask you about hobbies and personal interests, say that you enjoy fly-fishing, because it gets you outdoors and you can do it from a wheelchair. Notice -- you still haven't actually claimed to have a disability. Every word you've spoken is true.
Day one on the job, show up w/o the wheel chair and do your job. If anybody asks questions, just shrug and say you don't need a wheel chair, thank God.
If we would perfect the artificial womb and let the state assume primary responsibility for childrearing, then women could work as hard and long as they like and prove themselves every bit as deserving of high pay and advancement as hard-working men. Of course, it's critical to an infant's future emotional health that it bond and attach to a primary caregiver. Perhaps a fleet of nanny robots, perhaps modeled on the "grandmother" in the Twilight Zone episode I Sing the Body Electric. It's a great plan expect, of course, for the fact that most women with young children don't want to be out working hard and long at an outside job.
So seriously, then what? Nothing. Children and child care are already heavily subsidized through social welfare programs, public education and the tax code. Life is a series of hard decisions and trade-offs. Should women be exempt from those because there's virtually nothing more important to society than childbearing and childrearing and they're the ones with the wombs? Should the costs, financial and otherwise, of woman remaining at home as primary caregivers be transferred to employers, co-workers and taxpayers? What costs should the career woman/mother be expected to bear?
Virtually nothing is as important to society as childbearing and childrearing, and yet the individuals who make this contribution are not economically rewarded but disadvantaged.
I'm baffled. A woman who stays at home to take care of children is not economically rewarded? How do you think she gets the roof over her head, her food, her clothes, and everything else? If she is fortunate enough to have a husband who earns a living to provide for the whole family, so she does not have to work outside the home in addition to (or instead of) taking care of children, how is being provided for by the husband not an economic reward?
If the gap is real, and if it is because of motherhood, then what?
Then it's not my problem. As a single person I don't see why I should be subsidizing the life choices other people make.
Women are economically rewarded by their husbands. Duh. Why should they be rewarded by a third party?
I'm 46 years old, living frugally, but well with my three cats and unmarried partner. Two years ago, I had one ex friend, same age as me finally give birth after two fails, along with another ex friend (slightly younger, by four years) give birth after one miscarriage.
Both of them were so all about "My Life is Difficult," that I really had to cut off contact with them. (First is the head of the Math Dept at an exclusive school in New England, the other, An Auditing Accountant, Fed Level.)
Being a Failure most of my life (female, Liberal Arts), I assumed that there was something wrong with my having protected sex.
Be wrote: Being a Failure most of my life (female, Liberal Arts), I assumed that there was something wrong with my having protected sex.
You've been here here off and on for years by my account. I never thought you were a failure.
Prove it.
Would it not be easier in that case for the government to dissolve the people and elect another? - Bertolt Brecht
The crisis is brought about by unrealistic expectations. It is unrealistic to expect the bearing of children to be without burden of time and effort. It is unrealistic to expect a business to pay for something that does not return proximate value.
The solution we have arrived at is:
..bright, educated men and women devoting their time and energies to business;
..bright, educated women who do bear children largely giving them over to be raised as wards of the State;
..dim, unuducated men and women, raised as wards of the state, breeding like rabbits and producing more wards of the State;
..the need of business for production workers met by importation of bright, energetic immigrants.
Four kids here. The biggest barrier to work was the commute, both mine and my husband's. The farther his was, the shorter mine became due to logistics. Time is more important than money.
I give four kids (working adults) to economy, I lose out on contributing to any investments for retirement. I'm a little bit ruined there.
Thomas Sowell covered this subject in a book 30 years ago. this person thinks she can improve on that?
I prefer thigh gap, myself.
I am Laslo.
Do women with thigh gap make more money than those without?
I mean, besides strippers.
I am Laslo.
My wife doesn't work and get half of my income for being a homemaker. What's the problem here?
My wife doesn't work and get half of my income
Only half? You've got a good thing going.
This BS just ticks me right off. Pay gap? Women have to be paid the same as men or it's not faaaaaaaaair!!!!!
Stay with me, girls, and let's figure this one out: America already has an employment problem. Now, idiot feminists want to effectively DOUBLE the size of the work force. Whaddya think that's gonna do to the wages? And in the midst of THAT little detail, these idiot women think their wages are going to go UP? Guess what chickie... Not only will your pay prospects go down, your husband's will too! Wat to go, baby!
And why stop there? As some wag recently put it, 'what is the pay gap between all 28 genders?'
"Examples could be companies putting less priority on long hours and face time, and the government providing subsidized child care and moderate-length parental leave." My daughter is involved in exactly such a discussion with her employer right now. She is a top-performing employee, who wants to put in less time at the office and work more from home, because of her family. The employer explains to her - correctly - that while she is very effective from home, she is even much more effective at the office.
The upshot is that even though she is one of their top-performing employees, she will not be one of their fastest-rising employees, because she has chosen a path that limits her performance. Someone else will rise faster because they (probably a he) will chosen to do more for the company and less personally.
It all makes sense to me. If the government/American people wants to give her compensations, that would be great, but not at the expense of the company she works for.
Men don't really value children who are not theirs (or their friends) very much.
Thus, an appeal on the benefits to society by supporting children in general does not motivate most men to get out of bed and head off to work. Not as much as having a wife and their own children who need support.
I say this as someone who puts in a non-trivial amount of volunteer time to help raise a largish number of children who are definitely not mine.
Ann, I also question whether your perception of what a job entails is influenced by your own work experience in a high-paying, high-status, enjoyable job.
I do not mean to belittle your work -- I am sure you worked hard, and that it was not all fun.
But you had a job that most other people could only dream of.
Thus, it might seem by comparison that full-time motherhood would be a burden.
But the vast majority of jobs are not that great. Parenthood is a lot more enjoyable. I have a good job and a good family. I enjoy family duties far more than job duties. My wife also enjoys being a full-time mother much more than she enjoyed working -- although she was quite successful in her pre-motherhood career.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Contraception and abortion have created one in Europe and the US.
She is a top-performing employee, who wants to put in less time at the office and work more from home, because of her family. The employer explains to her - correctly - that while she is very effective from home, she is even much more effective at the office.
My daughter-in-law runs a very successful marketing business from home. She had a number of clients but now, because she has been so successful, has one big client. That's all to the good and her income is probably two or three times my son's but success has a price. Her client keeps asking her to do more, including trips to meetings in other cities.
Their kids are early teens and my son works three days at a time as a firefighter. If the trips and his shifts conflict it creates a problem. She would like to get back to less time demands but it's a conflict. Kind of a nice one and time will solve a lot as the kids get older.
Women are economically rewarded by their husbands.
Patriarchal misogyny. Women must never be dependent on a man. A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle after all.
Why should they be rewarded by a third party?
So that they aren't dependent on a man. Duh.
Women want to earn more? Go into STEM, not touchy-freely crap.
OTOH, did she actually admit that pay is comparable otherwise?
You've cone a long way, baby!
Life is choices. Wimmin don't want choices, they want it all -- detrimental to men.
Whoever wrote here available for sex and taxation was right!
Nothing helps reinforce the value of motherhood like a good plague.
Blogger Michael K said...
but now, because she has been so successful, has one big client.
Good for her but scary as Hell. What happens if she loses that client? They decide on a new direction, go out of business or whatever. She is screwed at least until she can find a new client(s)
I've been doing this for more than 30 years. I would never want to depend on any client for more than 20% or so of my income. Or, when I used to sell machinery, depend on one principal/machine builder for my sales. I never sold for fewer than 5-6 companies at a time.
Most of my clients depend on Walmart for 40-70% of their business and they are scared to death of them. Losing Walmart would be a company killer.
John Henry
"Blogger Lewis Wetzel said...
Usually, when I have a job interview, I go into the room in wheel chair. People are afraid not to hire a person in a wheelchair. They never even ask what you are doing in a wheelchair. Act normal, don't go all Steven Hawking. But don't get up and walk around, either. If they ask if you can fulfill the requirements of the job, always say yes. After all, your not a cripple, just a normal guy in a wheel chair. But don't say that.
If they ask you about hobbies and personal interests, say that you enjoy fly-fishing, because it gets you outdoors and you can do it from a wheelchair. Notice -- you still haven't actually claimed to have a disability. Every word you've spoken is true.
Day one on the job, show up w/o the wheel chair and do your job. If anybody asks questions, just shrug and say you don't need a wheel chair, thank God."
Why couldn't I have said this better?
I THINK ABOUT THINGS.
Why couldn't I have said this better? WTF???
You're
I go into the room in wheel chair could be considered when translated into Hindi an inept inapt liking.
Just because of all those pricks/cocksuckers who ever typed "FIFY" I will now fix, for you, on my fucking dime and at no charge to you, because Christian, indeed not only that but Catholic.
Blogger Lewis Guilded as Fuck Wetzel said...
LET ME CLEAR MY THROAT!!!
Usually, if indeed I have a job interview, I go into the room in a mollified wheel chair cloaking deception as a humorous masquerade. People are afraid not to hire a person in a wheelchair, or mention outdue influence, out due defined as our Founding Fathers defined the British usurpations of individual dignity. They never even ask what you are doing in a wheelchair. Act normal, don't go all Steven Hawking. But don't get up and walk around, either. If they ask if you can fulfill the requirements of the job, always say yes. After all, you're not a cripple, just a normal guy in a wheel chair. But don't say that.
If they ask you about hobbies and personal interests, say that you enjoy fly-fishing, because it gets you outdoors and you can do it from a wheelchair. Notice -- you still haven't actually claimed to have a disability. Every word you've spoken is true if you are an idiot.
Day one on the job, show up w/o the wheel chair and do your job. If anybody asks questions, just shrug and say you don't need a wheel chair, thank God.
I have to LOL everytime I read one of these "social justice" articles which are absolutely bereft of logic or purpose. "....To achieve greater pay equality......." Besides "social justice warriors," such as liberals and people who don't have anything to do with their life, how can this be achieved in the real world? What if a man makes a $1 more than a woman? How about $5 more than a woman - or reverse this with the woman making more. For those who are challenged by this thinking, please, there are no two people with the exact same experiences in the world. Therefore, the entire concept of a "pay gap" is just made up by feminists who have nothing to do in life but bitch.
That was 6-9K of advice, I give freely because I hate so much those that don't, those always demanding others pay their fancy, fancy, fancy.
Boiler operator,Gospace? I was a Machinist Mate in the Navy. I ran the steam plant next to the boilers and know something about boiler operation. Not a job that many women would be able to do and probably even fewer would be willing to do it.
It does tend to pay better than even a skilled office job, I suspect.
John Henry
Machinist Mate is, or was, great prep for stationary engineer or boiler operator jobs. Now that most of the Navy is large slow speed diesels for auxiliary ships and gas turbine for combatants, the civilian side of the world is suffering a shortage of young people entering the field.
Gospace
MMC USN(ret)
When are we going to address the longevity gap? Women have a life expectancy about 10% longer than men.
Could you imagine the howls if the reverse was true?
Now that most of the Navy is large slow speed diesels for auxiliary ships and gas turbine for combatants, the civilian side of the world is suffering a shortage of young people entering the field.
We're getting wildly off topic here, but you've piqued my curiosity. Why does the navy use diesel for the auxiliary ships? Is it because they can get underway more quickly?
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