Letters to the Editor
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Equal pay
It seems to be taken for granted by many posters that women earn either 72% or 76% of what men earn. To put it mildly, that is complete nonsense. Perhaps more importantly, it is obvious nonsense. Here's why:
There are about 80 million women and girls working full or part time in the US. Assume that each of them was equally discriminated against in their pay. That is, for every working male, there was a corresponding working female who made 72% or 76% of his salary. That would be 80 million lawsuits for violations of wage and hour provisions of federal and state laws. The courts would be inundated and every lawyer would be an employment lawyer (and a highly prosperous one at that!). Needless to say, that's not happening. If "only" half the women and girls were discriminated against in their pay, that would still be 40 million lawsuits. But to get to the 72% level of men's pay, those 40 million would only be paid 44% of what the men earned. We can all imagine different permutations of the above, but it should be clear that this is not happening.
That doesn't mean that women in the US earn as much as men; they don't, but there are perfectly reasonable explanations why. Here are a few:
The figures for men's and women's earnings come from the US Census Bureau which polls individuals and households periodically. They actually show that women earn about 76% of what men do. But that's not based on discrimination, it's based on choices made by individuals. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, when men and women describe themselves as working full-time, women spend about 7 hours per day doing remunerative work while men spend about 8 hours per day. That accounts for 12.5% of the difference in pay.
But that just deals with those who work, not those who don't. Fewer women and girls work in the US than do men and boys. The difference is about 8 million which accounts for another 9.4% of the difference in pay, which, when added to the previous 12.5% comes to 21.9% of the 24% difference reported by the Census Bureau. I suspect that the remaining 2.1% is explained by differences in seniority, but do not know for sure. My guess is that the BLS has that data, but I've never checked.
I certainly don't agree with some of what O'Beirne says, but she has a point when she says that, if equally qualified women could be had for 72% or 76% of what men commanded, why would anyone hire a man?
This is one of the many false claims by feminists that needs to be laid to rest once and for all.
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working moms
I don't think there are very many people who would argue that moms have not worked in the past. All of my black foremothers worked, as did many other women whoever needed to help put bread on the table.
And of course in other societies women work, look at many women in the third world, many have their own small businesses in market stands, etc.
But our society has radically changed in regards to childhood, and those of you who don't have children might not be aware of this shift.
My mother worked when I was a kid. And I and my siblings were what was then called "latchkey kids." We rode our bikes from school, maybe 3 miles, had a key on a string around our neck to open the front door, cleaned the house, and made dinner.
During the summer, if my mom had to go to work, we were basically alone all day, and spent that time riding bikes down deserted paths, walking to friends' houses, who were also alone. And that was considered perfectly natural.
I also made dinner for my siblings if my mother was going to be home late.
I would also imagine that the moms working in the mom and pop stores, probably let their kids play freely while they were working.
We were maybe 10 or 11 years old and younger.
That kind of lifestyle is not possible today. As a matter of fact, the parent would be called by social services. "Childcare" was pretty much an optional expense; we got maybe a week of day camp during the summer.
Childcare is a huge business and a huge expense. With the rise of working moms, this expense has only gotten larger.
Yes, good daycare can be a positive experience, but my experience of daycare is that you get what you pay for. And the topshelf programs are extremely expensive.
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re: working moms
I appreciate the thoughtful comments about the changing nature of work for mothers.
I, too, used to run around without much supervision when I was a child. I'm grateful for the freedom to do that, but I realize that it would just not be acceptable today. In fact, I would not be want my own kids to run around like I did, meaning I spend lots of money for child care. I can't decide whether the world is more dangerous than it used to be or if we simply know more today about the dangers that have always existed.
As for recognizing that women have always worked, you and I do, and well-informed people do, but I am always astonished when some people (a small minority, let's hope) dismiss "women's work" and mothers in general as layabouts.
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The Wage Gap is Real
The Wage Gap is not a fiction born of misinterpreted statistics. It is real.
I have been in the workforce for over 25 years. During my entire career I have had an opportunity to see detail payroll records for a number of employers, large and small. I have seen data covering everyone from the CEO to the janitor. In virtually every case, men at the same level in the same job have been compensated at a higher rate than their women peers. This inequity exists despite relatively better performance, dedication to the employer, willingness to "go the extra mile", etc. on the part of the female employees.
There may be an explanation other than sexism but I doubt it.
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O'Beirne
I was rather disappointed by Rebecca Traister’s interview with Kate O'Beirne. Though I find Ms. Traister normally sharp as a tack, she missed the opportunity to make many important points that need to be made. Here’s a short and incomplete list:
1. The fact that Ms. O’Beirne had the opportunity to acquire higher education—let alone get a law degree—own property and have rights of ownership over her own body is a triumph of feminism. Also the fact that she has a platform to speak her opinion. Maybe Betty Friedan didn’t secure her these rights, but some pre-Friedan, old-fashioned feminist did. If O’Beirne doesn’t like these rights and privileges, perhaps she ought to consider relinquishing them.
2. There are societies in which the family is extremely strong. The family is strong in those societies precisely because women do not have the aforementioned rights and privileges and need the family patriarch for survival. These societies include Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Syria...
3. The choice of staying at home does not belong to most women. Most women must work outside the home, full time, because the cruel calculus of economics dictates that they should. What feminists have fought for is an equal shot at employment opportunities for both married and single women compared with their male peers.
4. While it’s true that many upper-middle class women, who can afford to, chose to stay home to raise their kids, it’s even truer that more and more women are choosing to have careers than ever before, that they are choosing to enter previously male-dominated fields in ever-greater numbers, and also choosing to (gasp!) forgo having children. This is not because of the dictates of feminists, it’s the rule of the market: given greater choices, women (just like men), will choose a greater variety of things. In fact, as Bertrand Russell pointed out more than eighty years ago, if opportunities and contraceptives were freely available, so many women might choose not to reproduce that we might have to pay some of them to become mothers, just to maintain the population.
5. Much-reproduced statistics show that the greatest physical threat most women face comes from the men in their lives. Not the stranger in the parking lot she needs the big male partner to protect her from.