Equal work should NOT mean equal pay

I think you misunderstood the first paragraph - lesbians still show lower average household income compared to straight men, gay men, and two-gender households.

Whether or not one receives joy from their work, doesn't make the work any more or less valuable to the economy. And if caring labour wasn't in the province of the family, it'd be in the province of the state. It would have a cost. See: Japan.

This has been on my mind for a while, so I'm just going to put my opinion and look forward to debating with others on the topic

I'm referring to when those who are paid less, for what they call "Equal work", claim that they should be paid more so everyone doing the same job has the same pay. For example (http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/31/news/companies/womens-soccer-equal-pay/index.html) In the US was posted today. Women footballers are claiming that because the total average wage of a female footballer is less than the total average wage of a male footballer, it must be due to their sex nothing else? Do people really not understand supply and demand.

Of course it's much more complicated than supply demand ideologies, but the fact it's more complicated only backs up my next point even further. Working as hard as someone else does not mean you achieve the same, earn the same for those above you, accomplish the same etc etc. All it means is that you tried as hard. Why on earth should that be the sole quality considered when determining pay? Using the example stated, more people watch male football. Therefore higher revenue, therefore higher pay. Simple. This is because, males tend to be considered better at football as a whole. Money is invested into opportunity, and in football opportunity is correlated with talent. Better players win more games and get more viewers = higher revenue. So how can you persuade this talent to join you? Pay them MORE. Anyone that thinks it's because of their gender hasn't ever studied economics in any way whatsoever.

And it happens all around us. "Oh why are sports stars earning more than doctors". There is no 1 person paying everyone's wages, so they cannot be compared. Obviously it would be ideal if those more useful to society were payed more (increases incentive to do more for society for young people in education) but that's simply not how an economy can function. And it would mean a lot of people don't get to do the jobs they dream of.

Can someone explain where I'm going wrong? There's so much more to a salary than one of your genetic characterists -_-

Precisely my point.

What the relative lack of wealth enjoyed by lesbians shows is that more than just omnious "market forces" are at play. Since lesbians can't naturally reproduce, the typical excuses that women are paid less because they take on childrearing responsibilities are not at play. Yet, these women are still paid less. If it was due to their sexual orientation, we would expect that homosexual men would suffer from lower wages vis-a-vis heterosexual couples as well...but they don't. So it seems you agree with me that something other than market forces explains why female-female couplings are more less wealthy than all other couplings.

A hobby? You don't think the state has an interest in a woman's reproductive capacity? Japan incentivises women to give birth because of their falling population. Children, in the eyes of the state, are future workers, tax payers, and military personnel. Child bearing is indeed seen as a service.

More examples that the state takes an interest in not only whether you have children but how you rear them - regulations about compulsory schooling, regulations re vaccination and healthcare, regulations re abuse... The state regulates what it has an interest in.

Now I'm just confused. This set of data-points isn't consistent with either the theory that women are paid less because they have children (lesbians should be paid more) or the theory that people are paid less due to social conspiracies against "oppressed" groups (gay men should be paid less than straight men, if not less than lesbians too). What exactly kind of theory are you trying to propose to explain those observations?


Uh huh, so does the state owe me back pay for the time I spent in education it forced me to attend?

Your analogy is a bit flawed. Male and female footballers never play on the same team. Im sure female footballers on the same team would get equal pay. I dont know about different positions etc but equal pay should be a right for people doing a similar job in the same place.

See above..

Okay so your argument is that since women earn less than men, its clearly oppression. I mean, I don't see why you continue to argue your point. Everybody knows that many women think this is the case, that it's gender related, but until half the people in charge of people's salaries get arrested for paying women less it's never going to get beyond a little debate on an online forum. Misrepresented stats, and some very good debating, won't get you anywhere if you're wrong

Can't wait until they force all companies to release how much they pay everyone, will finally put this to bed. Ah who am I kidding, feminists will find a way to twist it in their favour "oh this 1 company has 75% male workers therefore oppression"

I wish I could meet you in real life.

What I love about TSR is that you think so very differently from me, it's good to talk to people where I have to defend my view of the word step by step, instead of assuming a common paradigm. Can't wait to study in conservative England now

Serious/on topic reply later.

There are no theories of "social conspiracies" nor do "oppressed" groups deserve the quotations you gave them. There are is a statistical, objective reality in which certain minorities are disadvantaged socially, economically and political due to long histories of racism, sexism, and religious bigotry that, due to social censure against its most brazen expressions, is often subconscious and also deeply embedded in various social institutions.

There is a WEALTH of literature - historical, economic, legal, sociological, psychoanalytic, and political - that demonstrates and explains these facts.

If you are interested in women, work, and reproductive labour, I'd suggest perhaps starting with Marilyn Waring and Susan Okin, off the top of my head.

To address your point more directly - I'm not aware of any view that is mainstream in the left that posits that homosexuals are paid less on the basis of their sexual orientation

There's a reason for most "common paradigm"'s being, well, common. Just saying.

Willfully ignorant conservatism seems very common on TSR.... Just saying.

That's not true, because child rearing is just one of many things that reduces an employee's productivity, and lesbians aren't a randomly selected sample of all women. It's possible that lesbians are stupider, less agreeable, or crazier than women on average. It's also possible that the effect doesn't exist a all and is merely measurement uncertainty, as other studies show the opposite trend, again with small effect size.

You really showed your hand here. I'll only reply to what was worth replying to here: in order for your wild grasping to have any merit, you'd have to reasonably propose something that explains why women are less productive than men to the extent that it warrants lower pay to the extent experienced and is known to employers. I'm eager to hear.

And try not to post anything (else) that will embarrass you in the future.

No, it isn't. It's a reality that some groups earn less money than others, at others are underrepresented in politics, but ascribing this to social conspiracies is not only not justified, it contradicts positive evidence of real differences between these groups.

Again, history is not a social conspiracy.

But if you're willing to make explicit your implicit that 'some groups' - blacks, women, etc have 'real differences' (biological traits?) that explain why they earn less than 'other groups' .. I'm all ears.

i.e. a wealth of claims in soft fields, that do not require scientific method, which assert these things. I wouldn't include economics in that description, but economics also doesn't support the conclusions of the other fields.

'Soft fields.' By soft I assume you mean not employing the scientifc method? There are reasons why these fields don't employ the SM - it's because the Sm isn't omnipotent. Not to mention that a few of the key pillars of a classical education, which produced Western society, included philosophy and letters - hardly soft (pun intended).

Nor is science value free and completely objective. That's a discussion for another thread. See a text in feminist epistemology on that topic.

But as you conceded, economics is not 'soft.' Look up feminist economists -you'll see plenty of researchers and theorists with the quantitative degrees you so covet.

Neither of these people have any scientific education, they are just ideologues.


Because none can be supported by the evidence. Nonetheless, we would expect such a pay gap to exist if the left's model of reality is correct. Occam's razor suggests that the left's model of reality is not correct.

Yeah that definitely makes more sense.

"Everyone on TSR is just ignorant and wrong, I'm right" definitely seems more likely than any other situation.

You really showed your hand here. I'll only reply to what was worth replying to here: in order for your wild grasping to have any merit, you'd have to reasonably propose something that explains why women are less productive than men to the extent that it warrants lower pay to the extent experienced and is known to employers. I'm eager to hear.

And try not to post anything (else) that will embarrass you in the future.

Again, history is not a social conspiracy.

But if you're willing to make explicit your implicit that 'some groups' - blacks, women, etc have 'real differences' (biological traits?) that explain why they earn less than 'other groups' .. I'm all ears.

'Soft fields.' By soft I assume you mean not employing the scientifc method? There are reasons why these fields don't employ the SM

But as you conceded, economics is not 'soft.' Look up feminist economists -you'll see plenty of researchers and theorists with the quantitative degrees you so covet.

See above

Blacks have low IQs, women bear children.

Oh, my IQ test lied then..

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I'm not sure what you mean by that; IQ is normally distributed, so there's always a non-zero probability of having any score.

Here are the results of an IQ test the UK government administered to school children:



The black average is 5.5-8 points below the white average, depending on specific population and measure; in the US it is closer to 15, probably because a greater proportion of British blacks immigrated to the country, or is descended from people who immigrated to the country, on skilled work visas.

On an individual level this is not noticeable. In terms of population average earnings, it is.

Have these been normalised for socioeconomic background? For similar quality of education?

It's all well and good looking at an average but you kind of have to acknowledge that 'blacks' tend to grow up in poorer environments that lack sufficient educational opportunities than the other ethnicities there.

A sweeping statement that 'blacks have lower IQs' isn't true, because given any normal distribution of IQs that statement could be easily disproven.

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