If women get paid less for the same work as men, why do men still have jobs?

Question

Help me out here. PC orthodoxy says women get paid much, much less for the same work that men do. OK, if that's the case, why are men still employed? Wouldn't logical, profit-seeking enterprises simply fire all of their men and hire all of those women who would do the same work for much, much less.

Surely there are no cultural factors and individual choices at play, correct? Heavens no that can't be true, can it?

Answer 1

I am not a leftist at all but I see I will have to make their debate for them lol

If sexism was true in most companies and accounted for all the pay discrepancies these scenarios are probably the case:

- The company may not find women to be as competent as men or as smart as men so probably do not want them doing the higher paid jobs for any amount of money.

- The company might not want to hire women at all but have to for quota.

- I know of a case in my area where a company is getting sued becuase the CEO told her that she could get pregnant at any time so did not want to take the risk of hiring her for the 6 figure position and be out a person for a couple months. True story, was proven.

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Although some sexism, of course, exists most pay discrepancies are based on women not holding the same job positions for as long of time as men. They change jobs more for reasons like childbirth and needing to stay home and take care of their kids.

Also, women have not been in the work force as long as men so naturally they have not had as much time to move up.

- Women will not do a lot of the same jobs as men for venerability reasons. You will see very few women police officers in higher paid inner city areas. They will most likely take the suburban police jobs for less chance of danger. This does not mean they are not as good as men but they are just simply not as forceful or intimidating. Things like this account for pay discrepancies.

Answer 2

somebody has to manage the women...

Answer 3

Because women still give birth. Animal instincts will never disappear from our drive to procreate, and until men give birth, nothing is really "equal". We are different creatures. Other than that glaring reality, you'd think it would work. Garner a force of non-mothers and it may work. Hard to assemble, though, for dynamics change when ancient drives come into play.

Answer 4

Yes, logical, profit-seeking enterprises would probably see the light and fire the men.....except that.....ding ding ding.....equal-employment laws would prevent that..........wow........who would've thought that your circular argument turns out to be in favor of the exact laws that protect women!  As you say, "heavens no that can't be true, can it?"

As far as what they would do.....if they had the choice.....if profit-seeking enterprises could simply fire all of their people in favor of less expensive employees - why I believe they would create "outsourcing".

Love the sound of illogical arguments falling on the floor!

Answer 5

I guess men do more...

or maybe these companies are still old fashioned and beleive in machoism

Answer 6

Politics.  

Answer 7

VERY good question....

Looks like it would be so doesn't it....however...men (or women for that matter) firing men to hire women????? Uh...don't think so...

And stop calling me "shirley"....LOL...

Answer 8

For starters, the national unemployment rate is only about 5%, so there's no huge surplus of unemployed women that a company could use to replace male employees.

Secondly, it's be illegal to intentionally and systematically put in place an HR policy to prefer women over men because a company think it could pay them less.

Finally, it sounds like you don't really believe there's a pay discrepancy.  I'd encourage you to look at the US Census data (below) and come to your own conclusions.

Answer 9

Its an amusing bit of history to note that when the typewriter was invented, men were thought to be capable of handling that machine.

When they found it boring lo and behold women we found to be competent of striking the keys and asking for less money.

Few secretaries of today are men.

Of course there are cultural factors at play, why be a nurse when a doctor makes more money, and  has more respect.  So more women are nurses because it takes less training and the hours used to be better.

Bearing children does force women to think about things like not working late or doing overtime weekends.  In my neighborhood, a man will do that with his wife's help, but when the wife needs to do it for her job, the man complains and makes his wife feel miserable.

Since society benefits when women bear children it would be very helpful to examine our continued lack of support for childcare, leaving this very important part of our continued existence to whomever is around during the day, or to very expensive daycare schools, which is not what the majority of people can afford.

Wherever possible women are paid about twenty percent less than men.  But its not just exact job for job, its how much education is needed, how much training or ability.  If a high school grad male makes more than a woman with a masters, or the woman's job demands a masters and the males doesn't, then you do have a problem.

Answer 10

A lot of women take time off to have children. They then have less experience, and switching companies causes them to slow down their promotion rate.

There is such a thing as a stay-at-home dad, though.

Answer 11

Female workers are not cheaper nor more willing to work for less money.  Female workers want equal pay with men for equal work, and I don't blame them.  It's just that in the corporate world it is easier to get away with paying women less, and in most cases they don't know.  It's neither easy nor polite to find out what coworkers make.  Usually when they find out they demand a raise or look for another job, or possibly just accept the lower pay.