How Feminism Hurts Men

[Shiranu]

I think it's probably closer to 3 in 3 women that will be spoken to in an elevator within their lifetimes.

Holy. Shit.

So sexual assault is, "Meh, they probably were just spoken to in an elevator"...

Man, these threads can bring out the dark shit in people's closets.

I took that as a euphemism, not literally.

If it was, then my bad. But given the rest of his post was, "Women really don't have it bad"... I am not sure...

[Mermaid]

Hm, rereading it, I can see what you mean.

[SilentFutility]

I think it's probably closer to 3 in 3 women that will be spoken to in an elevator within their lifetimes.

Holy. Shit.

So sexual assault is, "Meh, they probably were just spoken to in an elevator"...

Man, these threads can bring out the dark shit in people's closets.

Have you read the thread at all? Or the other one specifically about that?
Clearly not.

I'm not saying that the pay gap is non-existent, but wouldn't it be productive to actually quantify it properly? It is actually relatively difficult to find any sort of actual statistic properly measuring unfair pay for equal work given that it is such a big, controversial issue.

I think it's because this is such a complicated sociocultural issue. It's hard to measure when women can be less assertive and self-promoting, among other factors.

Well even ignoring those complications, why don't we use pay for the same job instead of average pay for one whole gender? Of course that measurement is still riddled with issues but it is at least an actual attempt to measure what you want to know.

The actual reason that statistic is not used is it paints a far less gloomy picture of equality, so sensationlist articles don't include it. It sounds far less outrageous than the large disparity between total average pay of males and females, even though that does not necessarily indicate unfairness.

[Shiranu]

Have you read the thread at all? Or the other one specifically about that?
Clearly not.

I hadn't, no. That's good to know then :P.

[Mermaid]

Well even ignoring those complications, why don't we use pay for the same job instead of average pay for one whole gender? Of course that measurement is still riddled with issues but it is at least an actual attempt to measure what you want to know.

The actual reason that statistic is not used is it paints a far less gloomy picture of equality, so sensationlist articles don't include it. It sounds far less outrageous than the large disparity between total average pay of males and females, even though that does not necessarily indicate unfairness.

Based on.....?
Where is this statistic?

[SilentFutility]

Have you read the thread at all? Or the other one specifically about that?
Clearly not.

I hadn't, no. That's good to know then :P.

It was a satire of the small minority of posters who think that the woman who completely trashed a man's reputation and whipped up an absolute frenzy about him online because he asked her if she wanted to go for coffee was completely justified in her actions and that the man committed some sort of non-physical, undetectable sexual crime.

[Mermaid]

Here's a graph from 2009 based on occupation and field.


And here is a more comprehensive and specific report from 2012.
http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/t ... cupation-1

[SilentFutility]

Well even ignoring those complications, why don't we use pay for the same job instead of average pay for one whole gender? Of course that measurement is still riddled with issues but it is at least an actual attempt to measure what you want to know.

The actual reason that statistic is not used is it paints a far less gloomy picture of equality, so sensationlist articles don't include it. It sounds far less outrageous than the large disparity between total average pay of males and females, even though that does not necessarily indicate unfairness.

Based on.....?
Where is this statistic?

Comparing total average pay of each gender across all jobs does not take into account how many hours people are working, nor how they are earning this money, nor the quality of the work that they are producing.

Let's consider a perfect world in which every employer paid the same amount of money per hour of the same work, regardless of gender. In other words, a totally fair world in which there was no disparity between the genders in terms of money per unit of work.

Immediately, if one gender works more hours on average than the other, then in this perfect world in which men and women are paid the same amount per hour of the exact same work, the gender that works more hours on average will have a higher average yearly salary. So under our completely fair conditions, one gender can be earning more on average.
Well, men do work more hours:

The Department of Labor's Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap.

Source

Now, in our totally fair world, someone whose job is more dangerous would earn more per hour than someone whose job carried little physical risk to compensate them for the risk they are undertaking. Well, workplace deaths are overwhelmingly inflicted upon men in the USA:

In the United States, in 2005, men were 54% of the workforce but 93% of workers who died at work due to fatal accidents or violence (pdf link). (The raw numbers are 5300 men, 402 women).

Source

Likewise, the same can be said for previous work experience, education, performance-related bonuses and so on- even when there is no gender discrimination, they can still cause one gender to earn far more on average than the other, whilst still remaining completely fair. If, for example, men were doing far more STEM subject degrees than women, a gap in average pay across the whole gender would be expected, and they do.


So, the statistic "on average, women earn far less per year than men in total" actually does not indicate anything about fairness in terms of pay for the same work whatsoever.

A new survey from PayScale this morning finds that the wage gap nearly evaporates when you control for occupation and experience among the most common jobs, especially among less experienced workers. It is only as careers advance, they found, that men outpaced female earnings as they made their way toward the executive suite.[ Image ]

Source

I am not trying to say that no pay discrimination exists; far from it. However, most mainstream media coverage and indeed most of the opinions shared via media by the general public on the topic are informed by a complete and fundamental lakc of understanding of very basic statistics. For reasons stated above along with many others, you cannot look at the statistic "men earn more on average than women in total across all jobs" and be assured that this is due to discrimination, and to continue to do so is intellectually dishonest, removing credibility from those who legitimately want to tackle the real issue, confusing the issue and sensationalist.

[SilentFutility]

And here is a more comprehensive and specific report from 2012.
http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/t ... cupation-1

Those right there are far more indicative statistics of inequality than total average pay across the whole gender, and was the type I was looking for but wasn't really having much luck finding, thank you.

[frosty]

Well we can churn our statistics all we like but what will actually be done to prevent such things from occurring on a massive scale? I'm not the typical definition of a liberal at all, in fact I'd say I'm not a liberal but rather a social centrist. To be honest since this forum has many users that identify as liberal I was expecting there to be an out pour of remarks saying society is not oversexualized, but since such things were not posted, I can only deduce that either that part of my post was ignored or people tacitly agree and are apathetic towards that specific point.

[Mermaid]

And here is a more comprehensive and specific report from 2012.
http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/t ... cupation-1

Those right there are far more indicative statistics of inequality than total average pay across the whole gender, and was the type I was looking for but wasn't really having much luck finding, thank you.

:)

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I don't believe for one bit that feminism in any way hurts men.
Promoting equality and ethical treatment of the female gender can't hurt men in any way. A real man isn't immasculated by treating women with respect.
That is all feminism is, treating women with respect in all phases of life.
If you have a problem with treating a women with respect than you are weak to begin with.

I think the issue might be more nuanced than that, but the main aim should be egalitarian in it's nature, I agree with you.

[frosty]

Feminism should of course be for true equality of women in all scenarios, not the elevation of one gender over the other. But I've always thought that if women could truly rise above the stereotypes and expectations placed on them, and the negative behaviors they themselves commit, then women would probably dominate the planet. Of course we are all human and therefore have our limitations, but for women to go from being oppressed in one way to being viewed as sex objects in another it sort of brings the issue back full swing.

[sab]

Theer are two types of feminists- Gender feminists and Liberal feminists. Liberal feminist want equality and should be supported. gender feminists are barking mad eveil wicthes and should be mercilessly mocked,derided and demonsied wherever possible.

[Mermaid]

Theer are two types of feminists- Gender feminists and Liberal feminists. Liberal feminist want equality and should be supported. gender feminists are barking mad eveil wicthes and should be mercilessly mocked,derided and demonsied wherever possible.

Well that is a fair and balanced assessment.