Like others, I don’t care much about the Oscars. But I understand that Patricia Arquette made a stir on Sunday night, with her speech about “All women deserve equal pay”.
Let’s be clear: Women and men absolutely deserve equal pay, when we’re talking about equal work. That is: work of the same category and experience level, that either a woman or man could do, done with equally good results, under equally good (or bad) conditions.
The point of contention is: Are left-wing feminists really talking about that? Are they correct to claim a large gender gap exists? And are left-wing politicians correct, when they claim to be the answer?
Powerline reminds us of research from 2011 about the gender gap being a myth. And also how, on the surface at least, Hillary and Obama are hypocrites – for example, Hillary has paid her women 72 cents on the dollar (compared to her men). While left-wing hypocrisy is a delightfully inexhaustible subject, the first piece is most interesting for the points it makes.
Basically, research supports the idea that men *on average* tend to choose more dangerous (or less popular) careers; more stressful specializations within the same career; and more uncomfortable and undesirable work locations. And tend (on average) to work longer hours including more nights and weekends, and to take fewer lengthy mid-career breaks. When adjusted for such factors, the gender pay gap disappears – or even turns slightly in favor of women.
If you disagree, please feel free to post your facts/logic in the comments.
UPDATE: Peter Schiff makes a good point, that if he *could* pay a woman less for the same work, women would have a competitive advantage. He “would be an idiot to hire a man” – and would gladly hire nothing but women. He doesn’t, because it just isn’t so. (At least in financial services. Maybe, over in show business, George Clooney’s career will indeed age better than Patricia Arquette’s.)
UPDATE: At the same link, Schiff adds, “in adult entertainment [as opposed to Arquette/Hollywood] women are paid much more…this disparity has nothing to do with discrimination…The porn audience cares about the female stars…So pay rates reflect market forces…I wonder if at the next Adult Video News awards a male winner will demand equal pay during his acceptance speech?”
What I want to know is this:
If it is somehow sexist to call someone an “actress” as opposed to simply calling both “actors”, then why does the Academy continue the ridiculous “separate but supposedly equal” categories of “Best Actor” and “Best Actress” in both leading and supporting roles? Is that not intrinsically sexist?
Perhaps they need new categories: “Best Black In A Leading Role”, “Best Gay In A Leading Role”, “Best Transgender In A Leading Role”, etc.
I think the further categories that you suggested–Black, Gay, Trans-gender, etc., etc., etc.–are only a matter of time and enough people yelling after this year’s “Selma” unhappiness. For me, I call a person with female anatomy who acts an actress. But then, I like words and precision in speech.
I know when I am working with a competent person. Male or female, I untangle myself from anyone who is not going to be useful in moving the team forward. It is far easier to ditch a male than a female assistant. I don’t get a lot of gender inequality flak from the males.
Over the years, I have been made keenly aware of the race card, the gender card and the homophobia card. This victim game is played on a completely different field than any truly honest, ability-focused competition.
We have seen how a half-black president manipulates the race card to his forever-the-victim advantage. Shrillery has a past peppered with feminist ploys meant to demonstrate here triumph over sexism. Except, she can not point to one single, solitary triumph she has accomplished that is not related in some manner to her gender.
This Patricia Arquette bit of gushing, breathless banality is just another bit of crowd pleasing demagoguery from the pulpit of the Temple of Useful Idiots in the land of snark, greed, assassination and tinsel.
Speaking of which, who was Patricia Arquette wearing? Did she show some side boob? How is her cellulite control program? Did she have arm candy? Male or female? What would the circle of mother elephants in Dumbo have to say about her? Does she have a female agent? Does her agent get deals that pay her at the level of the males? What is her level of box office draw? Who the heck is she? Can she get an order straight at the McDonald’s drive-thru?
There is no equality. We cannot even all get equal prices on new cars. Each person’s price is set individually by the skill of the salesman and the buyer through negotiation. There is a huge pay gap between what I earn and what entertainers and athletes get paid. Let’s level THAT playing field!
Peter Schiff is correct. That’s exactly the argument I told my 23 year old daughter last fall. She was getting the gender pay gap myth at work and knew it was wrong but couldn’t articulate why. I told her if it was true that women were paid less for the same work as men, any employer would be an idiot for hiring a man when they could get a greater profit hiring a woman. My daughter was that’s it. I knew that statistic is wrong.
Schiff is wrong. Even at 70-ish% pay, hiring women is not a good bargain due to higher other costs of doing business. Maternity leave, higher absenteeism, higher inter-office drama.
One of the single biggest contributing factors is maternity leave. And many women simply do not return to the job they had once the children are old enough. Perhaps Arquette should be protesting the lack of paternity leave. I also think that other employees naturally resent being prevented from advancing into a position temporarily vacated by someone who chose to have children, i.e. the company must pay a price for that choice as must other employees. As with most liberalism, the liberty to make a choice is paid for by enslaving someone else.
It occurred to me that maybe Patricia Arquette thinks the way she does, because as a woman in *her* industry of wealthy privileged “stars”, she really is paid less than men as she ages. Compared to, say, the George Clooneys or Nicholas Cages. She probably doesn’t want to admit that she envies the different nature of their careers, as stars who happen to be male. In short: penis envy. We mustn’t over-use the term – but, just like womb envy, you can occasionally find a real instance.
Women can plan their pregnancies to skip working Thanksgiving, X-mass & New Year. They also think sitting around drinking coffee is equal work. If most men won 2 thousand dollars a week for life they wound never punch a time clock again, but women need work for socializing. Its like when bottoms get envious that str8 guys can be happy with a beer and a ball game.
BTW George Clooney understood that by not getting married he could still fill theatre seats with gold diggers even with a bad movie. Men’s buying power dictates the women in movies but women can drag str8 guys out to see the men they gold dig for.
In general, over-generalizing sux.
The point of contention is: Are left-wing feminists really talking about that?
In my experience, they’re all about the “unfairness” that the woman who answers the phone seven hours a day does not get paid like the engineers who work 60+ hours a week.
When you start looking at the facts, it seems the only places women get paid less for equal work is Liberal Democratic institutions.