Sandra Fluke Attacks Rand Paul On Education

[mosquitobite]

I can't believe I'm going to admit this...

I am a woman who does well in math. Took calculus in high school and did fine. Science I didn't particularly enjoy so much (chemistry ok, biology not).

When it came time to go to college, I actually considered engineering. Even went to a mock week of engineering school to test it out. I.HATED.IT. The boredom was intense (for me). I enjoyed the social aspect of that week, but could not handle the actual lecture stuff. Out of 3 or 400 kids, I was probably one of less than 30 girls, so the ratio was way skewed.

As an intern in college, my employer actually gave me the test for programmers and tried to steer me that direction as well since I aced it. Again, not for me.

I decided on management instead. I'm an extroverted bossy woman.

 

[erowe1]

Well. Because they'd get run over like a freight train? Come on, e. What kind of dumb question is that?

If I didn't know better, I'd say that you're implying that the underrepresentation of women there is due to natural differences in aptitudes between men and women, and not the patriarchal hegemony that's keeping women out of those jobs.

 

[Danke]

I can tell you, from someone who has seen class sizes of 50-75 with nothing but other stinking-ass dudes, we have no problem with more women entering into this field.

What are you doing going around the room smelling your classmates' asses when you should be studying?

 

[Peace&Freedom]

That is a good article, but controlling for college majors and women's choices, although it accounts for a good chunk of it, does not account for *all* of the wage gap. Part of it is employers projecting women's choices before they even make them because of trends, like accounting for the likelihood that a woman will require maternity leave or will be less flexible when it comes to work hours and travel requirements, even when both the woman and man may claim the same level of flexibility.

Even if the entire wage gap could be explained by controlling for women's choices, it is worth exploring the causes behind the discrepancy in womens' and mens' choices. Is it *really* all biological, or is it a cultural factor that from a very early age, girls are encouraged to act like girls and boys are encouraged to act like boys, which means that although it is still a free choice, each is more likely due to cultural pressures to become involved in fields that are already dominated by their gender?

So although I do not identify as a feminist and I disagree strongly with feminists especially when it comes to the misleading numbers and logical fallacies like the $0.77 claim, I am also sympathetic to certain other points that I do believe have some merit, particularly regarding cultural gender roles.

Within a trade, the fact that women often choose to interrupt their career path (for maternity, or quit the field when their mate moves elsewhere) contributes to the pay differential. Regardless of how equal a given man or woman may start out in their job training or flexibility, if person X leaves the field and comes back a few years later, they will be paid less than person Y who stayed, now has more total job experience, and may have been promoted or given a raise during person X's absence.

The same job or office may also offer different paying opportunities within the same profession, that people may make different choices about. A study of sales personnel at the same department store a few years ago showed that when all were offered a choice between taking a salaried sales job, and a higher risk commission only sales position that paid more, women mostly chose the salaried position. This and similar situations cuts out the "cultural conditioning" notion used to explain why women in general take a lower paying position. So whether it's across professions, or within a profession, choice is the actual key factor behind the pay differences.

 

[KingNothing]

What percentage of elementary school teachers are female? Why does no one write a concerned article asking "where are all the men in teaching our youngest in society"?

To be fair, an honest feminist would probably argue something along the lines of the "irrational gender-based roles developed by our society hurt men too, and you just provided an example of that! A disproportionate amount of pain is felt by women, though, as they are actively discouraged from engaging in STEM and are made to feel subordinate to males, particularly white ones, in every aspect of their lives."

To a degree, I find that position an acceptable one. To a degree. And in practice of correcting it, I almost completely disagree with the approach developed by progressive feminists who seem bent on controlling thought rather than removing barriers that limit free expression.

 

[KingNothing]

Within a trade, the fact that women often choose to interrupt their career path (for maternity, or quit the field when their mate moves elsewhere) contributes to the pay differential. Regardless of how equal a given man or woman may start out in their job training or flexibility, if person X leaves the field and comes back a few years later, they will be paid less than person Y who stayed, now has more total job experience, and may have been promoted or given a raise during person X's absence.

The same job or office may also offer different paying opportunities within the same profession, that people may make different choices about. A study of sales personnel at the same department store a few years ago showed that when all were offered a choice between taking a salaried sales job, and a higher risk commission only sales position that paid more, women mostly chose the salaried position. This and similar situations cuts out the "cultural conditioning" notion used to explain why women in general take a lower paying position. So whether it's across professions, or within a profession, choice is the actual key factor behind the pay differences.

Meaningful studies have shown that women really are paid less than men as a consequence of the sexism/gender, but I believe it ended up being a penny or two, on the dollar. The 77-percent number is totally preposterous and doesn't even pass the sniff test.

 

[erowe1]

Meaningful studies have shown that women really are paid less than men, but I believe it ended up being a penny or two, on the dollar. The 77-percent number is totally preposterous.

That's not true. Studies comparing men and women of similar qualifications and similar jobs with similar levels of seniority have shown that women earn more than men, not less.

 

[KingNothing]

That's not true. Studies comparing men and women of similar qualifications and similar jobs with similar levels of seniority have shown that women earn more than men, not less.

That isn't remotely true.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html

Men do tend to earn more when profession and experience are considered, but the reason isn't entirely known yet. The current thinking is that a portion of it is that women just don't seek raises as aggressively as men, and that some of it is due to sexism. Women do NOT earn more than men for the same job and experience, though.

EDIT: Also, this - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-gender-pay-gap-is-a-complete-myth/

"Update 3/18/11: A reader was kind enought to send me a link to "An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women" prepared, under contract, for the U.S. Department of Labor in 1/09:

"This study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.""

 

[erowe1]

That isn't remotely true.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html

That article says:

After controlling for several relevant factors (though some were left out, as we shall see), they found that the wage gap narrowed to only 6.6 cents.

Let's see what those relevant factors that they left out were before saying it's not remotely true.

There have been lots of studies of this going back to the 80's showing exactly what I said. I first encountered it in Thomas Sowell's works in the early 90's, and I doubt that the relative pay of women versus men has gone down since then.

 

[TonySutton]

My first question to Ms. Fluke would be why didn't she go for a math or science degree?

 

[Danke]

If I owned a business I'd hire only women, with my costs being lower, I could lower my prices and put my competitors out of business!

 

[kahless]

Leave it to the vile Progressive culture to perpetuate the myth that men and women have the same desires.

Progressive culture disgusts me as it should anyone that wishes to follow their own dreams regardless of gender and what Progressive culture dictates they should like or dislike.

 

[Cutlerzzz]

Who else was disappointed when Rush apologized to her?

 

[ClydeCoulter]

I can't believe I'm going to admit this...

I am a woman who does well in math. Took calculus in high school and did fine. Science I didn't particularly enjoy so much (chemistry ok, biology not).

When it came time to go to college, I actually considered engineering. Even went to a mock week of engineering school to test it out. I.HATED.IT. The boredom was intense (for me). I enjoyed the social aspect of that week, but could not handle the actual lecture stuff. Out of 3 or 400 kids, I was probably one of less than 30 girls, so the ratio was way skewed.

As an intern in college, my employer actually gave me the test for programmers and tried to steer me that direction as well since I aced it. Again, not for me.

I decided on management instead. I'm an extroverted bossy woman.

Watch it! The PC Police will take you in....

 

[Crashland]

Within a trade, the fact that women often choose to interrupt their career path (for maternity, or quit the field when their mate moves elsewhere) contributes to the pay differential. Regardless of how equal a given man or woman may start out in their job training or flexibility, if person X leaves the field and comes back a few years later, they will be paid less than person Y who stayed, now has more total job experience, and may have been promoted or given a raise during person X's absence.

I agree, but this does not only occur after they make their choices. It also occurs before they make their choices, because employers are valuing the likelihood that an individual WILL make certain choices, based on their gender.

The same job or office may also offer different paying opportunities within the same profession, that people may make different choices about. A study of sales personnel at the same department store a few years ago showed that when all were offered a choice between taking a salaried sales job, and a higher risk commission only sales position that paid more, women mostly chose the salaried position. This and similar situations cuts out the "cultural conditioning" notion used to explain why women in general take a lower paying position. So whether it's across professions, or within a profession, choice is the actual key factor behind the pay differences.

Cultural conditioning and free choices are not mutually exclusive. I am not trying to use "cultural conditioning" as an avoidance of responsibility. Take this example. With the exception of certain oppresive countries where you may get in trouble with the law if you do this, I think it is safe to say that most people in the world are perfectly free to choose which religion that they want for themselves, in the sense that there are no *laws* that inhibit that freedom. And yet the vast majority of people in the world so happen to choose the religion of their parents. Why is that? Are people from India biologically more inclined towards Hinduism, and people from South Carolina are more biologically inclined toward Christianity?

That is an exaggerated example, but it illustrates that you can't just assume that this discrepancy in people's free choices is entirely attributable to biological differences, and it also illustrates the incredible power of cultural conditioning without impacting people's free choice. Does that mean we need LAWS to favor women in math and science, or LAWS that introduce more South Carolinians to Hinduism? Probably not, but maybe it means that our culture is reinforcing certain gender roles and religions that is influencing the major discrepancy in different groups of people's free choices, and maybe it would be better if it didn't.

 

[matt0611]

My first question to Ms. Fluke would be why didn't she go for a math or science degree?

Yes! Exactly.

Why don't women start tech startups? Well I don't know...maybe because they don't want to!

Will this stupid girl go away already? Can't we just ignore her?

 

[mosquitobite]

Leave it to the vile Progressive culture to perpetuate the myth that men and women have the same desires.

Progressive culture disgusts me as it should anyone that wishes to follow their own dreams regardless of gender and what Progressive culture dictates they should like or dislike.

Exactly!!

 

[Acala]

You know where else women are WAY under represented? Prison. Probably ten times more men in prison than women. Men and women are the same so this could only be caused by gender bias! Something needs to be done to bring balance back to the incarceration rate. Perhaps passing some laws that only apply to women to give them a leg up on incarceration?

 

[KingNothing]

If I owned a business I'd hire only women, with my costs being lower, I could lower my prices and put my competitors out of business!

I think that most employers place a subconscious importance on physical attractiveness and overall outgoing and pleasant demeanor. This has give me, an admittedly attractive, strikingly handsome, outgoing, pleasant, person, cause to think that I could put an awesome business together if I could find a collection of hardworking, intelligent, overweight, unpleasant, quiet, women. I think this is the secret to entrepreneurial success.

 

[KingNothing]

Have any of you ever met anyone who expressed even a slight gender or racial bias in a professional setting? I've never once seen it in action, and I work in STEM.