Obama has declared today “National Equal Pay Day”, to highlight the epidemic of “gender bias” that has led to women being paid less than men.
Yes, this is a very important issue and the ONLY possible explanation for this “wage gap” is universal misogynistic discrimination. Right? Well, in that case, I know of a business where the sexism is so bad that women make 13 percent less than men, even though they comprise 50 percent of the workforce at this establishment. This place is called “the White House”. It seems the very president who has sweepingly declared all salary inequity to be the result of sexism has, himself, decided to pay the women in his employ significantly less. One can only then surmise that our president is an evil, sexist, woman-hater. I’m using his own logic to come to that conclusion.
Question to Obama supporters: Is there any amount of contradiction and hypocrisy that WOULD bother you? Are we at the point where Obama could come to the podium wearing a coat made of endangered panda fur and a hat fashioned from a baby dolphin skull, and proceed to deliver a speech against animal abuse and you would still fail to take issue with him? Do you have ANY self respect or have you so totally abandoned the individualistic concept of “self” in favor of collectivist notions of the State that you don’t have any self left to respect?
Now, by applying Obama’s own left wing standard, one must surmise that he is a discriminatory chauvinist because he pays women less than he pays men. But by applying the standards of rationality and reality, one must conclude that women make less at the White House for the same reason they make less in the private sector: THEY’RE DOING DIFFERENT JOBS.
This “wage gap” propaganda is so fallacious, so false, so absurdly contrived that I honestly mourn for the sorry mental state of those who subscribe to it. When you hear that women make “77 cents for every dollar men earn”, you are hearing a generally accurate statement. But there’s a few problems: That statistic doesn’t factor tenure, job title, hours worked, experience, skill level, industry, or difficulty. In other words, it’s an utterly meaningless statistic. This oft-repeated figure takes into account ALL women and ALL men who work over 35 hours in ANY job. So a receptionist logging 38 hours a week is evenly compared to a coal miner working 70, for example. Men, generally, earn more than women because — and this is important — THEY CHOOSE DIFFERENT JOBS. Men are more likely to work dangerous, physically demanding, high stress jobs. They’re more likely to work weekends and holidays. They’re more likely to be willing to relocate. They’re more likely to pursue jobs in higher paying fields. Note: I’m not saying that no woman has ever relocated or worked a dangerous job, I’m just relaying empirically provable, unquestionable statistical realities.
Women business owners make 50 percent less than men business owners. Does this mean women business owners are discriminating against themselves? Or could it mean that they choose to open businesses that don’t rake in as much dough? The wage gap is the result of individual choices — what happened to all the pro-choice people? Men and women, generally speaking, have different values and want different things from life. They’re also physically disparate, which is why you don’t see very many female loggers or steel workers — both high paying fields. It boggles my mind that people are repeating a convenient figure that was achieved by, for instance, comparing the salaries of day care workers to commercial airline pilots.
And then, despite all of this, unmarried women still make more than unmarried men, and of people who work between 30 and 35 hours, women are compensated at a higher rate. What does this mean? It means that lifestyle, goals, values, job titles, vocations and industries obviously factor into a person’s salary much more than does their gender. Clearly.
Come on folks. Let’s at least try to be honest. And when you come at me with a statistic that equally weighs the compensation of hair stylists and heart surgeons, and then you tell me the surgeon makes more because of institutional sexism and not because he’s, you know, A FREAKING SURGEON, you just aren’t being honest. And I really don’t like dishonest people.
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