There is a debate between Thomas Sowell and Harriet Pilpel where the issue of a wage gap between men and women is discussed at length. If you are not familiar with either of those names, Harriet Pilpel is (or better, was) an attorney and feminist activist. Thomas Sowell is an economist and Ivy League professor. Here’s a summary of the debate:
Harriet Pilpel’s position: Women earn 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns.
Thomas Sowell’s position: Using the Department of Labor’s figures, along with existing data, when the earnings of all women, versus all men are compared, the sum of all earnings by women is less than that of men. When 1 woman is compared to 1 man and they have the same education, same time in that industry and position and are working for organizations with comparable earnings, women earn more.
When did this fascinating televised debate take place, must have been recent, right? This is a recent issue after all. Ten years ago, if you believe feminist propaganda, women were barely permitted in the workforce. Twenty years ago they had to ask a man permission to urinate or breathe.
The debate took place in 1981.
More than three decades ago feminists were throwing that 77 cent figure out there and they’ve never stopped.
Even as women have come to dominate the educational landscape, completing undergraduate and graduate degree programs at a rate of 2 to 1 over men, even as the number of female Executive Officers has steadily risen, even as women have taken, year after year, a greater role in politics, business and academia, even as we are approaching the day when a female President will take office, the one thing that has never changed is this dubious 77 cents.
Isn’t that amazing! It never dipped down to 71 cents, never rose a little, creeping up to 79 cents. Nope – 77 cents. Ask a feminist, 77 cents. In more than 30 years, regardless of all of the changes to the world in which we live, the wage disparity claimed by feminists has never moved so much as a penny.
Forget gender issues. Forget your search for the Loch Ness Monster. If there was ever a mystery to be solved, this statistical anomaly – the mere fact that as billions of people have shuffled in and out of the workforce, male to female income disparity never fluctuated so much as a penny – this is the most incredible event in human history.
You would sooner traipse through a prairie filled with four leaf clovers than magically come to a situation where year after year, by chance, women were paid 77 cents to every man’s dollar. Some invisible hand must have been at work to make this so.
We like to compare the market’s force to an invisible hand, so perhaps the monster is there? Somewhere, in some massive conference room, the Patriarchy has gathered and from there they review every single employment offer letter, every paycheck and with great care and tireless effort, they make certain year after year that women are paid exactly 77 cents for every man’s dollar.
Honestly, that’s the only way this happened. Or, feminists are full of it and they’re pulling that 77 cents out of their backsides. I won’t say which of those scenarios I believe, but the former is very unlikely. The Patriarchy of which feminists speak – judging by the way feminists describe them – would be working to turn that 77 cents into 50 cents, 10 cents and then nothing. What do they have to gain by never seeing the number adjust?
Time and time again, this wage gap myth is shown to be so much bunk. Women, as a whole, do earn less in the marketplace. They also, as a whole, work fewer hours. They also, as a whole, gravitate towards positions which the market values less and, they do this other funny thing. They have children (I know, I know, men have children too) and tend to move away from the market as a result.
Let’s move on to the big question of the day. Why, if it is so likely that feminists are pulling that 77 cent figure out of their backsides, have they continued to do so for more than three decades? Why does feminist brigade after feminist brigade cry out this specific number, even though anyone with more than ten years of workplace experience knows it is so much cow manure? And, why aren’t more people calling them on it? People in very high places like to spout that figure even when they know it is ridiculous.
Words are powerful things. They’re seeds, really, idea seeds. You plant the right words in the right person and watch ideas and images and as a result, new behaviors blossom.
This 77 cents is a seed and nothing more. It is a seed that feminists, a highly organized political group, have sown in women’s minds for nearly half a century. The idea that blossoms in the minds of young women, who I am certain are intelligent enough to realize that a figure like that couldn’t happen by chance, is that men in the workplace secretly conspire to cheat women. You see, if a feminist came out and said “the market is cheating women. They’re out to get you!” women might question that. When they cry out, “77 cents!” time and again, they bypass one’s natural reluctance to question paranoia.
Just think of all the things to be gained from this idea seed – the belief that the market is out to cheat women:
- It gives women the impression that men in the workplace are against them. In other words, it creates an enemy of men and automatic allies of women.
- It is a narcissistic seed as well. What can be more narcissistic than to believe than millions of people are conspiring against you? In other words, it gives women this impression that they are secret targets, unwanted interlopers who must struggle against a terrible, unseen, foe. Quite a boost to one’s self esteem isn’t it? That you could be so critical to others based solely on your gender. You must be important if they have to work so hard to cheat you.
- It creates competition where there is none and drives women to produce. “Pay me less, I’ll show you what I’m worth!” This idea that women are targets permits them to be more aggressive, even unprofessional. Why wouldn’t it? The market must not be very professional if it exists solely to cheat women.
All of this amounts to the final idea – the great oak that springs from this seed.
Work is something other than work!
That’s it. The goal of this lie – the unwavering 77 cent figure – is that work (at least for women) is something other than work.
If you listen to a feminist, work for a woman is a crusade! It’s a swashbuckling adventure where every day you fight an all-powerful organization of men. These men run around like savage apes with one hand grasping their cock and balls and the other hand trying to get at your slender feminine throats.
Every promotion is a magical thing.
To even get a job in this terrible environment is amazing. Hell, throw in the other myths, you know, the ones that claim that no woman escaped their kitchen labor-prisons before 1965, and the claim that male work just isn’t as taxing or laborious as their work… the excuses just pile up.
If feminists truly cared for women and if they didn’t outright hate men, they might tell you the truth. Work is work. The marketplace isn’t fair and equitable. Women earn less after having children because they tend to figure this all out after having children. That’s the day when so many women realize how little of this world is about them and their swashbuckling crusade against the invisible men out to cheat (and rape and kill) them. Strangely enough, men tend to earn more after having children for the exact same reason. Be honest – if business owners could really get away with paying women 77 cents on the dollar for the exact same outcome, men simply wouldn’t get hired.
If feminists truly cared for women, they might tell you what virtually everyone with some time in the workplace knows about pay rates. I like women. I’ll tell you.
Take the amount of money that you generate for an organization and divide it by 3. If you are an average employee, that’s the most you can earn. There ya go! That’s it! There are no evil men in a hidden room. Everyone isn’t against you. Thirty percent is the cap. The reason is strictly a matter of numbers. You get 30%. Another 30% goes to overheads, benefits and taxes and the company gets the rest. It’s that simple.
If you can’t figure out what you earn for a company (say as a contract administrator in the corporate office), your pay is based purely on the market and how long you’ve been with the organization. Same goes for a janitor or someone working on a production line. Add in some additional skills and you become more valuable.
People who can monetize their exact worth to an organization tend to make more. People who can’t, make less.
Another tidbit – every organization in the world will pay you less if they can, but they’ll pay you more if you know your worth to them.
There are no monsters here. No one is scrutinizing every paycheck ever written to make certain that women only get 77 cents to a man’s dollar. Once you figure this out, you’ll start earning more (if you want) very quickly. Once you figure this out, you may even decide to earn less and enjoy life more. Imagine that? It was a choice all along.
But – and this is a big BUT – once you peek through the curtain and get a glimpse at reality you’ll have to live with the fact that work is work. It’s something that you have to do every day, even when there aren’t any shadowy mythical monsters striving to destroy you.
When you realize that work is work boys and girls; every day becomes a struggle not with others, but with yourself. A struggle with your own narcissism and ego, your own overblown sense of yourself in a world of billions. It becomes a struggle to mitigate and understand your actual value to others. Your mom may love you, but if your only skill is talking and not delivering, get ready to be kicked in the ass for a few years. If you listen to feminists, that ass kicking is because of men hiding out in a room, plotting against you. If you look at the reality, the ass kicking is just the market’s way of saying – I can’t make anything off of you, produce or go home.
If you can’t figure out how to work with others, how to motivate others, what value could you have when anything big and profitable requires more than one person?
When you compare the achievements of some Chief Executive Officers with the achievements of some janitors, the CEO lost. A Vice President at one company can earn less than an associate at another. These are the realities of the workplace. Work is work. Your vagina or your cock doesn’t make it anything else, though feminists will sell you that if it helps them. What does it do for you?
Does that idea help you to grow?
Does it help you to become a true adult that sees actual living breathing people all around and not just enemies, allies, and means to an end? That’s how psychopaths and paranoid-schizophrenics see the world and they live in perpetual hell. Feminists, through their hate, their disgust with actual equality and growth, plant these seeds. And for six decades women have bought it to their own detriment. The result is today and it is ugly.
