I'm a realist and sadly here is why men and women will never be equal.

a reply to: frostie
If the question is how society deals with freedom from sex roles (non-sexual or otherwise) there are plenty of answers.

The problem is there are so many answers. The replies here are an example of why so many answers are necessary.

When we move to fully understanding genetics, what replies will be required then?

What's wanted is fair. Making 'fair' a legal definition is a snakes' nest because of our individuality.

My suspicions about this is that this will never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. Compromise isn't on the agenda for feminists or their counterparts further pressing the issue into unsolvability.

My recommendation, keep it on the back burner and make as much sense of it all as is practicable.

originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: frostie

why is it that if a women becomes a parent, her earning potential will go down, employers will naturally expect those children to interfere with her job performance? but if a man becomes a parent it somehow makes him a more dependable, valuable employee in their eyes?
Women's salaries verses men's salaries are close to equal, until children come into the picture. and it has nothing to do with the time lost to deliver the baby, since she may be ten years older than the young male chap they just hired, and have considerably more experience, and yet, they will see that young chap more valuable. they just naturally think that a child in her life will result in more time off work (when the child is sick, when he needs to go to the doctors, when he gets into trouble in school, when a sitter falls through, ect) and well because the wages are lower because of this expectation, well, it's kind of a self full-filling prophecy because well, if dad is make more than mom, then of course it's mom who will be taking on these tasks and her career taking a hit.... it's less costly to the family as a whole!

As more men stand up and take partial responsibility for the childcare and take share with these tasks, eventually, the wages may even out. but till then, ya I know for a fact that mothers are paid less regardless of their skill, their experience, or their dependability. I've experienced it, and I've seen it happen to other women.

I agree that having a child should not make a women a more desirable person, but employers would still rather hire a graduate younger male to do the job the same amount as the employer would pay an older mother. Even if they pay the newbie male less than the mother this can still be considered unequal (Based off the rate of pay raises/movement in a company)

They just do this because it is economical for the company in the long run and for reasons that the male does not have motherly responsibility.

You're right in saying men should take more responsibilities for being a parent and share with the mother, and help close the gap.

a reply to: frostie

I too think the genders will never be equal.

Indeed, men will always be far worst than woman!

Its not that woman have realized their Goddess natures, it’s that men are just so evil.

Woman will never equal such debased foolishness as men practice.

So you’re right in a twisted way but the other way around is closer to reality

As the great Lao Tzu said

Men need to be more like woman

...and he didn’t mean transexuals

a reply to: frostie

I don't see it the way you do. The last 50 years women in developped countries have gained more respect than the last 6000 years. At that pace women would soon be suprerior to men. Something Wallace and Tesla once sayd. It all depends on the real values you hold on to. Now money and power are most important but mayby there comes a time where wisdom is superior to power and then I'm not sure if men are better than women.
www.evawaseerst.be...

originally posted by: kaylaluv
a reply to: Teikiatsu

Sure, an anecdotal one.

My husband got a PhD in Chemistry. Right after that, he got a job at Dow Chemical. He worked with a woman who had the same position he had, who had started about 6 months before he did. She also had a PhD in Chemistry. They got to talking about their salaries (an employer's nightmare), and they discovered that she was making less than he was. He was married with 1 kid and another one on the way. She was unmarried with no immediate intention of having kids.

I think she was planning on suing, but my husband left Dow right after that, so he doesn't know how that ended up.

This was in the late 1980's, so it might be better at Dow now. But the fact that it happened at all is atrocious. I'm sure Dow's reasoning was that she was more likely to pop out a kid at some point, so might as well start paying her less now.

Sure enough, 36 years is a long time.

I'd also want to know what their job responsibilities were and what projects they had been assigned. I doubt they had the same position unless your husband replaced the woman. It'd also be matter of determining what was negotiated for salary at the time of hiring.

a reply to: frostie

no, I am talking about screenprinters.

one women, had been in the company since the day it was founded in the boss's basement. no one in the shop had the talent or the experience as she did, but the guys still got higher wages.

and well, then there was the women, me, who learned how to just just about every job on the production floor, could run many of the machines, and well, they brought in a guy with absolutely no experience in the screen printing field, paying him at least a dollar an hour more than me. the guy, by the way, never fully got trained on the machine he was hired to be on, worked about a half of year, slipped and fell on the ice outside of the shop, filed for workmen's comp and was seen a few weeks later working as a mechanic (under the table of course) fixing cars up to sell..

a reply to: Teikiatsu

It happened in 1988, so 28 years ago.

Their titles were the same. Their responsibilities were the same. Their educational backgrounds were the same. Their experience level was the same(actually, she had a little more experience). Dow is a very large corporation, with many projects going on at the same time, so they needed several people to do what my husband and this woman did. My husband's projects weren't more complicated or more important than her projects. Being young and relatively inexperienced in the working world, my husband accepted the company's salary offer without negotiating. My husband and this woman weren't stupid. They were smart enough to know that she got screwed.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: frostie

It should not be possible for a woman's ability and desire to have children, to effect her career in any way, unless she decides that it ought to, and how it ought to. For example, if she would have been promoted in some way, but took a year or so to have a baby and bond with little one, an employer should not be permitted to take into account the time off, or any future drains on that employees time, that might result from her choice to have a child, and they should not be permitted to make choices based on motherhood and its responsibilities, either overtly or covertly, with the loss of their job and vast sums of money at risk, if they should violate that principle. Why? Because mothers should be supported, not vilified or disadvantaged, just because they have chosen to bear children. If they want to work a tenured job, they should be able to do that without compromising their choice to procreate.

So, in short, women should be able to bear children without any consequence on their careers, unless they explicitly state that they are happy to pass up any opportunities that might have come their way if they had remained childless. If they do not so state then positions they might have been offered, will be offered them and held open until their maternity leave is utterly complete, and they can take those positions.

TrueBrit, as a female, I have to disagree pretty strongly here. If you take time off to have kids, and the break taken is excessive enough to jeopardize merit-based/performance raises, bonuses and tenure, then you should not be protected. That kind of protection isn't equality, it's preferential treatment. Your position, if agreed on, should be retained, yes, but you do not get the perks if you don't work for them for a year.

If a man takes a year off in his profession, he runs a high risk of being -- and possibly detrimentally -- behind on advancements made over that year (be it certifications, technological advancements, software changes, etc) As well as stagnating in his quest for tenure. There is no pause button. You've lost an entire year of being on top of everything, but expect everything you would have gotten via a year's worth of time & effort to be handed to you upon clocking in? Not how it works. Women who want a year off should expect the same bare-bones recompense as a man would get for a year off, not more because BABIES.
End of discussion.

a reply to: kaylaluv

There would be a caveat here if they negotiated their salaries. If they had that ability rather than settling for a baseline, it's her fault for her salary agreement. No one else's.

My husband negotiates his pay when performance review time comes up. He's had 3 merit-based raises (minor amounts overall) in the last year, and had gently negotiated the merit increases to a bit more than initially offered. One of his female coworkers never considered doing so because she thought it would be rude to ask for more. Guess who gets paid less?

Negotiate if you can, it matters.

originally posted by: Nyiah
a reply to: kaylaluv

There would be a caveat here if they negotiated their salaries. If they had that ability rather than settling for a baseline, it's her fault for her salary agreement. No one else's.

My husband negotiates his pay when performance review time comes up. He's had 3 merit-based raises (minor amounts overall) in the last year, and had gently negotiated the merit increases to a bit more than initially offered. One of his female coworkers never considered doing so because she thought it would be rude to ask for more. Guess who gets paid less?

Negotiate if you can, it matters.

Just because she didn't ask, doesn't mean she'd get a raise.

And that's not about gender. That's about action and non action.

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: Nyiah
a reply to: kaylaluv

There would be a caveat here if they negotiated their salaries. If they had that ability rather than settling for a baseline, it's her fault for her salary agreement. No one else's.

My husband negotiates his pay when performance review time comes up. He's had 3 merit-based raises (minor amounts overall) in the last year, and had gently negotiated the merit increases to a bit more than initially offered. One of his female coworkers never considered doing so because she thought it would be rude to ask for more. Guess who gets paid less?

Negotiate if you can, it matters.

Just because she didn't ask, doesn't mean she'd get a raise.

And that's not about gender. That's about action and non action.

Correct on both accounts. However, the point stands. If you settle for what's initially offered, that's what you're stuck with. I'm not talking out my ass here regarding negotiating salaries & raises. It's totally possible to do even for an hourly worker (BTDT, you can negotiate an hourly pay rate raise)

I simply get extremely sick & tired of women not going to bat for themselves when it comes to things like this & instead blaming men. It's not hard, it's not frowned upon, it's not detrimental, and it's certainly not rude to do so.

a reply to: Nyiah

But in the situation with this woman and my husband, the initial salary offered to him was higher than the initial salary offered to her. You're saying that's her fault?

a reply to: kaylaluv

For the initial low-balled offer? No. For settling for the initial low-balled offer? Yes.

a reply to: Nyiah

Yes. I tell my kids/grandkids ---- if you don't ask, it's always NO.

You HAVE to ask. It gives you at least a 50/50 chance.

Sorry, if that last post came off rude. I did a 5 hour drive starting at 4am this morning.

a reply to: Nyiah

Okay, but it's harder when you're starting at a lower initial offer than the guy got.

Let's say hypothetically that a woman gets a job offer for $40,000/yr. She works hard to negotiate and gets it up to $48,000. A man is offered the exact same job with an initial offer of $48,000. He's not as good a negotiator, and only gets $5,000 more. She's a better negotiator and she STILL makes less than the guy. She is at a disadvantage from the very beginning.

originally posted by: kaylaluv
a reply to: Nyiah

Okay, but it's harder when you're starting at a lower initial offer than the guy got.

Let's say hypothetically that a woman gets a job offer for $40,000/yr. She works hard to negotiate and gets it up to $48,000. A man is offered the exact same job with an initial offer of $48,000. He's not as good a negotiator, and only gets $5,000 more. She's a better negotiator and she STILL makes less than the guy. She is at a disadvantage from the very beginning.

Let's further investigate this hypothetical duo.

What about their schooling backgrounds? Are you sure he's not Ivy League & her community college? The name game does boost odds of better pay, as stupid as it is. In the event of education credentials being reversed,let's move on from Mr Community College & Miss Ivy League.

What about their personality profiles? That is to mean, in the very general sense here of work stress & pressure, he may be a less-skilled negotiator, but he also may have a track record of grace under extreme pressure, or high-output performance (beating deadlines by a mile, highly productive with time & tasks, & so forth) These may be two areas she's in dire need of working on.
Do they have a history of strong follow-through on additional study courses, or taking on tasks in previous jobs?

How about their previous work history? Does either have a history of quitting or getting fired? Complaints or praise? Both have histories of starting & quitting? Hmm. This could be problematic.

Personally, this is stuff I would look at as critical when figuring the baseline offer if I were a business owner. You're not just "hiring" someone to fill a void, depending on the industry. In many cases, you're making an investment. I'd comb someone over pretty thoroughly to figure out if they're a wasted hire, someone I can just "meh" deal with, or if they're a lucky find & I seriously want to keep them.

But I'd suppose you'd figure I was still keeping the woman at a disadvantage by scrutinizing.

originally posted by: kaylaluv
a reply to: frostie

What if Mandy decided not to have kids, but makes less than Billy anyway?

I am the one who always takes out the trash in my home. My husband and I share cooking and dishwashing responsibilities.

Yes, I decided to be the one to stay home with my daughter, but I had a female boss whose husband was the stay-at-home parent while she brought home the bacon.

Nope, you don't gotta play the hand you're dealt.

Men and women certainly have equal value, but they are not equals. It's that simple. We are wired differently; we don't share all the same hardware. We are each better suited for certain tasks which ultimately compliment each-other. We make a solid team, and teams have positions. Positions are chosen based on what we are suited for - how we best help the team. We need each-other other equally. We are of equal value. Therefore, we should love and cherish one another... But equal value doesn't mean that we are otherwise equal.

You have no choice but to play the cards you're dealt. In blackjack, players will typically stay on 18 or 19, but some hit. Sometimes it works for them, but Sometimes it doesn't. Either way, they played with the cards they were dealt...

a reply to: frostie


How can two different expressions of the same species, be considered equal, when they are naturally different. The whole argument is hogwash.Making them equal means making them the same, and ending up in some very unnatural situations. Like females being available for call up. Trying to run a society that pretends their is no difference in the genders, is about the level of fantasy, that religions are made off. It smacks more about social control for some other agenda than anything rational.

a reply to: anonentity

Yes and since we are naturally different, this leads to differences in the world outside of nature. This leads to equal value, but un equal applications depending on the social situation.

Pretty sure everyone has said there is a biological difference.

However, as humans evolve the "natural" need for difference becomes less and less, practically to the point of non-existent.

Always reminds me of the evolution of the Playboy centerfold over the years. Started off with the voluptuous Marikyn Monroe (who would be considered fat by today's standards) to the athletic body with smaller boobs.

There is very little (if anything) a woman can't do today that a man does.

As previously stated: compare men to men and you won't find equality.