If the wage gap is real, wouldn't employers be able to save money by only hiring women?

IncrediblyFatMan · 2011-08-30T19:59:44+00:00

If it were real, yes.

It's not, though, so feminists would have you believe that corporations would rather hang out with dudes at the office than make more money while continuing to be a True Believer of the wage gap myth, though.

2011-08-30T21:07:57+00:00

Exactly! If the wage gap was real, and just ONE company decides to not be sexist, they would completely destroy other companies.

shady8x · 2011-08-31T05:12:48+00:00

Men and women get paid the same per hours worked. Also men are asked to do far far more dangerous deadly jobs. So women are paid the same for less.

On average, not adjusting for anything, women make 80% as much as men. Women work (44/56)x100=78% as much time as men. Men die on the job [(93/7)x100]=1329% as much as women do.

There is no anti-women discriminatory wage gap.

GeneralKang · 2011-08-30T22:38:24+00:00

/troll

Yes, but then nothing would ever get done.

/endtroll

wavegeekman · 2011-08-31T02:05:02+00:00

There are some subtleties around this. If the discrimination is only around employment you are correct.

However imagine a world where one group of people is discriminated against not just in employment but across the board - as customers, neighbors etc. For example let's say that customers did not like dealing with a person from that group. In such a world, discrimination against that group would be rational for each individual. However it would possibly be harmful for society as a whole - we are pandering to supposedly irrational prejudices by the general public.

So there are situations where discrimination against objectively more efficient workers can be rational.

Does this apply to feminism: no. Anyway the wage gap is yet another femostat, or to be blunt - a lie.

YouMadeMeDumber · 2011-08-31T02:53:45+00:00

Yes, but ignorance of the behavior of markets is deeply associated with feminism.

peety2269 · 2011-08-31T04:35:57+00:00

If the wage gap was real (which it isn't), and companies decided to hire only woman the company wouldn't save any money because they would have to hire twice the number of employees to get the same job done.

/joke

But seriously, i think race discrimination is a much large issue than sexism.

YouMadeMeDumber · 2011-08-31T12:53:26+00:00

Guys, I think you're misunderstanding what they insist goes on. Now, I'm not agreeing with feminists here (exactly -- I'll get to that), but I think that to make a serious point in any debate you have to understand what your opponent is saying.

The "wage gap" is not something said to be instituted universally. There is no law that mandates lower pay for women, so hiring only women would not achieve the effect of lessened wage and salary liabilities. What is said to happen is that when an employer sets pay rates for men and women, the women on average come out with less pay due to some form of bias on the employer's part or a sum effect of biological and cultural differences between the genders.

Again, I don't agree with feminists on this, but ONLY because they propose to address it through legislation that would create a much larger inverse disparity. Honestly speaking, on average, women ARE paid less. The wage gap is real, and if we are to be voices of egalitarianism then we should make it a point to fight the biases that give rise to this as well as look after our interests.

This Bottom Line: In The Red

In 2008 the difference in mean annual income for a female individual in a household with no husband present was $30,129 and for a male in a household with no wife present, it was $43,571. That comes out to a $1286.83 / month average difference in men's favor. Citation 1 This is only taking into consideration ONE comparison metric. More math makes it look worse. For example, if we look at the average change in the disparity by year then we can see that it has gotten worse.

Where performance differences arise as an indirect consequence of biological factors (menses, menopause, etc), we can only counterbalance without giving rise to a similar problem inversely by urging employers to get to know their employees such that they can determine what to attribute to biological factors beyond the employees' reasonable control.

It is also a lamentation of our own cause that women disproportionately are awarded child custody, which places limitations upon them as a group that impact overall productivity (child has doctor's appointment, mother kept up all night by child, etc). Holding realistic parenting challenges against women is every bit as unjust as the difficulties we face, especially where the pay disparity gives rise to a lesser quality of life for children.

Mathematically, this is likely skewed by some male-dominated high-income positions. However, if that is the case then it only serves to SUPPORT the feminist complaints regarding this, not disprove them.

Citation 1: US Census Bureau

TL;DR: Let's not stoop to anything beneath us, gentlemen. We're FOR men's rights, not AGAINST feminism. The wage gap is real, as backed up by solid numbers. And numbers don't lie or politicize. I've provided a citation and numerical proof.

countbloodula · 2011-08-31T04:03:08+00:00

That isn't really how hiring works. It might be best to think of the hiring process as an auction and the employees as some kind of objects let's say teapots. The buyers have a perceived value for the teapot and bid on it. The highest bidder gets the teapot. (A simplification I know. The employee may be willing to work for different employers for less money). Now say the teapots are stamped with little F's or M's. If one or more bidders shows a marked preference for teapots with F's or teapots with M's to the point where their bid is vastly lower for a teapot with the wrong stamp than an identical teapot with the right one then this preference can only drive the final price of the teapot down. If that bidder would otherwise bid the highest price at the auction it goes to the next highest bidder and is auctioned for less. If it would have been the second highest bidder then the highest bidder didn't have to bid as much as they otherwise would have to get the teapot. If that bidder would have been neither the first or the second highest then it has no effect on the final price the teapot is auctioned for.

tldr: no even one sexist employer can drive down the cost albeit probably only a small amount

But wouldn't the savings from being able to employ women cheaper than men drive the other companies out of business? No probably not. A 10% or 20% increase in payroll costs may depending on the business not be such a huge cost to bear. Indeed it may be dwarfed by other advantages the business has such as brand name, ownership of patents or preexisting licenses or infrastructure. I mean would you purchase a brand of car which had no reputation and which you had no experience with simply because of a 5-10% decrease in cost over a competitor which you knew had a good reputation. I certainly wouldn't. Building a business with no sexism generally means you have to refuse to employ another large section of the labour force. People who are sexist. Or to put it another way if employers refused to hire sexist people wouldn't other employers be able to save money by only hiring sexist people.

tldr: increased labour costs from being sexist would hardly drive every company or even most companies out of business

Finally just because a hiring practice is sexist doesn't mean it isn't also good business. Just because an employer isn't sexist doesn't mean their customers aren't. Many people would be reluctant to leave their children with a male daycare worker it may not be fair that that daycare would refuse to hire a male or only hire one for less money than a female daycare worker but that doesn't make it bad for business. Even if your customers aren't sexist men and women do statistically act and are acted on in different ways even if they otherwise appear the same. Young married women are much more likely to take maternity leave than young married men are likely to take paternity leave. Men are much more likely to be accused of sexual impropriety with children and women are much more likely to sue their employers for sexual harassment and much more likely to be taken seriously in court if they do. So in short in many situations sexism may be good business even if it is not socially acceptable.

tldr: sexism can save you money

Finally no there is no wage gap. Their are men and women and other folk who are discriminated because of their gender. However if you could accurately measure who was being discriminated against and by how much(which you can't given the frequently very subjective nature of hiring practices) you wouldn't break down this information into one number. It would instead be better represented by giving a break down of how much each people of each gender get discriminated by on the basis of their sex. Something like X% of women Y% of men get paid 10% less than the industry average for someone with their qualifications due to their gender. etc etc.

tldr: the wage gap is a completely retarded way to measure discrimination in hiring practices

b0w3n · 2011-08-31T18:13:28+00:00

I saw a post somewhere that showed, using pay scales of the many doctor specialties, why women make less than men. Overall, the women worked less hours and less demanding jobs than their male counterparts, had they done the exact same job they would've made the exact same wage.

Most women doctors are pediatricians, gynecologists, family care doctors, as opposed to the men who pick up things like surgery where on call hours can break some people.

I think the article itself highlights that that question about pay for women is that it doesn't get granular enough, just because of the huge discrepancies in a single field of work.

2011-08-31T02:50:25+00:00

They do. Most people I see working even the lowest wage jobs are women with the exception of a few teenage guys and then the manager may sometimes be male. Beyond that though, the mainly male dominated fields are manual labor jobs(i.e. construction, plumbing, etc.).

lanismycousin · 2011-08-31T03:02:47+00:00

Makes sense to me.

Title	If the wage gap is real, wouldn't employers be able to save money by only hiring women?
Author	N0S13NM
Upvotes	45
Comments	48
Date	August 30, 2011 7:25 PM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/jzcpy/if_the_wage_gap_is_real_wouldnt_employers_be_able/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/if-the-wage-gap-is-real-wouldnt-employers-be-able.1035227 https://theredarchive.com/post/1035227

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