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Microsoft Improves Efforts To Offer Equal Pay For Equal Work To Its Employees (windowscentral.com)

An anonymous reader writes: One day before National Equal Pay Day, Microsoft has provided a new update on its efforts to provide equal pay for equal work for all of its employees. Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft's Executive Vice-President for Human Resources, wrote in a blog post: "Today, for every $1 earned by men, our female employees in the U.S. earn 99.8 cents at the same job title and level. Racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. combined earn $1.004 for every $1 earned by their Caucasian counterparts. Breaking it down even further, African American/black employees are at $1.003; Hispanic/Latino(a) employees are at 99.9 cents; and Asian employees are at $1.006 for every $1 earned by Caucasian employees at the same job title and level, respectively." Hogan said she is "encouraged by these results" and that Microsoft will continue to monitor the data and publicly disclose it as part of Microsoft's annual public diversity and inclusion information and data reporting. "Our announcement today is another step forward along the path of greater diversity and inclusion progress at Microsoft, and in society as a whole. Along with our industry peers, the mission of landing intentional, enduring and impactful diversity and inclusion initiatives is one will we continue to pursue vigilantly."

126 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Well done! by SirSlud · · Score: 4, Funny

    Two things /. users love! The pursuit of social equality and Microsoft!

    --
    "Old man yells at systemd"
    1. Re:Well done! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Pursuit being the word. Their average employee age statistics were notably absent despite claims they've made in the past about addressing ageism in their hiring practices.

    2. Re: Well done! by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

      You do know that new technology generally makes it a lot easier to hire new guys? There just aren't many old people that are in fields they are hiring for.

    3. Re: Well done! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You clearly aren't one of "old people" you're talking about. Your comment is precisely the kind of bigotry and arrogance us "old people" have to sit across the interview table and endure. Lots of "old people" learn the new technologies just as fast and just as well as the "new guys". But the "new guys" are blind to it, and HR doesn't want to pay for competent, wise "old people". So companies tend to hire the "new guys", work them to death for pennies on the dollar until one day they wake up and realize they are an "old guy". What many of you "new guys" don't realize is that the system abuses BOTH the older workers and the younger ones. Stop insulting the generation that invented that about which the "new guys" sit in class and listen to lectures.

    4. Re:Well done! by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      addressing ageism in their hiring practices.

      I demand that companies hire engineers that refuse to learn CAD, switch board operators, buggy whip makers and blacksmiths!

      If there's any common thread I've found among people that can't find jobs and claim it's because of ageism it's that they never kept their resume current. They're the guys that in their 20s were sufficient for getting the job done and never picked up any 'new tricks' into their 50s.

      The guys that always spent a bit of their time learning the new stuff, they've had no problems getting jobs or even getting poached from other companies.

    5. Re: Well done! by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      Stop insulting the generation that invented that about which the "new guys" sit in class and listen to lectures.

      Because buggy whip manufactures were in very high demand while the automobile was rolling around.

    6. Re: Well done! by TuringTest · · Score: 1

      Early automobiles certainly benefited from existing wheel engineering and shock absorbers. And there's a reason why horsepower is called that way.

      --
      Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
    7. Re: Well done! by jc42 · · Score: 1

      I've known a number of people in their 20s who would qualify as "senile". ;-)

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    8. Re:Well done! by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      Co-workers that I say "Hey, this way is new, faster and better. It's been vetted and is going to reduce our error". And they insist on doing it the 'old way'.

      It's the engineers that insisted on hand drafting when CAD was being rolled out. You can only stick in the past for so long before you're just dead weight doing work that most people stopped doing decades ago.

      Because in a field where layoffs are routine, you're not going to see the old people with up-to-date skills who didn't get hired at because of their age.

      "Old People" with up to date skills are worth their weight in gold. People are known to retire and then come back part time because they're that valuable.

  2. End this crap by s.petry · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Equality in pay for the same job and the same hours is already the law. In fact it has been repeatedly proven that women make more money in the same job as men when they work the same hours and have the same backgrounds.

    Can we please stop perpetuating this bullshit about how everyone should be paid the same as everyone else, no matter what the job is. People need to pay attention to the source of this propaganda. Hint: The people pushing this crap down don't put their own money where their mouths are, and won't. They are ultra rich, and you are a peon.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:End this crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Wait, you mean I can actually pay women 75 cents on the dollar and get away with it? Man, Business will be booming.

    2. Re:End this crap by Etherwalk · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Equality in pay for the same job and the same hours is already the law. In fact it has been repeatedly proven that women make more money in the same job as men when they work the same hours and have the same backgrounds.

      Can we please stop perpetuating this bullshit about how everyone should be paid the same as everyone else, no matter what the job is. People need to pay attention to the source of this propaganda. Hint: The people pushing this crap down don't put their own money where their mouths are, and won't. They are ultra rich, and you are a peon.

      Try getting a job while obviously pregnant. Good luck with that.

    3. Re:End this crap by NotInHere · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah if I had a company, and had to pay women only 77% of what men earn, for precisely the same work, then I would only hire women. It would be a giant cost saving benefit, my company would be doing great.

      But oh, if I ran a company I were an evil capitalist who hates women and wants only men to work, and my hatred towards women would be so big that I only paid them 77 cents on the dollar.

      </sarcasm>

    4. Re:End this crap by tnk1 · · Score: 2

      I don't see how that addresses his point. It may affect your ability to get a *new* job, and that can be a problem, but it doesn't affect your rate if you're hired. Or if it does, the law requires that the discrepancy be addressed.

    5. Re:End this crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      sorry not everyone lives in the reality distortion field of your favorite mra blogs.

      Hold up, where the fuck did the GP say he was getting his statistics from "mra blogs"? So you have to misrepresent people to try to make your pathetic points? Typical. Fuck off, punk

    6. Re:End this crap by Etherwalk · · Score: 2

      if P(getting the job) is much lower for an equally qualified woman, then ExpV(being a professional in the job) is much lower for a woman. For the set of all people qualified, the women get less money because they're less likely to get hired.

      Antidiscrimination isn't just about individual salaries of the people who happen to make it--it's about whether you're prejudicing the wages of an entire class of people for a discriminatory reason that society has decided it is not okay to use for discrimination.

    7. Re:End this crap by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      But oh, if I ran a company I were an evil capitalist who hates women and wants only men to work, and my hatred towards women would be so big that I only paid them 77 cents on the dollar.

      I see what kind of person you are.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    8. Re:End this crap by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      the women get less money because

      Women get less money because most of them tend to make different personal decisions than other people. http://dadatho.me/notebooks/pe...

      I'm making 80% of what my peers make. It was my personal decision to leave the work place while my wife kept working. It's not a grand global conspiracy it's Math and Averages.

      Now, if you want to discuss *why* women are leaving that's a separate discussion. But pushing the 78% salary narrative doesn't help you do that because it leads you down the entire wrong path of discussion.

    9. Re:End this crap by Etherwalk · · Score: 1

      It would very much depend on the type of job. When my wife was 5-6 months pregnant she was looking for a new job. She found one, and got hired on. Less then a month into it, she went on bed rest, had the baby at 9 months, and decided not to go back to work at all and raise the child.

      Meanwhile the company was forced to hold her position and were essentially down a person.

      From her perspective it made sense, it was our first child. She was planning on having the baby, taking a couple months off and then going back to work. Reality changed that.

      From the companies perspective, they should of never hired her. She wasted their time and essentially forced everyone else to work extra to take up the slack.

      So yes, from a business perspective, in many cases I would not hire someone who's pregnant, especially if its their first pregnancy. It would be different if it was a skilled type job, and the person in question was the top candidate and had a great resume with a good employment history. In that case the investment and risk would be worth it. But the risk of them never coming back from maternity leave is very real.

      Sure--but you'd still be breaking the law.

      https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/type...

    10. Re:End this crap by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Employers who do think along those lines tend to also think that the other disadvantages outweigh the lower salary, e.g. maternity leave, more sick days taken, less willingness to do unpaid overtime.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    11. Re:End this crap by NoZart · · Score: 2

      Women decide on 80% of all purchases anyway, so who really cares about who makes the money if it's spent unequally.

    12. Re:End this crap by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

      I thought the same thing: "Today, for every $1 earned by men, our female employees in the U.S. earn 99.8 cents at the same job title and level." Isn't this illegal? I wonder if MS will face charges for openly acknowledging illegal gender discrimination.

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    13. Re:End this crap by fche · · Score: 1

      ... could it possibly be that maternity leave and more sick days and less willingness to do unpaid overtime have an economic cost? I wonder if there is a quantitative way to measure and express that economic cost.

    14. Re:End this crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So... gonna post any sources to back up your claims?

      No?

      Didn't think so.

    15. Re:End this crap by ventsyv · · Score: 1

      Equality in pay for the same job and the same hours is already the law.

      Just because it's the law it doesn't mean that it's followed. Salaries are private so there is no way for employees to know that they are paid less and thus the law is not enforceable.

      In fact it has been repeatedly proven that women make more money in the same job as men when they work the same hours and have the same backgrounds.

      I would love to see a peer reviewed study to that effect. Study after study have shown significant gaps even among salaried employees.

    16. Re:End this crap by rioki · · Score: 1

      At this point I want to remind everybody that Equal Work Fatality Day for 2016 will be held 2037.

    17. Re:End this crap by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      My wife did it.

  3. Lies, damn lies and statistics by onyxruby · · Score: 4, Informative

    How the hell did one of these equal pay stories get posted where they actually attributed for things like similar job and experience? If they keep this up the 77 cents on the dollar myth will be exposed for the lie that it is.

    http://www.washingtonexaminer....
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/th...

    1. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by NotInHere · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Its no lie. Its probably true that women get less paid for their work. But that has nothing to do with the fact that they are female. I think nobody is as mean and gives a co-worker less money only because they are female. I think it has another reason, very simple: many women work part-time or work in fields that don't pay much. This has nothing to do with the choice of the individual, I guess any female can have a career as successful as a man, its a question of individual choice not of discrimination.

      Feminists should just realize that most women chose to raise a family instead of focusing their job as much as men. This is nothing bad or something that needs to be changed. Its free people doing a free choice, and feminists are constantly trying to take that freedom away.

      By saying that females who chose to raise their children and do part time work instead of full time work and letting some stranger raise the child are limited and backwards-minded, the feminists just insult millions of females having chosen precisely that model together with their partners.

      If a woman wants to let a stranger raise her children, or if she wants the man to take over those duties, its perfectly fine. Just feminists shouldn't dictate what's wrong or right.

    2. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 1

      According to the Freakonomics guy you are partly correct but they found there's still about an 8% difference that can't be accounted for by anything but gender difference.

    3. Re: Lies, damn lies and statistics by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

      Perhaps it's that men are more competitive and involved in their work, leading to more raises and bonuses.

    4. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by oakgrove · · Score: 1

      Men negotiate harder. That may be a "gender difference" but I don't see how you could fault men for it.

      --
      The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
    5. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Do researchers ever ask specific questions, as in talk to managers and ask them about specific individuals to find the reason or will they forever look at to level numbers and speculate?

    6. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Men can negotiate harder. The same studies have shown that when women negotiate the way men normally do, they're written down as "bitchy" (whereas men get labeled as "assertive").

    7. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Yes, it could be because of that. The word that we have for it is "cultural gender bias".

      You can think any kind of crap, that's up to you. It's when crap you think starts affecting how you treat others that SJW gestapo has a problem with that. Verstehst?

    8. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      Did you try to read the comment beyond that first sentence? It's fairly obvious that what I'm talking about is not some innate ability that men have, but rather different expectations that society sets for them. A better way to say it is that men are allowed to negotiate far more aggressively than women are, before aggressiveness starts having a detrimental effect on the outcome.

    9. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by Uberbah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Its no lie.

      But it is, for reasons you even list:

      many women work part-time or work in fields that don't pay much. This has nothing to do with the choice of the individual, I guess any female can have a career as successful as a man, its a question of individual choice not of discrimination. Feminists should just realize that most women chose to raise a family instead of focusing their job as much as men.

      If a man worked part time or stepped out of the work force for ten years to be a stay-at-home dad, he, too, would make less money than his co-workers that went on with their careers - male or female.

      What feminists are actually demanding is equal pay for less work. Less hours on the job, less experience, and in less stressful or physically dangerous positions.

    10. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      There are two numbers, the adjusted number where the average is about 95-96% and the unadjusted figure that is in the upper 70s. Both have their uses.

      The adjusted figure shows that when women do get jobs they are paid about 5% less on average. It can be attributed to things like salary negotiations favouring men or other institutional biases.

      The unadjusted figure shows that women end up in different kinds of work than men. This is more controversial because some argue that it's natural, while others argue that it's to a greater or lesser extent due to social reasons. Personally I think a lot of it is social pressure pushing women towards certain types of work, and penalties for things like taking maternity leave or not doing unpaid overtime because of childcare needs.

      The number is much more complex than "lie/truth".

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    11. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by kwoff · · Score: 2

      I guess this is under the umbrella of Simpson's paradox. The summary and blog linked to don't seem to show numbers of people in each category; for example, $1.003 for blacks but there could be only 1% black employees. And like your links say, things can be sliced in other ways too, like what number of this or that category are part time versus full time, interns/age/experience, carreer choices/preferences, etc.

    12. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by fuzzyf · · Score: 1

      If the parents wants to let a stranger raise their children, or if they decides that either one of them take over those duties, its perfectly fine. Just feminists shouldn't dictate what's wrong or right.

      Equal :)

    13. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What feminists are actually asking for is that men take on a more equal share of the child rearing duties. If everyone who had kids wanted a good work/life balance and parental leave it would reduce the career damage it does. Rather than a choice between "man who is unlikely to want paternity leave" vs. "woman who might want maternity leave" it should just be "pick the best candidate and accept that most human beings have a family at some point in their lifetime".

      Some northern European countries have made great progress here.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    14. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by Immerman · · Score: 1

      I have very rarely heard this position made explicit. For anyone holding this view, I would say they should stop focusing on "pay equity for women", which has (mostly) been achieved on a per-hour basis, and instead focus on "benefit equity for men":

      Require companies to offer equal amounts of maternity and paternity leave for starters, maybe even make it mandatory to change cultural norms. Perhaps follow up with an push to eliminate the tendency of salaried men to work disproportionately longer hours - either encourage women to work more, or discourage men. Eliminating the overtime exemption of salaried employees might be enough all on its own - make it so that the company has little incentive to overwork employees on a regular basis, and the fact that men are more easily manipulated into overworking ceases to make them more appealing.

      Don't tell companies they must hire an obviously higher-risk candidate, that's never going to work. Instead make it so that one gender doesn't carry such an obviously more attractive risk/benefit profile. And since right now one gender expects far more dramatic benefits (aka risks from the employers perspective), that's going to mean either eliminating their benefits, or forcing equal benefits upon men.

      As a bonus, you'll probably find far more allies fighting for equal benefits for men. A lot fewer simple-minded and "entitled to their position" men are going to fight against getting more benefits, even when the long-term goal is to make them no more attractive as employees than women.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    15. Re: Lies, damn lies and statistics by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      That does, however, mean shifting planning, pushing costs onto other people.

      The US went through this when someone sued Social Security for paying less per month to women because they lived 7 years longer. This was declared a violation.

      Fair enough, but the actuarial tables don't lie, regardless of social norms of the decade or century.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    16. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      many women ... work in fields that don't pay much

      There's a long history of jobs primarily occupied by women being worse paid than jobs primarily occupied by men, even when the jobs have similar requirements, difficulty, etc.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    17. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 1

      Really well put.

    18. Re: Lies, damn lies and statistics by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 1

      I think that's part of it. When women act competitive men often see them as bitchy. Society penalizes them for negotiating like men do so they have a harder time getting raises, promotions etc.

    19. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by NotInHere · · Score: 1

      If you look at historic times, there has been undoubtedly discrimination of the sexes, so its not a good comparison to take for the present.

      But more importantly, Correlation does not imply causation. It is possible that the field got less paying because of the presence of women, but it is also possible that the women populated the field because it became less paying, the men leaving for fields that became higher paying.

      As a possible explanation: In the past, and still today, the prevailing model is that the man brings home the biggest bunch of the money, with a larger bunch of his time, and the woman takes care of the family and household and gets home a smaller bunch of money, with a smaller bunch of her time. She does not have the need and pressure to be the main feeder of the family, so she is fine with a job in a less paying field.

      If you personally don't like that model for you, you are fine to find any other model together with your partner that suits best for you both. Just the prevailing model still influences statistics.

    20. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      What feminists are actually asking for is that men take on a more equal share of the child rearing duties.

      Then they can work more hours so their partners can spend more time at home. But how is that addressed by the sloganeering of "equal pay for equal work" and "women make 76 cents on the dollar"?

    21. Re: Lies, damn lies and statistics by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      I don't know of a single person who is demanding that. It seems like a blatant straw man to me.

      Then you're blatantly ignoring the fact that feminists leave experience, hours worked per week and hazard pay out of their calculations.

      What people ARE demanding is that society change to place an equal expectation on men to raise children.

      Then the wives should work more so their husbands can work less and spend more time at home. The math here isn't hard....unless you're a feminist.

    22. Re:Lies, damn lies and statistics by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      I have never taken pregnancy leave. I have a stay-at-home partner that handles all of the care of our children. In the last 5 years I've had precisely one sick day. I was hired "at the absolute cap" for salary in my last position. Two years later I found that my less experienced male coworkers with lesser job titles were each making $15,000 per year more than me. Why was this? Because, and this is a _direct quote_ "They have a family to support."

      Bit of a disconnect there, but maybe you just had a real asshole for a boss. Question: think there are any hard-working men out there that have been taken advantage of an asshole boss? That were paid less than the asshole boss's friends?

  4. Since they're so close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They might as well let salary = f(job_title, job_level) and get 1.0000000000000.

    1. Re:Since they're so close by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      No, because you're ignoring that P(promotion) might not be independent of gender.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  5. Equality and raises by s0lar · · Score: 2

    Right. The following water cooler dialogue comes to mind:

    - How goes it, Joe?

    - Alright, just scored a 3% raise.

    - How come?

    - Well, Bob, it turns out my great-great-grand-mother was Japanese. So, I ticked the right box on the "race" questionnaire as there are just so very few of us here in the Mid West.

    1. Re:Equality and raises by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      So, I ticked the right box on the "race" questionnaire as there are just so very few of us here in the Mid West

      It's easy to make any conversation happen when it's between strawmen in your imagination.

      Huh. I was always under the impression there would be quite a few straw men in the Mid West, given all the farms out there.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  6. Re: And what about vacation inequality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And inequality in time granted to women versus men. When I was a at Microsoft, all of the men on my team lost time because they couldn't take time off while the women were constantly going into the negative on PTO.

  7. Re:H1Bs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No, this only applies to people.

  8. Re: And what about vacation inequality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Worked there for five years and finally quit so I could get some damn time off. Jokes on them since a month later I got offered my old job at higher pay and with a guarantee of at least one week off per year.

  9. Re: And what about vacation inequality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    To be fair, the women were often taking care of children. Of course that's why at my current job we can't afford to allow most people to take any time off since a few women hog all of the time off.

  10. Re: And what about vacation inequality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I think it's that way at all startups. You can't afford people to not work so women get the bulk of time off.

  11. Re:And what about vacation inequality? by guruevi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not sure whether you have a contract but employers may not discriminate in determining who gets vacation. If your co-worker gets vacation (paid or unpaid) because he's Indian, you should get some too, otherwise stick your HR department on your supervisor or even your attorney.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  12. Equal Pay for Equal Work by Lodlaiden · · Score: 1

    So, if it's equal pay for equal work, then why is there disparity between the segmentation? It seems like a company as big as Microsoft could do the math and get it to average out to a flat 1.00 for everyone.

    --
    Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
  13. Social pressure by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm not sure how to explain this without sounding like a misogynist, but careers are often more important to men because men are more often judged by income. There is strong social pressure on men to work hard for raises and promotions because of this. Women tend to be socially judged on looks, not earnings, and thus they focus more on that.

    This is not saying women are inherently lazy, only that there is less social pressure on them to succeed in the work-place, and thus more women on average just coast in their career.

    Women also end up having to deal with family issues more, in part because they care more about family and home, and in part because men are on average domestically flaky. This means women will focus on domestic issues more, distracting them from career.

    I'm not sure how to measure or address these, but if they are not addressed, there could be some unpleasant side-effects.

    1. Re:Social pressure by grimfate · · Score: 1

      It is a difficult subject to discuss without sounding like a terrible person, but I do get what you are saying. It does seem like society has an expectation for men to work hard and do whatever it takes to rise the corporate ladder. I have not noticed a similar expectation of women, except when self-imposed. That said, I'm not entirely sure what your point is. This does remind me of something I was thinking about a while ago: If society judges men based on their careers/wealth but women now make up a large amount of the workforce, has the number of jobs increased since women joined the workforce to match the significantly larger workforce? And if it hasn't, what effect has this had on the male population, who would be finding it harder than ever to join the workforce and do well? But if there is a problem, then the fix would be a difficult one. People wouldn't accept a solution that benefited men over women, and trying to remove the career expectations of men would likely be futile, as it would be trying to undo thousands of years of evolution, and might even have serious consequences, as if men didn't feel the NEED to be employed, would they choose to take undesirable yet necessary jobs?

    2. Re:Social pressure by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      be less competitive in the workplace.

      Some people are more naturally more competitive than others and not always money related. Some people will want to be the most productive person in a group, have the best, cleanest, most efficient and cost effective design and not for monetary rewards. But sometimes companies recognize this and compensate. I've gotten big bonuses before for coming into work after hours and being in the right place at the wrong time and being able to solve some major problems.

    3. Re:Social pressure by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      Well, it will be interesting if the new social dynamic affords men not to be judged on the size of their bank accounts, and allows them to be less competitive in the workplace.

      I suspect it's fairly ingrained in women's biology, similar to how men naturally pay attention to a female's appearance. Lecturing isn't going change what makes our wanker happy, and our wanker has a hell of a lot of voting power in the male decision process, thanks to Mother/Father Nature.

      Maybe the availability of porn and perhaps fake robo-females will make men care less about attracting real females and women will just have to put up with "basement rats" that men are becoming.

      Hell, I hope the next big war is fought [also] by women. Let them [participate in] blood sacrifice...

      Indeed! A case of "be careful what you ask for"...

      And why is auto insurance lopsided by gender but not medical insurance?

      And alimony in some states.

    4. Re:Social pressure by grasshoppa · · Score: 2

      Women also end up having to deal with family issues more, in part because they care more about family and home, and in part because men are on average domestically flaky.

      Whoa now, I get where you're coming with this, but your wording choice is poor. Time was there was a gendered based split of responsibilities; men brought home the cash, women took care of the children and house. That isn't men being "domestically flaky". Now a days that's even less true; more and more men are working their asses off, mixing child care duties with full time jobs. Still not "domestically flaky".

      Sharing responsibilities isn't being flaky.

      --
      Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    5. Re: Social pressure by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

      I suspect we would get a whole lot of women who were previously feminists lobbying to ban women in the armed forces altogether. Might as well have the useless gender fight.

    6. Re:Social pressure by tsotha · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure how to explain this without sounding like a misogynist, but careers are often more important to men because men are more often judged by income.

      I've always thought a good measure of the health of a society is the extent to which obvious truths can be articulated and obvious falsehoods challenged. The fact that you (quite justifiably) feel you have to preemptively shield yourself from allegations of misogyny for stating something this obvious is a sad commentary on our times.

    7. Re:Social pressure by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      There will never be another big war. If there is, it will last 20-30 minutes with equal casualties on all sides (including the ones not fighting).

    8. Re: Social pressure by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Artificial Wombs Are Coming, but the Controversy Is Already Here which seems strange since it would eliminate most problems.

    9. Re:Social pressure by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      In my observation, men seem to be inherently careless about house-work relative to the average/typical woman. Women notice details that men seem lackadaisical about.

      Maybe it's only a generational thing and it will someday even out, but my gut feeling is that women have an inherent "nesting instinct" that man don't. We don't have enough empirical data to prove it either way because social factors of the current society are difficult to remove from "tests".

    10. Re:Social pressure by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Women also end up having to deal with family issues more, in part because they care more about family and home, and in part because men are on average domestically flaky.

      What you have just said is that men get paid more in part because they're less competent. Just thought I'd point it out.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  14. I hope they pay their people hourly by kick6 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    if they're salaried it's not equal pay for equal work as women take more sick days. First link I found says SIGNIFICANTLY more. https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

    1. Re:I hope they pay their people hourly by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I haven't taken a sick day in nearly ten years.
      Oh yeah, that reminds me, I've never worked for a company that offered sick days. Oh well.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:I hope they pay their people hourly by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Well then they ought to be paying women MORE. Having toxic idiots "manfully" struggle into the office to spread disease everywhere and infect everyone else is a fantastic way of wrecking productivity.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:I hope they pay their people hourly by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Another way to look at this is that men don't take enough sick days. They would rather come in to work feeling unwell, be unproductive and infect everyone else, than ask for a day to recover. I used to be like that, until my boss encouraged me to take more days, and then I realized I can get over a cold in a day or two instead of a week if I just rest properly.

      Plus, women tend to take on more childcare than men, so some of the time is used for that and again men should be taking more to look after their kids.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  15. Bleh. Equal my ass by guises · · Score: 1

    After reading just the title I was prepared to be floored by an announcement that Microsoft had cut executive pay by a huge amount and given raises to everyone else in the company. Instead it's just another gender story, of how many? Great.

    I mean, I guess what they're saying is good and all, it sorta sounds good(ish), but it's hardly noteworthy. You can achieve gender/race parity just by offering fixed salaries for given roles and refusing to negotiate. It's a pretty common practice.

  16. Re: And what about vacation inequality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This. Anytime you hire a woman you know you're not going to be able to get as much work out of them.

  17. My 2 cents by Iamthecheese · · Score: 1

    Minor differences like that can be expected. Larger ones, even. Worrying about this kind of thing is counter-productive and has to be hurting moral. You know what, pay everyone else 100 and 1 percent what I make. I won't complain. Because 1% of my pay is far overshadowed by other aspects of the environment. My boss being a slightly cooler guy is more important. My workplace being less uptight is worth more than that. Knowing we're not wasting money counting pennies is worth more than that. So here's my 2 cents. Keep it, because you're worth it.

    --
    If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
  18. Re: And what about vacation inequality? by tnk1 · · Score: 1

    You did the right thing. I wouldn't begrudge the women their time off, especially if is part of their promised benefits, but *you* have a right to time off too. I don't take a lot of vacation, but I should never be in a situation where I cannot do so because someone else is always out.

    That's when they hire someone else to pick up the slack, or have the manager suck it up, or I'd walk out the door.

  19. Re:And what about vacation inequality? by tnk1 · · Score: 1

    Yes. It is understandable that they take so much at once, but the company does not get to shaft you to make up for it.

  20. What they are lowering womens wages ?? by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

    http://www.theguardian.com/mon...
    "Women in 20s earn more than men"

    Women are already making more than men as is

    1. Re:What they are lowering womens wages ?? by cbhacking · · Score: 2

      Well, yeah, if you don't correct for education then of course people at the age of "right out of college" will earn more; more women get degrees! This is an unsurprising result of looking at the earning potential of those with and without a degree, and then looking at the gender ratio of college graduates. True, some of the high-paying skilled fields are male-dominated (software being an obvious example), but those don't make up for the relative dearth of men with a tertiary degree in general.

      The fact that the trend reverses so sharply at 30 is interesting. One possibility is just that women in their 30s are far more likely to have kids and thus only work part-time jobs. Normally I'd say any study which failed to account for that was trash, but this study already appears to have failed to account for education, so yeah, it's trash. If part-time-working moms in their 30ss still make less than part-time-working dads in their 30s (especially at similar education levels), then maybe there's a problem. If childless 30-something women still make much less than childless 30-something men, then maybe there's a problem.

      I say "maybe" in both cases because there's a ton of stuff to take into consideration. Education, part-time vs. full-time, and the field in which you work are all easy examples (easy to identify, not always to fix) but there are many others that may be relevant. Microsoft's work here is a good example of doing it right: by comparing title (which covers area of work, plus promotions) and level (seniority and past performance) with like title and level, they are correcting for many of the obvious problems.

      Of course, as a whole, women at MS still make way less than men, but that's because there are ~4x as many man at Microsoft as there are women. That's an example of how easy it is to skew statistics, though, and nothing more. On an individual level, for the same kind of work, women appear to earn very nearly the same as men. That's an impressive achievement on Microsoft's part, especially since the tech industry is undeniably male-heavy and there's no reason to think that all the competing gender biases in such an uneven workforce would *exactly* cancel out and avoid preferential treatment for one gender.

      --
      There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  21. BTW this was mathematically inevitable by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

    If you set things so you can't pay women less than men, it's inevitable they will earn more.

    1. Re:BTW this was mathematically inevitable by Crashmarik · · Score: 2

      Yes, because "not less than" is exactly the same thing as "strictly greater than", right?

      Did you fail math in elementary school or something?

      I am going to be unusually kind for me and suggest you actually try working this out.

      You can try using two random variables and see what happens whenever 1 distribution defines what lowest matching value is in the 2nd

      If you don't understand what I just said. Take two dice of different colors. Call one men, the other women. Roll 20 times, whenever the women die comes up with a smaller number than the men die, set it's value to the men die.

    2. Re:BTW this was mathematically inevitable by goose-incarnated · · Score: 2

      Yes, because "not less than" is exactly the same thing as "strictly greater than", right?

      Did you fail math in elementary school or something?

      When a statistical truth meets a political ideology, which do you think will come off better? Fact is, given two variables X and Y, if X is never allowed to fall below whatever Y is at that point in time, then it is a statistical certainty that X will always average higher than Y. Always.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    3. Re:BTW this was mathematically inevitable by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I am going to be unusually kind for me and suggest you actually try working this out.

      That is unusually kind of you.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    4. Re:BTW this was mathematically inevitable by cbhacking · · Score: 1

      Right, because choosing what to pay people is determined by rolling dice, right? I appreciate your kindness but I question your capacity for reason.

      To within trivial margins, it is entirely possible for two intelligently chosen values to be equal, even if one of them has a hard cap of "shall never be less than the other".

      In fact, if you're paying any attention at all, you'll notice that's pretty much exactly what Microsoft is talking about here: they've gotten the gender pay gap to a nearly-trivial difference.

      --
      There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
    5. Re:BTW this was mathematically inevitable by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      I know, age is catching up with me. Just don't have the energy for angry any more.

    6. Re:BTW this was mathematically inevitable by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      Son there are lots of good strategies to deal with a mistake.

      Yours isn't one of them.

  22. Re:And what about vacation inequality? by guruevi · · Score: 1

    It IS against federal law. FLSA does not require anyone to get any vacation but it does require that any policies are not discriminatory. So if you get less vacation than your female or Indian co-workers, you could sue them for discrimination.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  23. Re:H1Bs? by I4ko · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately I'm sure it doesn't.

    As an H1B I regularly see certain other H1Bs where it takes more than two of those to complete less than half of the deliverables that I complete and deliver in the same time frame, who also are extremely averse to both initiative for taking new tasks and responsibility for their shoddy work, while at the same time proclaiming how hard it is to do something like installing a package with yum/yast, but always give lip service to their bosses.
    Yet they are always the ones patted on the back, getting plaquettes and vacation bonuses for "achievements" which to me a routine stuff I do twice weekly. And I am always the one everyone doesn't even want to talk about, but every 6 to 12 months I gat a new responsibility shoved on my plate, and everybody runs to me when there is a problem with some customer (otherwise they won't allow me to talk with them).

    Am I making at least twice as much as those other H1Bs, that is not even the question.

    I'm also ... Caucasian male.

  24. Re:And what about vacation inequality? by guruevi · · Score: 2

    FMLA (Family Medical Leave) is not paid but you could get it as well even if you are male. Any policies regarding negative Paid Time Off would also have to apply to you.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  25. A man in our society is expected to work hard... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    What you say is true, but almost never acknowledged by the SJW crowd. A man in our society is expected to work hard his entire life to be the "bread winner" of the family. He is looked upon poorly if he doesn't have a job or doesn't make much money. Some men literally kill themselves working. Meanwhile, a woman can coast along as a "homemaker" her entire life and not be judged harshly. And sure, everyone plays up how "hard" it is to maintain the home and raise kids. We all know the truth.

  26. Apples to the entire plant kingdom? by cbhacking · · Score: 1

    This statistics used here are for within Microsoft, not for either the industry or the workforce as a whole. I'm not aware of any claims that women or minorities at Microsoft were making 77 cents per dollar their white male colleagues get.

    Even if what you claim - that the 77 cent thing is a myth and a lie - is true, your ideological bias is showing really, really strongly here. If you want to be taken seriously, try to avoid equating two completely unequal things (Microsoft's compensation and the workforce as a whole).

    --
    There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  27. and the trees were all kept equal by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1

    by hatchet, axe, and saw

  28. Re: And what about vacation inequality? by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

    Well, just threaten to sue the company. Assuming you don't live in California it should be easy.

  29. Efforts?! by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    How much fucking effort does it take to change a number in a ledger??

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  30. Re:A man in our society is expected to work hard.. by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What you describe are exactly the kind of gender stereotypes and expectations set by them that those evil "SJWs" are arguing against.

    (And yes, they do raise the issue with male stereotypes, as well. If you haven't seen it, then you haven't been looking.)

  31. Good to see censorship is alive and well by s.petry · · Score: 2

    You are attempting to conflate some very separate issues. The one I discussed is gender discrimination, and you are talking about a biological function. Which if you don't take time off for, I will assume there is something wrong with you. Given my assumption, and I realize this is difficult for social justice warriors to do, put yourself in the place of a business owner. Would _you_ hire a pregnant person? If it is not skilled work and easy to replace sure, but the majority of businesses would see that as a costly hire. No, not because of gender discrimination, but because of a huge problem with investment which potentially has zero return. If a guy was getting hired in and said "hey, I need to have leg surgery in a few months and will be out of work for a few months" would they be hired? NO, and for the same reason which is exactly not discrimination.

    In most jobs you are not productive within your first 30-60 days. Once you start you have to be introduced to everyone, do days worth of mandatory training, do all your paperwork for banking, insurance, federal and state taxes, get your necessary gear and materials, get trained on your specific area of responsibility, learn the chain of command, learn the priorities, learn your bosses style, etc.. etc.. etc... If you are 5-6 months pregnant (you said obvious and most people are not obviously pregnant until then) by the time you get the hang of things and start to produce you are out on leave. By the time you return the manager may be different, accounts and teams get moved around, and if and when you return there is another decent amount of unproductive time. I know plenty of women who never returned to work after having a baby, and many others take a year or more off of work when they have a baby.

    Let us not neglect that in San Francisco it was just made law that the company has to pay you for 8 weeks of paid leave without exception. Start a job today, work for a few months, get paid for another 2 months for time off, and maybe never return to that job.

    Now again, look at it from a hiring managers perspective. It's not a discrimination problem, that is a liability and cost problem. If you look at that from an unbiased view the reason not to hire is blatantly obvious.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Good to see censorship is alive and well by s.petry · · Score: 1

      My use of the term "social justice warrior" was rather intentional, grammatically correct. Plenty of references for the phrase's use, and if the shoe fits maybe you should re-evaluate your belief system instead of claiming I should put something in quotes.

      I gave you the questions, and you refused to answer. 1) Would a man be hired if he was going to undergo surgery in a few months and would be out of work for at least a few months after (I don't care about you, I care about the average time for maternity leave.)? NO, you would not hire such a person. No, it's not because of gender discrimination. 2) Would you hire someone that you have pay to for any amount of time for not working within a few months of being hired? Most people have to work for a year to earn 2 weeks vacation and a few sick/holidays off.

      If you answer differently you are completely dishonest and simply looking for a way to claim victimhood. Bonding time with a new baby is critical, but the Government should not force employers to pay people to have a family. That last part is why companies don't really want to hire people who are already pregnant. The company gets penalized for doing so. People should really stop trying to make society as a whole responsible for the results of their personal choices.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  32. Wrong! by s.petry · · Score: 1

    This is where the salary myth goes haywire. For a whole lot of reasons women tend to work less hours than men. That general rule is backed by US Census data, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Labor, and every other agency that checks statistics including Universities, State agencies, Large companies, etc..etc..

    Do you believe that you working 38 hours a week should make the same wage as someone working 45 hours a week? That is the only way that parity works, unless people work the exact same hours at the same job. Which they do not, for all kinds of reasons. Pregnancy for example, women take time off because they are the only gender that can give birth. Men tend to work tons of extra hours to ensure that the family needs are taken care of during that time.

    This dream of utopia where everyone all the time makes the same wage no matter what does not work. It has been tried countless times through history, but it can never work. Read some history books if you have doubts.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re: Wrong! by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

      If equal pay for equal hours was such a big thing, the CEO wouldn't be making 200x more than the grunts.

  33. History by Etherwalk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do you believe that you working 38 hours a week should make the same wage as someone working 45 hours a week? That is the only way that parity works, unless people work the exact same hours at the same job. Which they do not, for all kinds of reasons. Pregnancy for example, women take time off because they are the only gender that can give birth.

    Know your history. Believe it or not, Congress knew and understood very clearly when they passed the Equal Pay Act that it cost businesses more to employ women because of Pregnancy, for example. They had statistics on it, they understood that a purely economic decision would have taken that into account.

    And they decided to pass the equal pay act anyway. Because there are social goals that we are willing to pay money for and make the economy less efficient to achieve. That's why we don't allow slavery. That's why we don't allow child labor. That's why we allow antidiscrimination lawsuits around race.

    It's not perfectly fair to men, of course--it necessarily means that men are cross-subsidizing women and getting paid less. But it's still something we've decided is desirable. If you want to change it, elect a new Congress.

    1. Re:History by stdarg · · Score: 1

      Because there are social goals that we are willing to pay money for and make the economy less efficient to achieve. That's why we don't allow slavery. That's why we don't allow child labor.

      Slavery is allowed. The 13th amendment has a provision to allow slavery as punishment for a crime. We have slave labor in prisons.

      But you're wrong about the economic argument... slave labor is not more efficient than free market labor, particularly wage slaves and obviously machine labor. The reason slaves make license plates in prisons is that the prisons get a sweetheart deal and it pads their funding... but a wage slave factory in China could turn out better license plates for 1/2 the cost.

      Slavery is an example of an inefficient local minimum. While slavery exists it seems like it's the cheapest way you can do it, and a lot of effort is put into maintaining that state. But then someone comes along and invents the cotton gin... would it have been invented sooner if slavery hadn't been around?

    2. Re:History by Immerman · · Score: 1

      >slave labor is not more efficient than free market labor

      How exactly would do you expect a free person with some non-destitute standard of living to be able to do a job more cheaply than a slave who need only be provided with the bare minimum of food and shelter necessary to maintain productivity?

      No, that doesn't necessarily address regional variations in the cost to provide that minimum maintenance. Nor whether some regions have such poorly organized labor that free men are willing to work for such minimum maintenance. But that's not really any more relevant than the cost of automation. If you need men to do a job, slavery is likely to be the cheapest way to get it done. The only way even "wage slavery" is liable to be cheaper is if you're required skills change frequently, and you have a large labor pool of people that already have the necessary skills, and are desperate enough to work for less than the cost of survival.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    3. Re:History by tnk1 · · Score: 2

      Slaves have poor productivity and zero incentive.

      As an "asset", a slave has to be maintained. You can whip slaves and all of that, but all it does is put a slave out of commission. You usually aren't permitted to kill slaves, but even where you are, you just flushed the money you paid for them down the toilet.

      "Free" but low wage workers must shift for themselves in terms of finding shelter, health care, etc. If that worker does not take care of themselves and dies or is sick, they don't get paid and are replaced by someone else.

      Understand that a slave is entirely maintained at the expense of the slaveholder. Since the slave will never get more than a slave bunk and slave labor, they're not even going to try and work harder. If they make no money, they have no one to send their checks back to in order to make it worthwhile to sleep in a dorm with a bunch of others.

      Slave labor has basically one advantage over low wage free people, they can be forcibly imported to work on something, which means you don't have to go to a place with a high rate of available low wage workers. This was a big advantage of the slave trade in the Americas. Native populations either wouldn't do the work, or couldn't handle it. And more to the point, there were really never that many natives to enslave anyway, particularly in Thirteen Colonies. African slaves were imported to make up for that lack of labor. If they had high numbers of, let's say, illegal immigrant populations like today, slavery would not have been as economically beneficial.

    4. Re:History by tnk1 · · Score: 2

      Yes, historically Congress passed an unfunded mandate which effectively made women into a class of people who it costs more to employ, with no benefit to the employer.

      And we are surprised that in a scenario where it is difficult to evaluate and confirm the reasons why employers aren't hiring women, that they are, in fact, not hired.

      Now presumably there is some benefit to employing women which makes the extra cost necessary. And if someone could actually identify and quantify that particular set of benefits, then calculations on the hiring of women can be added to the calculations and appropriate measures can be taken to show that it is a benefit to the bottom line.

      And let's be honest, just saying "it's fair" is completely bogus. You could say that, *based on one set of priorities*. However, it is distinctly *unfair* if you evaluate another set of priorities. And then you ask yourself, whose priorities are they? Are they an employer's priorities or the government's priorities.

      If it is the government's priorities, then the government should pay for it. Of course, the government loves getting votes by listening to the "there oughta be a law" people, but the whole "paying for it" thing would make them unpopular, so they just dump the responsibility on someone else.

      After all, if you already own a bunch of guns, it's just cheaper to point them at an employer and tell them they have to do it, or else. But then, don't expect employers to be eager to pay for your little social revolution that gets them nothing.

      Honestly, if there is some way in which women, all factors being nearly equal, are being paid less then men, then I am totally for eradicating that, but I don't see that being the case.

      However, if you're going to tell me that we just have to sort of engage in unfairness that does not have any bearing on productivity, then I really think someone actually needs to do a significantly better job of selling it, if you really want any real movement on the "wage gap". Or we could just have a vote to entirely remove the onus on employers for the responsibility for undertaking "enhanced equality methods" and move it to the government and tax people for it appropriately instead of hiding in their usual weaselly way and making the employers the bad guys for simply trying to not get shafted by what even you admit was unfair.

    5. Re:History by Etherwalk · · Score: 1

      Yes, historically Congress passed an unfunded mandate which effectively made women into a class of people who it costs more to employ, with no benefit to the employer.

      Um... no. Women are a class of people who it costs more to employ in many jobs, because they take more leave. Congress didn't make that happen. Biology and social pressures did.

      Now presumably there is some benefit to employing women which makes the extra cost necessary. And if someone could actually identify and quantify that particular set of benefits, then calculations on the hiring of women can be added to the calculations and appropriate measures can be taken to show that it is a benefit to the bottom line.

      Yes, the theory is that it is a moral good to pay women equally for the same job, even though they take more leave on average. There may be some substantial second-order economic benefits, but the primary imperative was a normative decision.

      And let's be honest, just saying "it's fair" is completely bogus. You could say that, *based on one set of priorities*. However, it is distinctly *unfair* if you evaluate another set of priorities. And then you ask yourself, whose priorities are they? Are they an employer's priorities or the government's priorities.

      Yes, fairness and equality are inherently words subject to nearly infinite malleability. But your sources of priorities are limited in your example--the priorities may actually be the priorities of the people who elect legislators. "Government" is not some disembodied evil.

      If it is the government's priorities, then the government should pay for it. Of course, the government loves getting votes by listening to the "there oughta be a law" people, but the whole "paying for it" thing would make them unpopular, so they just dump the responsibility on someone else.

      So you would prefer your taxes go up and your female employees get a subsidy from government?

      Or we could just have a vote to entirely remove the onus on employers for the responsibility for undertaking "enhanced equality methods" and move it to the government and tax people for it appropriately instead of hiding in their usual weaselly way and making the employers the bad guys for simply trying to not get shafted by what even you admit was unfair.

      I didn't admit it was "unfair" to employers, I admitted it was unfair to men. It's a choice we've made as a society that you don't agree with and that taxes men by forcing wage parity (which increases women's salaries and decreases men's salaries, assuming a competitive market). If you don't like it, you are free to try to change the law.

    6. Re:History by stdarg · · Score: 1

      How exactly would do you expect a free person with some non-destitute standard of living to be able to do a job more cheaply than a slave

      I was talking about overall economic efficiency. It's true that a slave may do the job at hand more cheaply. No doubt that's true in some cases. However, when you pay someone to do the job, and in turn they pay for their own food, electricity, housing, clothing, etc.. you're growing your economy. By giving the person motivation to acquire more stuff (which slaves can't do), there's a decent chance they end up being more productive and competitive. After all there's only so much you can do to motivate slaves before they just give up on life and accept whatever punishment you dole out, like Pavlov's experiment with a dog in a cage with electric shocks running through the floor.. eventually they stop jumping and just take it.

      This isn't just theoretical, there are countries where slavery was going on openly until like the 1960s, and many where it continues today under the table. Guess what, not one of those countries is a world leader economically. They are shitholes. Slavery isn't providing them any kind of competitive advantage.

      But that's not really any more relevant than the cost of automation. If you need men to do a job, slavery is likely to be the cheapest way to get it done.

      Part of the issue with slavery's inefficiency is there's less incentive to automate stuff, so in the long run your costs are greater since you remain dependent on slaves.

  34. Re:A man in our society is expected to work hard.. by Uberbah · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What you describe are exactly the kind of gender stereotypes and expectations set by them that those evil "SJWs" are arguing against. (And yes, they do raise the issue with male stereotypes,

    Riiiiight, just like all the 70's feminist who ran around demanding that women be drafted into the Vietnam War: zero. Go over to Jezebel and say buttkiss about a negative stereotype against men, and tell us how many times you're accused of being that dreaded spawn of Satan, a mens rights activist.

  35. Try getting a job when you're as tall as Dinklage by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    As long as we're going for non-sequiturs, lets go all out.

    Believe it or not, Congress knew and understood very clearly when they passed the Equal Pay Act that it cost businesses more to employ women because of Pregnancy, for example

    For the same reason it costs more to employ men who are likely to take extended paternity leave or drop out of the workforce entirely for several years. And why they make less money when they rejoin the workforce, with less experience than their former co-workers.

    Equality is neat that way.

  36. Re:A man in our society is expected to work hard.. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Riiiiight,

    Um yes? I've frequently been accused of being an "SJW" and have frequently written such things. So sure if you ignore everyone who says something that co0ntradicts you then no one contradicts you! Neat-o.

    just like all the 70's feminist who ran around demanding that women be drafted into the Vietnam War: zero.

    The stupid... it burns.

    It's quite remarkable how much dumbassery you managed to cram into a scant 19 words.

    Plenty of self-identified feminists protested AGAINST the vietnam war. It would have been idiotic to advocate for women to be sent off to the slaughter like men, when the option was instead to advocate that men weren't sent off to the slaughter just like women. The thing is that actually fits your worldview even worse because then those evil feminists were advocating on behalf of men to get one of the "privileges" that women had.

    Go over to Jezebel and say buttkiss about a negative stereotype against men

    I have literally no idea what you mean.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  37. Re:A man in our society is expected to work hard.. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

    "SJWs" like myself do raise this all the time. There are actually words to describe it, words that trigger instant down-mods.

    The word to describe this situation is "patriarchy". It simply describes the way a society is biased towards masculinity, things like bread-winning over home-making, putting pressure on men to play certain roles and avoid others like being a stay at home parent. Things like running a household and brining up kids are undervalued, not seen as real work or something that only women do.

    Feminism has studied this for decades and offers solutions. In fact there has been a lot of success, when you consider what the 1950s model father and mother were like. But for some people feminism is a trigger word, so they down-mod it hard and then complain that feminists don't care about these issues.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  38. Re: And what about vacation inequality? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    I think it's that way at all startups.

    I have my own startup at the moment. Everyone there gets time off. Why? Because it's not civilised nor productive to have no time off.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  39. Re:A man in our society is expected to work hard.. by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

    "Some men literally kill themselves working."

    I sometimes wonder what would happen to the pay gap if you added the salaries from the population which committed suicide. Suicide rates being much higher among men.

    Anyway, in my lifetime, working in tech, Microsoft is the norm. There has been no paygap along my career path, and there have been very, very few women, even though I interview and hire them preferentially. none apply.

  40. I wonder about this by phorm · · Score: 1

    I wonder if it's social pressures, or some other driving force. I can only go on personal experience, but I know a gal who was quite smart. At least as much as myself (no, not being egotistic, just comparative), and definitely better educated. We competed on grades in secondary school. Post HS, she took the same program in Uni as me plus others I didn't take.

    However, afterwards, the job market was of course tough for everyone. We both initially ended up with fairly low-paying jobs (not minimum wage but only a bit better than) that were only somewhat related to our education. From there, that's where we diverged. I often gave up my "comfort zone" to take risks on better jobs. First, it was a job was better than my previous, but only offered trial contract where I split shifts with another person (and thus, I had two jobs that I worked part-time). I hung in with it and eventually the other guy quit, leaving me a decent full-time position. From there, I moved between various jobs - even moving across the country - generally improving my situation or sometimes staying in something similar but learning more.

    My friend, on the other hand, was not into looking for a new job. Even when her hours got cut back, and it was a "writing-on-the-wall" scenario, she wouldn't look until things pretty much reached the end. Even after that, she went into a similar industry that didn't pay great and didn't make use of her education. I will also confess that for awhile, said friend and I dated, and throughout I was pushing her to try for something better as I knew she was more than capable.

    Again, I only have person experience to go on, but I've found this the case with many female friends, relatives, and colleagues. There seems to be less risk-taking or changing of positions in general.

  41. Re:A man in our society is expected to work hard.. by ventsyv · · Score: 2

    You don't know what you are talking about. Hundreds of thousands of women enlisted and served during WWI and WWII. The ban on women serving in combat roles was lifted in 2013 and women have applied for those roles.

  42. April 8th (not April 12th) by buckbanzaii · · Score: 1

    Today, April 12th, is supposed to be Equal Pay Day. The day of the year that supposedly marks how much more a woman has to work this year to make up for last year's difference. The attention-grabbing figure is 79%. That would mean that a man makes 26% more than a woman. Doing the math, this date then should have been April 8th. At just after 2am if you're wanting to set off fireworks.

  43. Re: And what about vacation inequality? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Strange - that applies no place I've worked.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  44. Re:A man in our society is expected to work hard.. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Riiiiight, just like all the 70's feminist who ran around demanding that women be drafted into the Vietnam War: zero.

    Since the draft was over on (IIRC) June 30, 1971, and US participation in the war dropped pretty rapidly after 1968, they wouldn't have had much time to do so. My wife did object to not being subject to the draft, FWIW, although I didn't observe any other woman doing so.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  45. Re:H1Bs? by beastofburdon · · Score: 1

    Welcome to the world of adults. You will find this treatment in practically every business or institution in the world. But if you want to see it to its extreme take a look at the US military. In our military no good deed goes unpunished, and no worthless piece of shit goes unrewarded.

  46. I don't see the point by allo · · Score: 1

    If they want to offer 100% pay, why don't they just do it? I mean they seem to be really close to it, what's the point in not saying "that's our contract, it was made before we knew your gender, because that's what you earn on that position"?

  47. Re:A man in our society is expected to work hard.. by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    You don't know what you are talking about. Hundreds of thousands of women enlisted and served during WWI and WWII.

    1) Google the definition of enlisting
    2) Google the definition of being drafted
    3) Serving in a hospital isn't the same thing as serving in a trench, or storming a beach
    4) Tell us again who doesn't know what they are talking about

    The ban on women serving in combat roles was lifted in 2013 and women have applied for those roles.

    And yet remain exempt from the Selective Service Act. See 4) again.

  48. Re:A man in our society is expected to work hard.. by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    My wife did object to not being subject to the draft, FWIW, although I didn't observe any other woman doing so.

    She should check and see if there's a prize for being the first one to do so. As for being over in 1971:

    U.S. military draft ends, Jan. 27, 1973

    On the day in 1973, as the Vietnam War drew to a close, the Selective Service announced that there would be no further draft calls. The decision came several months after President Richard M. Nixon had easily won reelection, running against Democratic Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, an outspoken opponent of the war.

    In the 1968 presidential campaign, Nixon had promised to end the draft. During his time out of office, the GOP nominee had become interested in the prospect of an all-volunteer force. Nixon was influenced by Martin Anderson, an associate professor at Columbia University.

    Nixon thought ending the draft could be an effective political weapon against the burgeoning anti-war movement. He believed middle-class youths would lose interest in protesting the war once it became clear that they would not have to fight, and possibly die, in Vietnam.

  49. Re:A man in our society is expected to work hard.. by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    Um yes? I've frequently been accused of being an "SJW" and have frequently written such things.

    Not in any place that has SJW's, you haven't. Otherwise you would have been sneered as a mens rights activist, and/or told to STFU because women have had it worse.

    The stupid... it burns.

    Nice shovel you have there.

    It's quite remarkable how much dumbassery you managed to cram into a scant 19 words.

    Don't twist your ankle in that hole you're digging.

    Plenty of self-identified feminists protested AGAINST the vietnam war.

    Hey. Dumbfuck. Plenty of men protested the war, too - but their choices were to go to jail, flee to Canada, or be sent overseas to kill people minding their own damn business, or be killed themselves. Not to mention the chickenshit cop-out of crying about being against the war when the point is that your ass is exempt from the draft.