This is the interesting aspect of victimhood dialogues to me. Everybody has to quote the past to keep the conversation alive. We don’t live in the past and we have blown right by equality in opportunity to slanting bias from the other side. This how you create a boomerang effect, not a solution.
1 Like
The only thing I disagree with here is the “gender pay gap” - it’s not existent when data from equivalent jobs and normalized for hours is looked at.
The whole 77 cents on the dollar nonsense has been long debunked because it uses aggregate hours of men and women in the workforce, not controlling for any variables.
this is my point when talking about “discrimination”
exactly. And those hours are caused by taking on more of caretaking duties (mostly voluntary too) after pregnancy/childbirth aftermath
One thing is that people don’t treat pregnancy as a serious medical condition the same way they treat something like heart failure, IBD, CKD, so theres complaints of “discrimination”
Imagine if there was another disease that caused nausea, extreme bloating, hypermobility, risk of dangerous high blood pressure, abdominal separation and after 9 months, a grapefruit sized internal wound or required major abdominal surgery to treat, then caused the patient to get up every couple hours every night for up to a year after the surgery + high risk of serious mental health issues + possibly painful discharge from breasts
3 Likes
People who have watched their significant other go through it don’t feel this way. I watched through 8 miscarriages and a pregnancy that almost killed my wife. Thankfully more companies are offering paid maternal leave for 6-8 weeks now. It’s talking heads that try to use that point that it is often voluntarily.
Usually to make up for that loss of dual income (assuming the woman was working prior to childbirth), the father will take on more hours to support his family…
2 Likes
I vote for 16 weeks. And paternal leave also needs to be a thing in the US to support mothers.
Luckily I work for myself so the company has a pretty generous policy when that happens.
I’m sorry man. I can’t imagine how awful that must have been. Mine were c-sections and a week+ in NICU.
I mean, I’ve seen my wife’s uterus and she hasn’t.
1 Like
My point is that until women don’t have to be pregnant and give birth, there isn’t going to be equality the way “extreme feminists” envision regardless of how accomodating systems are
Not achieving equality isn’t bad either. I’m sure most mums would much rather have their children than a promotion. Most of my female profs have multiple kids, and I highly doubt all of those kids were accidents (the first kid was actually accidental for a couple of them). By revealed preference, they choose kids over career
1 Like
What are you advocating for? Pregnancy is costly physically as well as financially. But why should that cost be publicly shared? I take care of my wife and kids and made sure that my wife did not have to work during her pregnancies. Why should I pay for maternity leave for someone else?
Im not advocating for anything.
Just pointing out that being a woman really sucks sometimes, it’s not anyone’s fault
I don’t think it should be publically shared. From a firm’s perspective, having relatively generous maternity and paternity leave is actually profitable the same way having sick leave is, because pregnancy is basically a sickness
I don’t think you’ll find many at large employers like where you work. Smaller companies, especially privately-owned companies, can be very different types of little kingdoms.
I’ve definitely worked at a few boys clubs where a woman might have a tough time fitting in. Not for reasons found in the handbook, but because almost no women self-selected to do the work in the first place. The bro culture can be pretty entrenched in places where no women have worked for years. That’s not to say a women will get mistreated, but that she will absolutely be treated differently.
For another example, let’s look at truck driving. It is vitally important work that most people can learn how to do. It pays well, yet only six percent of drivers are female. Why aren’t American women lining up to haul freight? Why do a bunch of eastern European jerks haul that shit instead of someone’s baby mama?
There can be a lot of reasons for that, especially family commitment, but even if someone like anna decided to get her CDL and hit the road, she would be 100 percent guaranteed to have a dramatically different experience than you would.
She would often be singled out at rest stops, at loading docks and especially if she starts talking on a CB radio, which is a pretty important tool for making a living driving a truck. Imagine being the only female driver at a warehouse with 50 other drivers all on the same CB channel trying to get loaded and unloaded. There’s no “sent by” on a CB catcall, it’s just words over the airwaves that could have been said by any one of those guys.
A young gal recently made me slightly less pessimistic about young people when she crashed a boys club. She was a mechanical engineering intern who was extremely bright, looked nice, had good social skills and went totally apeshit tinkering in the machine shop with a bunch of fellas her age and they all seemed to get along like peas in a pod.
It’s always nice to meet an engineer who doesn’t look and act like a complete hobgoblin at work. If she keeps it up she will have a lot of doors opening up for her.
A local student recently wrote an essay in our college’s newspaper demanding that men stop exposing themselves in public. This was because some dude stalked her on campus and then started whacking it in front of her. The cops found him, booked him and he was able to make his bail, which was $5. Yes, five dollars.
She was correctly outraged at the entire thing, because guys should know better than to do that and WTF $5?!?!? Being a local student, she of course identified the patriarchy as being somehow responsible for the whole thing. This strikes me as odd, because the same crowd working to “dismantle the patriarchy” are the ones responsible for “bail reform” that results in bail figures so low that they’re actually more insulting to victims than a cashless bail system.
In summary, I don’t think there are many institutional or legal disadvantages for women in the USA, unless you want to consider examples like the one I just mentioned. I do think that’s worth considering, because the people most at-risk from allowing assholes to roam society are women. I think there is a good argument for institutional sexism in that regard, but you can’t really blame the patriarchy for letting the sex offenders walk free for $5.
Otherwise, the institutional patriarchy seems to be stamped out fairly thoroughly. Some people will still mistreat you for all kinds of reasons, and some people will be mistreated more than others.
3 Likes
I’d need to see data on this to believe it. It sounds like a made-up claim by people who want to implement a policy.
The problem isn’t with the care of affluent women, who typically have either work benefits or affluent men to provide support, it’s to do with poor men and women. That is where the public’s money comes into play.
There are more poor now.
I agree, there aren’t many institutional or legal barriers, it’s more cultural
For example, paternity leave policy is all well and good, but how many dads would feel comfortable taking it?
it’s the same phenomenon of something being “optional” officially, but practically isn’t
Another example is something like scheduling networking or “optional” events at times when women would disproportionately be forced to choose between caretaking or attending them.
3 Likes
Companies that offer unlimited PTO actually have employees take less time off.
1 Like
My work offered 2 week’s paternity (paid) for my youngest. I took every minute of it. They are only that little once.
Yeah I think you’ll find that most dudes will take every second of time off that’s offered. I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I can unofficially take a lot more than that. This is deeply unfair to people who don’t have my responsibilities, penis, or broader skillset, but that’s how it goes sometimes out there in the patriarchy.
Maybe anecdotal but in my experience women in the workplace sort of wait to be “invited” for raises and promotions. Men are much more assertive in their career growth.
While I think it’s important for employers to hold metric based reviews, in part to identify performers & talent and promote/reward/retain, the squeaky wheel will always get the grease. This is a function of life, not bias. Proaction > reaction.
I’m sure there is a gender studies degree that has a chapter on catering to unassertive women, and a chapter on how not doing so is institutional bias, but that’s bullshit. Women can work on being better just like men can.
2 Likes
nope, not just your anecdote.
There are a lot of studies showing that women are less assertive (on average)
There’s also research that women are viewed less favourably when they are assertive
2 Likes
You look like you’re holding hands with that fella in this picture. 
I think he’s Sicilian. They’re like the ‘‘Italians’’ of Italy, whereas those Northerners are like the Anglo-Americans of Italy.
Oh, come on. That’s only happened every single time privileges are given in exchange for past injustice. This time, it’ll be different.
2 Likes
I think there is a difference between assertive and uppity, and sometimes women miss the line. My take is that they have to build themselves up to be assertive, and by the time they feel they “can do this” they’re over the top.
Probably anecdotal this time.
I think it’s cute. And the message itself is more important than delivery style.
2 Likes