April 24 was Equal Pay Day, a day feminists go nuts telling us how women are discriminated against in the workforce.
Women still make about 77 cents for every dollar that men do, and this is the number feminists like to use when they discuss pay equity. Echidne has a three-part series trying to argue that women virtually always earn less than men because of discrimination.
Unfortunately for her (and other moonbats), that's just not true.
In his Townhall.com column, Steve Chapman points out that very little of the wage gap can be attributed to discrimination.
But read more, and you learn things that don't get much notice on Equal Pay Day. As the report acknowledges, women with college degrees tend to go into fields like education, psychology and the humanities, which typically pay less than the sectors preferred by men, such as engineering, math and business. They are also more likely than men to work for nonprofit groups and local governments, which do not offer salaries that Alex Rodriguez would envy.
As they get older, many women elect to work less so they can spend time with their children. A decade after graduation, 39 percent of women are out of the work force or working part time -- compared with only 3 percent of men. When these mothers return to full-time jobs, they naturally earn less than they would have if they had never left.
Even before they have kids, men and women often do different things that may affect earnings. A year out of college, notes AAUW, women in full-time jobs work an average of 42 hours a week, compared to 45 for men. Men are also far more likely to work more than 50 hours a week.
Buried in the report is a startling admission: "After accounting for all factors known to affect wages, about one-quarter of the gap remains unexplained and may be attributed to discrimination" (my emphasis). Another way to put it is that three-quarters of the gap clearly has innocent causes -- and that we actually don't know whether discrimination accounts for the rest.
I asked Harvard economist Claudia Goldin if there is sufficient evidence to conclude that women experience systematic pay discrimination. "No," she replied. There are certainly instances of discrimination, she says, but most of the gap is the result of different choices. Other hard-to-measure factors, Goldin thinks, largely account for the remaining gap -- "probably not all, but most of it."
Does discrimination still exist? Yes, it does. Some of that discrimination doesn't work the way feminists tell us it does, though. For example, some women internalize their victim status to a point where they find discrimination where none may exist. In other words, you may think the boss frowned at your curly hair worn down but he might have been frowning because you were late again or for some completely unrelated reason.
I've worked in a variety of offices where women were rare. There were a lot of unwelcomed remarks made about my femaleness (and some very questionable behavior, as well), but I would not have called most of it discrimination, and I was never made to feel as though my femaleness was costing me advancement in the company. What I did find quite a bit, is that particular choices of my own changed my opportunities within the company; when I worked a lot of hours and spent a lot of time trying to improve things for my boss (and, by extension, the company), I was rewarded with promotions and raises. When I just clocked in my hours and left as soon as possible, I didn't get those things.
I'm certain I could have been a high-flying lawyer had I chosen to spend the time and effort on that career. The same could be said of journalism. If I'd been willing to sacrifice family and home, I probably could have had a much more illustrious career in the field. But, like most women, I chose not to do those things because my family, my children, my parents were more important. Consequently, I've taken jobs that have allowed me to do those things. Or I took no job at all.
Feminists don't like to address the fact that women do make different choices where their careers are concerned. Women do pursue work for non-profits and charities more often than men. I don't know if it makes us better people that we are motivated more by the quality of our efforts than the money we make, but I know that I am happier doing things that help people rather than just things that make a lot of money.
It's difficult to account for the pay gap entirely. Yes, there is still some discrimination against women because of their sex. But the vast majority of the difference in pay between men and women is because of the choices we make as individuals.
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