Hey here’s another episode about Skunk Dicks, because 1) they’ve been piling up in our absence and 2) these episodes don’t require much work. So, yeah. Here it is.
13 Responses to “2.53 More Skunks”
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Dear Chuck and the lazy one. Thanks for another episode so close to the last!!
Now we know how lazy Matt is, so how about the next say five episodes being chuck going through his review of Richard Carries book that you mentioned over a year ago. As I’ve not heard anyone review this book and chuck has alread listened to it he can just ask Matt on his views on each section. The right amount of non work that he likes.
In case you were unaware, the gender pay gap has been roundly debunked. The methodology used by the studies used a very flawed method of comparing the average income for men and women, but not the income of men and women in the same field–in other words, women are not paid the same as men because they are not doing the same job as men. Men are more inclined to go into fields that are more dangerous like construction or more academically rigorous like engineering; women tend towards safer fields like nursing or social work. Even when women are actively encouraged to go into STEM fields they opt for the softer degrees like communications or nursing.
When the aforementioned variables are taken into account you find that the gap is more along the lines of 6%, but that gap is also explained by men working more hours or are better at negotiating a higher salary; women tend to opt to work less hours so they can spend more time with family whereas men tend to work additional hours to support the family.
I cannot take credit for this, but if women were actually getting paid less for doing the exact same job wouldn’t women be the only ones getting employed as they are supposedly cheaper? Be hyper skeptical of gender or race related studies as they are conducted to push a narrative.
@Chuck I’m actually chick…so yeah…
Well dammit. This one then?
Wow, those are some powerful arguments, Chuck! You really showed Ophelua…
I find it sad how some people suspend critical thinking based on where a claim is coming from. If a claim come from the religious right, than it is torn apart but if a claim is made by feminists then it must be accepted uncritically. Not accepting the claim makes you a misogynist.
Anyone can put forward bad arguments, even people you agree with on other things. But all claims should be held up to the same scrutiny. If you are resorting to internet memes as arguments then maybe you should re-examine your position.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/the-biggest-myth-about-the-gender-wage-gap/276367/
I’ll take your article from one news organization and refute it with one from another news organization:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/the-pay-gap-is-because-of-gender-not-jobs.html?_r=0
Or you can try something a bit more scholarly, with facts and statistics instead of arguments over surveys and graphs.
http://inequality.stanford.edu/_media/pdf/key_issues/gender_research.pdf : an article reviewing years of research, along with proposed explanations for the gender pay gap and why the traditional explanations (like you find above) fail to explain the entire gap.
or
http://www.aauw.org/files/2016/02/SimpleTruth_Spring2016.pdf : which is only a few months old, and corroborates the findings of the previous article that all of the proposed “explanations” for the gender pay gap leave a large portion unexplained.
or for fuck’s sake try Wikipedia which also differentiates the gender pay gap into “explained” and “unexplained” portions, the unexplained being “typically attributed to discrimination.”
I think if you’re unwilling to cede that systemic sexism is responsible for quite a bit of that unexplained portion of the gender pay gap, you’re not worth the time to discuss the issue with, because you haven’t done enough research.
Instead, I’ll give you internet memes.
Unlike you Chuck, I am not an expert on this issue but it’s not difficult to find news articles or even studies that cast doubt on the claim that women are paid 23% less than men for the same work, and that this gap is primarily due to sexist discrimination. I mean, this is your claim, right?
For example:
“The above data goes to show that major choice is a key reason for the gender wage gap of 77 cents to the dollar. In other words, women tend to choose majors (and thus jobs) that pay less on average. However, these majors pay less to both men and women.”
http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2009/12/do-men-or-women-choose-majors-to-maximize-income
or
“Choice of occupation also plays an important role in earnings. While feminists suggest that women are coerced into lower-paying job sectors, most women know that something else is often at work. Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Simply put, many women—not all, but enough to have a big impact on the statistics—are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704415104576250672504707048
If you want more scholarly research with facts and statistics, there the 2009 CONSAD Research Corporation study prepared for the Department of Labor which cautioned against misinterpretation of census and other wage data, suggesting that the wage gap between the sexes was not due to systematic discrimination:
“As a result, it is not possible now, and doubtless will never be possible, to determine reliably whether any portion of the observed gender wage gap is not attributable to factors that compensate women and men differently on socially acceptable bases, and hence can confidently be attributed to overt discrimination against women. In addition, at a practical level, the complex combination of factors that collectively determine the wages paid to different individuals makes the formulation of policy that will reliably redress any overt discrimination that does exist a task that is, at least, daunting and, more likely, unachievable.”
http://commons.wikimannia.org/images/Gender_Wage_Gap_Final_Report_2009.pdf
And there is Claudia Goldin, a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, who has studied this question extensively and does not believe that discrimination against women is a major factor in the income gap between the sexes:
“What, then, is the cause of the remaining pay gap? Quite simply the gap exists because hours of work in many occupations are worth more when given at particular moments and when the hours are more continuous. That is, in many occupations earnings have a nonlinear relationship with respect to hours. A flexible schedule often comes at a high price, particularly in the corporate, financial, and legal worlds.
A compensating differentials model explains wage differences by the costs of flexibility. The framework developed here shows why there are higher or lower costs of time flexibility and the underlying causes of nonlinearity of earnings with respect to time worked.”
http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/goldin_aeapress_2014_1.pdf
Of course, if you dismiss all critics as misogynists whose words should be ignored, then yes, all the evidence point in one direction. I, however, believe that there is enough evidence to justify being skeptical of that claim. After all, if this type of discrimination is so widespread in our society, then it should be easy to find concrete examples of it. Once you have that, you or any feminist organization should have no problem going after companies that practice this discrimination. I mean, this type of discrimination is illegal in the US and has been since the Equal Pay Act of 1963.
Unlike you Chuck, I am not an expert on this issue but it’s not difficult to find news articles or even studies that cast doubt on the claim that women are paid 23% less than men for the same work, and that this gap is primarily due to sexist discrimination. I mean, this is your claim, right?
No it isn’t, which makes me think you didn’t even read the articles I linked — or Jesus Christ, my previous post, for that matter. My claim is this: there is an explained portion of the gender pay gap, and an unexplained portion of the gender pay gap, which I, and most other people, attribute primarily to discrimination. You seem to think there is no unexplained portion. Be more skeptical.
Christ, the first article you linked is EXACTLY THE SAME survey as referenced in your previous post. The second article is from the Wall Street Journal — paragon of gender equity? No dog in the hunt for that particular conservative publication? You might as well link me to an article from the Blaze.
The third article does not, as you seem to think, say that the gender pay gap isn’t due to discrimination, it says it is very difficult to pin down exactly how much is attributable to discrimination. Well yes. Of course it’s difficult! That’s why that portion remains “unexplained” — are we certain it is entirely due to discrimination? No. Are we pretty sure? Yes. Yes we are. Occam’s Razor prevents us from multiplying hypotheses so long as we have a very simple, very reasonable one staring us right in the face.
I wonder if you even read the fourth article, as it agrees with me in my primary claim: “Most of the gender wage gap studies have produced estimates of an ‘explained’ and a ‘residual’ portion. The ‘residual’ is often termed ‘wage discrimination’ since it is the difference in earnings between observationally identical males and females.” She proposes another model to explain the rest of the wage gap: flexible hours and nonlinear earnings. Maybe. We’ll see if that pans out in further studies, or how much of the residual gap it does or does not explain. I doubt it’s the entire explanation, given previous studies, and the 2016 study I linked to, which you haven’t read.
Yes. Laws against sexism definitely solved the sexism problem, much like laws against racism, or the recent Supreme Court decision upholding gay marriage. POOF! No problem now, we have a law on the books!
I recommend you stop vomiting up rapidly-googled links to articles/studies you haven’t even read in an attempt to prove a point you don’t even know about. Try reading the studies I linked, or hell, sit down and read the ones you linked yourself. You might learn something.
And quit putting words in my mouth. I don’t dismiss all critics as misogynists. A subset are misogynists. The rest are either ignorant or stupid or possibly both.
In your podcast, you said:
“In Utah, Wyoming and Louisiana women get paid 60 to 69 percent of what a man makes for doing the exact same job.”
There was no nuance there. There was nothing about explained portions and unexplained portions. You added that stuff later but your initial claim was unambiguous. So I’m not putting words in your mouth. You are simply trying to back away from your initial claim.
You seem to think there is no unexplained portion… No, I’m not. I’m saying that there are different interpretations of how much of a gap there really is, and what the real causes of this gap are. I don’t claim to have any answers but I do think that saying that women get paid 60 to 69 percent of what a man makes for doing the exact same job, and that this is due to sexism, as you implied, is simply an inaccurate statement.
The studies I linked to were not to show that there is no discrimination but to show that it is a complicated thing to gauge and that there is no consensus on what role discrimination plays in all this. Again, I’m not saying there is none…
You dismiss the Wall Street Journal for “obviously” being biased but you don’t believe that the American Association of University Women might be biased in the opposite direction.
You don’t dismiss all critics as misogynists. Only some are misogynists. The rest are either ignorant or stupid or possibly both… OK, so a valid criticism of your claim is simply not possible… Got it!
BTW, if having laws against this type of discrimination isn’t enough, then what are you suggesting should be done? More laws?
Horatio, feel free to make your own podcast, wherein you explain the entire history and scientific background in excruciating detail for each and every claim you make. I’m certain that will make for some riveting listening.
You dismiss the Wall Street Journal for “obviously” being biased but you don’t believe that the American Association of University Women might be biased in the opposite direction.
Why, because it has the word “Women” in the name? Christ.
As for laws, I am suggesting, obviously, that we need a cultural shift in how we value women in the workplace. Laws may be a beginning, but they don’t solve the issue. Again, this should be obvious to you.
Criticize away. I haven’t seen anything from your studies, which you haven’t read, or from the naked assertions given by Ophelua, that would change my mind. The data is what the data is. If you think there is no consensus on discrimination on gender pay gap, I can’t really help you. You sound exactly like a creationist telling me there’s no consensus on evolution or global warming.
I see, so people who disagree with you on this topic are misogynists, ignorant, stupid, and exactly like creationists or global warming deniers… Wow, I think you forgot Holocaust denier.
Anyway, let’s go back to your initial claim that:
“In Utah, Wyoming and Louisiana women get paid 60 to 69 percent of what a man makes for doing the exact same job.”
This figure is obviously the “raw wage gap” that only compares the average yearly income of all men to all women without considering anything else. You, like many other people, seemed to attribute this gap entirely to discrimination, at least you did initially. Later on in your comments, you acknowledged that there is an “explained portion” to this gap i.e. it is not “for doing the exact same job”. There are differences in career choice, hours worked, etc, that explain much of this gap. So you are basically admitting that your initial claim is essentially false or at least misleading.
You said “I haven’t seen anything from your studies that would change my mind”, well that must be because you did not read the CONSAD study since as the foreword By the U.S. Department of Labor clearly states:
“this study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action.”… but this is exactly what you did.
As for the “unexplained portion”, many factors could be involved. The role of discrimination is not clear. There could also be behavioral differences that come into play.
How exactly do you explain the gender prison gap? Men make up 90% of the prison population in the US. Is this due to sexism? Some people have argued that the criminal justice system does hand out lighter sentences to women than to men for the exact same crime, but I think it is generally recognize that, on average, men tend to be more agressive and tend to engage in more risky behavior than women. If this behavioral difference can explain the
“prison gap”, couldn’t it also explain some of the income gap? Perhaps the very same traits that make you more likely to end up in prison also make you more likely to succeed on Wall Street.
As for your cultural shift, it is here. It has been occurring for a long time. The gap between earnings of male and female workers has declined significantly over the past 40 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 1979 median weekly earnings of full-time female workers were 63.5 percent of male workers’ earnings, implying a gap of 36.5 percent. The earnings gap dropped to 30 percent in 1989 and to 23.7 percent in 1999. In the second quarter of 2011, the gap reached a low of 16.5 percent. The gap may never completely disappear for reasons that have nothing to do with discrimination, but with personal choice, differences between men and women, etc.
But in any case we’ve made significant progress so I don’t see the need to exaggerate or distort the issue, as you did in your podcast.
This figure is obviously the “raw wage gap” that only compares the average yearly income of all men to all women without considering anything else. You, like many other people, seemed to attribute this gap entirely to discrimination, at least you did initially. Later on in your comments, you acknowledged that there is an “explained portion” to this gap i.e. it is not “for doing the exact same job”. There are differences in career choice, hours worked, etc, that explain much of this gap. So you are basically admitting that your initial claim is essentially false or at least misleading.
So this entire argument boils down to you crying about a few percentage points that weren’t accounted for on a single, short segment of the podcast? Goodbye, Horatio. Thanks for wasting my time.