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| quote: | Originally posted by AustralianGQ
woman still dont have equal rights, woman get paid less while doing the same job a man is doing, thats not right....woman should make the same. |
The sort of superficial equality you seem to be advocating is probably the most objectionable form of feminism there is...
For instance, while it is true that the average working woman earns less income than the average working man, there is also a significant gap in overall career satisfaction -- women tend to be more satisfied with their careers than men. If we suppose that, for reasons of psychology or culture, women tend to place more emphasis on non-financial considerations in their calculus of where and how to work than do men, then we would expect this exact scenario: men earn more because they seek to maximize their earnings more so than do women, women are more satisfied in their employment because they are more willing to accept lower pay in exchange for other desirable aspects of their employment that enhance their job satisfaction. But this will not tell us whether an individual woman who attempts to maximize her earnings to the same extent that men do will earn as much, on average, as the average man. Because there is no way to eliminate the effects of such self-selection from an analysis of earning potential, simply comparing aggregate incomes is ultimately worthless from the standpoint of attempting to measure genuine inequality.
Ironically, the only way to achieve superficial equality in this area would be to eliminate both differences in opportunity and differences in behavior. Eliminating the freedom of women to choose different priorities than men do, however, would hardly empower women; it would obviously have the opposite effect. Though, I suppose that you could also attempt to compel men to behave precisely the same as women, but having some percentage of men get pregnant, for instance, might prove problematic. Still, if you want equal pay then you have to make these sorts of sacrifices. Perhaps having men wear women's clothing would be a good start; oh, wait.
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