The Gender Wage Gap - What is it?

[Forty Two]

men get prostate cancer, and yet prostate cancer research gets about 1/2 the money breast cancer research gets.

Sounds reasonable. Almost twice the number of deaths in the USA are due to breast cancer compared to prostate cancer, and that is despite a steep drop in breast cancer fatalities since around 2002.

According to estimates from the National Institutes of Health, in the United States in 2010, 207,090 women and 1,970 men will get new cases of breast cancer, while 39,840 women and 390 men will likely die from the disease. The estimated new cases of prostate cancer this year — all affecting men — is 217,730, while it is predicted 32,050 will die from the disease. http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/05/breas ... f-victims/

So, the rate at which men get prostate cancer is a tad higher, and the rate at which they dad is only about 10% lower.

In the old days, men set up the laws to place a legal obligation on a man to support his wife (even after divorce), but there was traditionally no such obligation for a woman to support her husband.

Men have always been legally obligated to register from the military draft.

Men have traditionally worked in dangerous jobs, such that over 90% of workplace injuries and fatalities are men.

Men are about 3/4 of the violent crime victims, but we don't have a "Violence Against Men Act."

Men are about 2/3 of the homeless, but there are far more resources designated to help homeless and poor women than men.

Men get harsher punishments for the same crimes.

The list goes on and on.

I've heard recitations of the list of woeful things men have to endure so often, it's coming out of my ears. All I'll to say is that is the hangover from the bad old patriarchal days.

It's not a hangover. Men are far more likely to commit suicide today, we still do all the dangerous jobs, and we still have to sign up for the draft, and we still make up 2/3 of the homeless, and we still get harsher punishments for the exact same crime.

It's bizarre that anyone would call this a "patriarchy?" What kind of "patriarchy" sets up a system where the privileged class has greater legal obligations, works more dangerous jobs, gets less funding for disease research, gets punished harsher for the same crimes. The idea that this is a "patriarchy" is an abuse of the English language.

I'm not saying women haven't been discriminated against, because of course they have. The reality is that we're a sexually dimorphic species, and as such men had certain advantages and disadvantages, and women the same. The feminist mantra is that this all flows one way. You don't hear them demanding to work as garbage collectors and septic tank technicians. You don't have any cries about the disproportionately low rate of women in deep sea fishing, logging, roofing/siding, structural iron and steel working, construction laboers, etc.

[Hermit]

men get prostate cancer, and yet prostate cancer research gets about 1/2 the money breast cancer research gets.

Sounds reasonable. Almost twice the number of deaths in the USA are due to breast cancer compared to prostate cancer, and that is despite a steep drop in breast cancer fatalities since around 2002.

According to estimates from the National Institutes of Health, in the United States in 2010, 207,090 women and 1,970 men will get new cases of breast cancer, while 39,840 women and 390 men will likely die from the disease. The estimated new cases of prostate cancer this year — all affecting men — is 217,730, while it is predicted 32,050 will die from the disease. http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/05/breas ... f-victims/

So, the rate at which men get prostate cancer is a tad higher, and the rate at which they dad is only about 10% lower.

That article is five years old. Anyway, in the long run we are all dead, but have a look at the List of cancer mortality rates in the United States, percentage of patients deceased within five years after diagnosis: Breast cancer – 10.8%. Prostate cancer – 0.8%. Which cancer do you think needs to be dealt with more urgently?

In the old days, men set up the laws to place a legal obligation on a man to support his wife (even after divorce), but there was traditionally no such obligation for a woman to support her husband.

Men have always been legally obligated to register from the military draft.

Men have traditionally worked in dangerous jobs, such that over 90% of workplace injuries and fatalities are men.

Men are about 3/4 of the violent crime victims, but we don't have a "Violence Against Men Act."

Men are about 2/3 of the homeless, but there are far more resources designated to help homeless and poor women than men.

Men get harsher punishments for the same crimes.

The list goes on and on.

I've heard recitations of the list of woeful things men have to endure so often, it's coming out of my ears. All I'll to say is that is the hangover from the bad old patriarchal days.

It's not a hangover. Men are far more likely to commit suicide today, we still do all the dangerous jobs, and we still have to sign up for the draft, and we still make up 2/3 of the homeless, and we still get harsher punishments for the exact same crime.

It's bizarre that anyone would call this a "patriarchy?"

Read again. I did not call this a patriarchy. I said it was a hangover from the bad old patriarchal days.

[laklak]

We need to deal with whatever one I'm more likely to get.

[Forty Two]

It's bizarre that anyone would call this a "patriarchy?"

Read again. I did not call this a patriarchy. I said it was a hangover from the bad old patriarchal days.[/quote]

How would a patriarchy have set it up so that men do the shit jobs, women are put on a pedestal, die in wars, men pay the alimony, men have an obligation to support their wives (but wives didn't have the obligation to support their husbands) -- those were the bad old days, my friend. That's what a patriarchy does?

Patriarchy is just the wrong word to use, both back in the day, and most certainly now. Today, we have closer to a matriarchy than a patriarchy.

[Hermit]

How would a patriarchy have set it up so that men do the shit jobs, women are put on a pedestal, die in wars...

Don't know why men have insisted that women stay at home and do all the shit jobs in house while they themselves do all the dangerous things like mining, construction, warring and so on and treat women as either whores or god's police, but history shows that men did everything they could to exclude women from that sort of thing for centuries. The laws have changed but the traditions remain. Women still have to struggle to be accepted as truck drivers, miners, soldiers and so on. Only relatively recently were they even allowed into the harmless environment of universities as students. That's what I mean with "hangover from the bad old days".

[JimC]

How would a patriarchy have set it up so that men do the shit jobs, women are put on a pedestal, die in wars...

Don't know why men have insisted that women stay at home and do all the shit jobs in house while they themselves do all the dangerous things like mining, construction, warring and so on and treat women as either whores or god's police, but history shows that men did everything they could to exclude women from that sort of thing for centuries. The laws have changed but the traditions remain. Women still have to struggle to be accepted as truck drivers, miners, soldiers and so on. Only relatively recently were they even allowed into the harmless environment of universities as students. That's what I mean with "hangover from the bad old days".

However, the point is that the gender zeitgeist is at least heading in the direction of equality. I don't think things are as rosy as Forty Two suggests, but to call the current situation in most western countries a patriarchy is not a sensible label, although matriarchy is also a poor choice of label...

[Hermit]

...but to call the current situation in most western countries a patriarchy is not a sensible label...

Exactly right. That is why I'm not using it and never have. Have a look at my previous three posts. You'll find that I described the present situation is "a hangover from the bad old patriarchal days" in every one of them. You even quoted the last instance of it yourself.

[JimC]

Fair enough...

[Forty Two]

Fair enough.

[Pappa]

The same job description doesn't mean the same amount of work is done.

Correct, but the statistics provided by the ABS look at remuneration in cases where the same amount of work is done.

And thus Mark Twain's famous quote, "There are three kinds of lies, lies, damned lies, and statistics."

I venture to say that if men were capable of becoming pregnant arrangement like theirs would be commonplace rather than the exception and even the unadjusted wage disparity would not exist.

No, because then we would be women, the weaker sex, and would require protection from our own biology by those who are stronger and more fit for work other than bearing children, cooking meals and cleaning house in their bare feet.

Somebody's got to fight off the cave bears and it ain't the ones with no testosterone generators. Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.

The weaker sex, on the other hand, gets to sit around the cave eating bon-bons and watching Oprah while the stronger sex brings home the bearmeat.

Studies conducted on extant hunter-gatherer societies have shown that the (female) gatherers procure a significantly higher amount of protein than the (male) hunters. Also, hunting performs some other social functions besides just providing food, such as social bonding and favours, due to the way meat is shared out after a successful hunt.

[mistermack]

Studies conducted on extant hunter-gatherer societies have shown that the (female) gatherers procure a significantly higher amount of protein than the (male) hunters. Also, hunting performs some other social functions besides just providing food, such as social bonding and favours, due to the way meat is shared out after a successful hunt.

Way back in our ancestral past, hunting would have had other important purposes. It was never just one activity.
Male Chimpanzees gang together, and protect their territory, and recce the territories of rival clans, at the same time as hunting for anything that they can kill.

They also kill and eat competitors, like monkeys, which can drastically improve their food supply in their territory.
Monkeys can eat fruit at a much greener stage than apes, so they can devastate the resource, well before the Chimps can use it. It's one of the reasons that monkeys out-competed apes over history.

So even if the Chimps don't actually catch a monkey, they still benefit from hunting them, by putting fear in their minds, and keeping them out of their territory.

[Brian Peacock]

We're the worker bees man. The Queens have all the power, and we're just the sperm delivery system.

[Forty Two]

[Forty Two]

We're the worker bees man. The Queens have all the power, and we're just the sperm delivery system.

And, that's all due to the patriarchy.