[rad doc]

Originally Posted by bimmette

I find it annoying when people who don't know how it feels to be discriminated against say one shouldn't feel offended or that they are imagining it.

I have been fortunate that salary has not been an issue for me but I can say that I have been in work environments when people have assumed I'm the secretary instead of the person in charge. I have also been a trainer and had people assume I'm the trainee because I'm female and appear younger.

I definitely believe there is a gender wage gap but women have to learn to speak up more and ask for equal pay.

Wait, let me see if I understand this. You are annoyed if someone has an opinion on discrimination if they haven't experienced it, yet you have an opinion on pay inequality without experiencing it?

Suggesting someone should not express their opinion without the experience is the height of intellectual laziness. Surely there are better arguments to be made. Same argument is made for abortion, men are not allowed to decide because it is a woman's body. Weak.

Men and women are different. Wow, what a revelation. They do different jobs, have different skills and are paid differently. Enough of the politically correct garbage.

[jmg]

Originally Posted by rad doc

Wait, let me see if I understand this. You are annoyed if someone has an opinion on discrimination if they haven't experienced it, yet you have an opinion on pay inequality without experiencing it?

Suggesting someone should not express their opinion without the experience is the height of intellectual laziness. Surely there are better arguments to be made. Same argument is made for abortion, men are not allowed to decide because it is a woman's body. Weak.

Men and women are different. Wow, what a revelation. They do different jobs, have different skills and are paid differently. Enough of the politically correct garbage.

She's not saying they don't get to have an opinion. She is saying it's annoying when they say one shouldn't feel offended or that they are imagining it.

[rad doc]

Originally Posted by jmg

She's not saying they don't get to have an opinion. She is saying it's annoying when they say one shouldn't feel offended or that they are imagining it.

Oh, I see. You can have an opinion just don't share it with anybody who may have been discriminated.

[jmg]

Originally Posted by rad doc

Oh, I see. You can have an opinion just don't share it with anybody who may have been discriminated.

No. She's saying you can't be dismissive and flippant about a problem if you don't know what it's like to be a victim of it. It's like telling a cancer patient that their pain is not real and isn't that bad. As someone who has never felt the suffering of a life threatening disease and chemotherapy, I would have no grounds to say that the pain isn't real. Now, we can all have opinions about cancer even though most of us don't have cancer, but there are certain opinions that are annoying.

Two people approach an astronaut. One guy tells him that he thinks the earth is flat. The other tells him that space is amazing. They both have opinions. One of them is annoying.

[jpnh]

I dont mean to be dismissive of people's feelings but the fact of the matter is how a person FEELS about something frequently doesnt match up with the facts of what actually happened.

If you're looking for grievances then all you're going to see is grievances.......we've all had people we've worked with that have been in this boat.

The fact of the matter is that when an actual comparison of hours ACTUALLY WORKED is performed the mythical wage gap evaporates

[rad doc]

Originally Posted by jmg

No. She's saying you can't be dismissive and flippant about a problem if you don't know what it's like to be a victim of it. It's like telling a cancer patient that their pain is not real and isn't that bad. As someone who has never felt the suffering of a life threatening disease and chemotherapy, I would have no grounds to say that the pain isn't real. Now, we can all have opinions about cancer even though most of us don't have cancer, but there are certain opinions that are annoying.

Two people approach an astronaut. One guy tells him that he thinks the earth is flat. The other tells him that space is amazing. They both have opinions. One of them is annoying.

Now you are adding words to her comment. Never was dismissive or flippant mentioned. Nor was the OP being so. Sure sounds like you can only have an opinion if you agree!

[jmg]

Originally Posted by rad doc

Now you are adding words to her comment. Never was dismissive or flippant mentioned. Nor was the OP being so. Sure sounds like you can only have an opinion if you agree!

Th scenario she described is a person being dismissive. If anything, it seems like you are adding words to her statement. Never did she say that they weren't allowed to have an opinion. It's that particular opinion she had an issue with. Like the flat earth opinion.

[rad doc]

Originally Posted by jmg

Th scenario she described is a person being dismissive. If anything, it seems like you are adding words to her statement. Never did she say that they weren't allowed to have an opinion. It's that particular opinion she had an issue with. Like the flat earth opinion.

Thats quite the inference from "I find it annoying when people who don't know how it feels to be discriminated against say one shouldn't feel offended or that they are imagining it."

Thus, your view is there is never a time someone can disagree about discrimination and not be dismissive unless they have personally experienced it.

[jmg]

Originally Posted by rad doc

Thats quite the inference from "I find it annoying when people who don't know how it feels to be discriminated against say one shouldn't feel offended or that they are imagining it."

Thus, your view is there is never a time someone can disagree about discrimination and not be dismissive unless they have personally experienced it.

You started off by putting words into bimmette's mouth, and now you are putting words into mine. It's obvious you have a strong opinion on the matter.

I find it annoying when people who don't know how it feels to be discriminated against say one shouldn't feel offended or that they are imagining it.

Lets reset. Can you tell me your reason behind interpreting that this statements says that you can't an opinion at all? To me, this only says that specifically having the opinion that one shouldn't feel offended by discrimination or that discrimination is imaginary is annoying. It does not say that you can't have any opinion on the matter at all.

[Maestro]

Originally Posted by bimmette

I find it annoying when people who don't know how it feels to be discriminated against say one shouldn't feel offended or that they are imagining it.

I have been fortunate that salary has not been an issue for me but I can say that I have been in work environments when people have assumed I'm the secretary instead of the person in charge. I have also been a trainer and had people assume I'm the trainee because I'm female and appear younger.

I definitely believe there is a gender wage gap but women have to learn to speak up more and ask for equal pay.

What happen to you happens to everyone, men and women and minorities. There are people who assume things when they meet someone, right or wrong it happens. I grew up on the east coast and professional people dressed and acted a specific way, still mostly that way today. Out of College went to work on west coast and found out real fast you can not assume the worse dress person in the room not wearing a bra was not the person in charge of the show. I worked in environments which it was very hard to know who was in charge, young, old, man or women you name it all the norms were out the window. But I also know not everyone has had this experience so you can not blame someone for using long standing norms.

Most time my experience has been, when people get treated the way they should not it is because they do not act in a way other may come to expect. I find it interesting everyone else must conform to the person who thinks everyone else is wrong.

With that said I meet some admins which would kick your ass if you did not respect them and treat them they way they should be treated. I learn this from a Sales guy, he said you always treat the admin like they run the place because they are not paid enough to take your BS, but their Boss you give them hell since they are paid to take the abuse. So being treated like an admin may not all be a bad thing.

[David70]

Originally Posted by smrtypants44

My view is this: As a male I don't think I am qualified to be able to tell any woman the discrimination that they feel they face in the workplace does not exist. So therefore I will do anything within my power to make sure I don't perpetuate any discrimination within my organization.

And I feel that it is ridiculous for someone who is not discriminated against to tell someone else that the discrimination that they feel is not valid. Like...how would you know?

Agree. As a white male I am pretty sure I don't fully get it because I have never been part of it. Then to tell someone that doesn't get whatever they are trying to get because of their gender/race/religion about the statistics really doesn't change the issue for that person.

I guess the "sorry you can't do well in this industry or get paid as much as someone doing the exact same job as you, but have you looked at the numbers on people like you?" is supposed to help the situation.

Originally Posted by sygazelle

I'm dating myself, but our gender reveal party was in the delivery room for both of our kids.

I dated myself for a decent amount of time and don't have an issue with this either. I never actually called it "dating" but whatever.

[Lups]

Originally Posted by PINeely

Last night we went to our friend's gender reveal party for their baby, they are having a little girl! However there was one annoying, drunk woman there who would not shut up about how it was "too bad she'll only be making 78 cents on the dollar" and "it's hard to come up in a man's world."

This got me thinking about the so-called "wage gap." If employers could save 22% on employee wages... why wouldn't they? They would ONLY hire women.

There it is folks; women are not the overwhelming majority of the workforce. So either employers don't want to save 22% on wages or the wage gap is a myth, because both can't be true at the same time. Curious as I am, I started to wonder about the origin of these numbers and how big the wage gap, if any, really is.

Let's discuss the American Association of University Women. The AAUW maintains a fund to represent women in sexual discrimination cases (ironically they will only represent women for such cases, but I digress). If they take your case, one of their conditions is that you must allow them to publicize it for donations. What? That's right, the AAUW publicizes and politicizes cases for money, meaning that they have a lot to gain by keeping the discrimination alive. Guess who has been keeping the 22% number around in their publications?

For years the AAUW has been claiming that women make 22, 23, sometimes as high as 41 percent less than their male colleagues. They do this by conflating job types (comparing apples to oranges). Basically they are comparing the salaries of female social workers to the salaries of male CEOs. And they got called on it. Attempting to cover their tracks, they put out this publication, which concludes that women make 7% less than men when most of those variables are accounted for. You can read the whole thing if you like but the statistical analysis begins on page 14: http://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/gr...graduation.pdf. Hold on, that's still a pay gap of 7%. Is it a big, spooky, sexist conspiracy? Consider the following:

1. According to the US Department of Labor, women are more likely to come into work later, leave work earlier, and take sick/parental leave.
Salary jobs are one thing, but if the AAUW has been honest with their numbers then hourly jobs would also be included. This means that those working fewer hours are making less than those who work more hours, thus creating a "pay gap."

2. Despite (allegedly) being paid less, women overwhelmingly report higher job satisfaction.
Is it possible that women sometimes settle for less in their employment? Some say that women are conditioned to accept lesser working conditions and compensation; I think this is bullshit because I know plenty of highly ambitious women who have gotten great jobs by busting ass, not taking shit, and never settling for less.

3. Men are more likely to ask their employers for a pay raise (sort of).
While I was researching I found what I believe to be the missing 7%: One's willingness to ask their employers for more money. A study done in 2007 found that men are more likely to ask for more money. The pay difference this creates? 7.4% more. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072900827.html. They are also more likely to ask for promotions and higher-paying positions in the same field. When crunching numbers it is easy to forget the psychological factors at work. Interestingly, the opposite is true if you frame the question differently. When telling people that they can "ask for more" as opposed to "negotiate for more," women are actually MORE likely than men to seek a pay raise. https://www.med.upenn.edu/gastro/doc...gotiation..pdf

So there you have it, there is no wage gap. Interested to hear your thoughts on this.

A side note- despite whoring out cases like common pimps, the AAUW has helped a lot of women with very real sexual harassment and discrimination. They are good people at the end of the day even if I don't agree with some of their methods.

Haha, as the supporting income provider of our family, I can say I lower the statistics for us ladies a lot.

I never wanted kids until I was told I may never have those and after that, that's was all I wanted.

I work a lot. I teach them languages, help them with school work, take them to their hobbies, educate them on biology, and in geology and geography.

Then when I've worn them out I usually work on a flat or something (I like renovating them so I keep buying them) to get my physical exercise and then I spend an evening reading reports on manufacturers the companies I want to invest in are using.

Hubby makes in an average year 3-5 times more than I do, but I'm happy to contribute some. I'm not exactly a normal stay at home parent but most moms need more than two hours of sleep per night.