Good news for businesses as RTE announce women are now working for free until the end of the year

Pussyhands

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/1108/1258558-equal-pay-day/

Women in Ireland are effectively working for free for the last 14.4% of the year - ie from today - according to research from WorkEqual today.

Today is Equal Pay Day - the date on which women in Ireland effectively stop earning, relative to men, because of the gender pay gap which currently stands at 14.4%.

Why are these people allowed to go unchallenged? Differences in pay are a fact, but it has nothing to do with gender. If businesses can pay women less, why are there not more women hired?

I also really dislike the "equal pay for same work" mantra that's often mentioned. It's very simplistic as not everyone performs the same job with the same ability. For example, two men fix doors. It's the same job but one man can be much better at it than the other so of course the better one will get paid more.

And that's all before I even get into the fact that men do more overtime, don't have career breaks due to pregnancy and are more likely to work higher paying jobs such as construction worker or tradesman.

crossman47

According to the report, 85 per cent of people believe the gap is caused by women not being paid the same as men for the same work. So the vast majority do not even understand the issue which is caused by women not doing the same jobs. This could be discrimination in promotions but more likely is by choosing to work less hours, not apply for senior positions, etc.

TomTomTim

RTE seem to be liking the smell of the sewers, otherwise they wouldn't be spending so much time in them.

Markus Antonius

RTE is great at amplifying the voice of minority fringe groups. Almost every single debate on RTE has 1 person from FF/FG (40% support), 1 from SF (30% support), 1 independant (14%) and 1 from hard left socialists (Boyd Barrett, Murphy etc.) who can barely scrape 1% support. RTE gives 25% airtime to groups that have less than 1% support.

Big Ears

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118135655#Comment_118135655

I thought that was the most (well only) eye opening part of the piece and should have been the real story.

" Most people don't understand what the gender pay gap is" wouldn't have been as catchy a headline though !

Shao Kahn

Gender pay gap is a myth.

The fact that women get shotgun on the lifeboats when the titanic goes down, that's a reality.

"It's okay honey, I don't really mind dying because I have a penis!"

Feminists who drive this flawed narrative, want all of the nice bits about being a man, with none of the ugly bits.

I don't hear anyone crying about the lack of women in some of the toughest, dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. Professions that very often are essential for keeping economies and society going btw.

Even if men were paid more (which they're not), you could call it "the titanic surcharge". We'll get 14.4% more than you, but when a skyscraper is on fire because some nutjob flew a plane into it - you can run in the opposite direction like a sane person. And we'll run towards the burning inferno like crazy lunatics and die in the smoldering twisted metal. Deal?

Actually, on second thoughts, we want 16.5%. But you get the widow's pension, so you'll get most of it all back in the end anyway! 😅

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118136104#Comment_118136104

They have another article showing the outrage that 1/3 cocaine addicts seeking help in Dublin are women:

https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/1108/1258439-dublin-crack-cocaine/

We want 50:50 pay equality! Ok, what about equality in cocaine addiction? **Tumbleweed***

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118135739#Comment_118135739

Women are slightly more than 50% of the population not a minority fringe group.

Well the 30% gap between my net and gross earnings means I’m working for free since about august.

And that’s a real gap not the gender one, which is by the way tiny compared to gaps between rich and poor, the college educated and the not college educated, northside and south-side Dublin, Dublin and the rest of the country. There are dozens of other examples.

NIMAN

This could open a can of worms are RTE.

What about all those male presenters or hosts, who are working same hours are Miriam or Claire Byrne, who aren't being paid the same.

Surely they have a claim to be paid the same for sale hours worked?

padd b1975

Maybe if they went for jobs that involve manual labour or an element of danger things might improve, or even work more hours in their current one.

nj27

Why would any business hire a man when they can hire a woman and just pay her less?

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118136686#Comment_118136686

The fringe group being "Workequal" who came out with the women working for free idea. I think most women realise that this all BS.

corny

Is anyone surprised by this? I don't know if there's been a change in management at RTE recently but by Jesus I can't believe what I'm reading on their website these days. Talk about an agenda.

There's no way citizens of this country should be propping them up if a balanced narrative is never put forward.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118137403#Comment_118137403

Workequal may be a small organisation but all women have skin in this game and I don't recall them appointing you as their spokesman either.

I appreciate the role campaign groups play in civic society.

A lot of important social change would never have happened without them.

Faugheen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118137753#Comment_118137753

Exactly.

People giving out about this will give out about anything that brings about equality. Best ignored.

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118137753#Comment_118137753

Only speaking from the interactions with the vast majority of the women I know/work with - they don't have a thorn in their side about their employers/male colleagues. A lot of them get flexible working hours/4-day week to balance their lives at home. Do you ever think that this may be one of the reasons for the pay discrepancy?

NIMAN

I have seen a few interviews over recent years that more or less disprove that a gender pay gap actually exists, and indeed some of the contributors to them were female as well.

It's also hard to compare many jobs out there. There are so many factors to take into account that it's often not a simple case of "he earns X, so I should earn X as well".

Pick any example, say a bus driver. I have no doubt that if a man and a woman both get brand new jobs with Dublin Bus, starting tomorrow, they will both start on the same salary.

But if the woman claims she should be earning the same wage as a guy doing it 35 years, who has had 35 years of good service and pay increments etc, then most would agree that she shouldn't. I think the male new start wouldn't expect to be earning the same as the 35yr veteran.

NIMAN

A slightly humorous video, but makes plenty of very valid points.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GWHgVZJQU

Mad_maxx

If RTE thought an ethnic pay gap claim could go out without too much complaint.

I could imagine them saying that this business of the average Nigerian ( in Ireland) earning less than the average American ( in Ireland) can not stand.

Of course an individual Nigerian cardiac surgeon will earn the same HSE wage as his American counterpart with identical experience and qualifications

Nuance sadly lacking and deliberately so

I'm a woman and can happily acknowledge it's bollox. It is illegal to pay women less than men for the same work. Other factors can affect pay negotiation - like experience and qualifications, but not sex.

There are issues affecting women and girls such as over-sexualisation and the blurring of boundaries between sex and gender, but woke feminism doesn't take issue with that - instead it latches on to this clear fallacy.

Gender equality for employment, and salaries/benefits are a reality. If a woman feels that she is being discriminated against, she has the right to complain both at the level of HR or to a State department. It's not as if HR isn't, in the vast majority of cases, populated by women, and it is them who tend to determine pay scales, and promotions. Same with investigations over complaints.

Some women may be discriminated against due to their gender. The possibility is always going to exist. The same for men to be discriminated due to their gender. However, we already have a society that seeks to protect against it, and the mechanisms are in place for people who believe that such discrimination has been applied to them.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118138773#Comment_118138773

There are issues affecting women and girls such as over-sexualisation and the blurring of boundaries between sex and gender, but woke feminism doesn't take issue with that - instead it latches on to this clear fallacy.

True enough, although considering the range of women employed by media outlets, and in fashion, the over sexualisation of women is often as a result of women themselves, as much as it is coming from men. There are definite advantages to being considered sexy, beautiful, etc, and the conditioning that exists in society to place emphasis on physical beauty affects both men and women.. except that most of the advantages (in addition to the disadvantages) of that conditioning relate to women and their place in society.

In feminism, they need an enemy to justify their demands, and that enemy is the male gender. They're never going to acknowledge the effect that women have on developing the societies we live in (or the negative consequences of that involvement).

Just as they're never going to stop going on about the Gender wage gap, the need for more women in <insert> industry, or departmental level... even when women have reached parity, or actually outnumber men in those positions. They can't back down because being a feminist in modern society is a profession as much as an ideology.

Most of the reason for the discrepancy is the care burden, caring for children and / or elderly relatives. This work is mostly done by women and choices are made to go part time to facilitate this. I do think people should be more open to both men and women availing of those options. I think it can be monopolised by women. I had a chat with a friend I hadn’t seen for years the last day and she’s working 2 full days and three half days. Her husband would love to cut back on his hours but she won’t consider it at all as she’d have to maybe work another full day. Both kids are in school. My husband works part time and I work full time. People seem to find this bizarre but it suits us regarding our jobs etc. I also have friends who both work part time, one three days and one two. That way childcare is not a burden for them. They both have good jobs. I think the bias socially is still there regarding the view of men working part-time. If a woman is working part-time that’s grand but if a man is then he’s lazy. I don’t find this to be case with anyone I know, people seem busy with kids or gardening or bees or building projects or cooking or music as well as childcare and cleaning. It just takes the pressure off if they’re careful with their money and can afford it.

What they’ve done in Iceland is very smart in my opinion. Start from the bottom up - restructure the system. Since 2000, mothers get three months leave, fathers get three months untransferable leave and a further three months can be taken by either parent. It has been augmented since but it’s seen a whole change in their working lives from the bottom up. Fathers are more active in childcare and women are more active in management at work. It’s much more effective than any quota system. Women aren’t monopolising childcare and men aren’t monopolising management. Worth a read.

http://www.nordiclabourjournal.org/i-fokus/in-focus-2019/future-of-work-iceland/article.2019-04-11.9299118347

Still stihl waters 3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118136612#Comment_118136612

I saw this last night and initially thought that's rough, but then though to myself if 33% are female that means 66% are male but there was nothing in the report on the main evening news to suggest anything other than women are the real victims here, ffs the blatant sexual discrimination by the national broadcaster is scandalous stuff, what donkeys are in charge of content in there. It's not just rte tho, I heard Matt Cooper bringing up the fact women are effectively working for free from now on, what respect I had for him vanished and I just turned the simpleton off, if normal women are buying into this nonsense then it's not a financial wage deficit that's the problem it's the fact that maybe the academics years ago were correct and women who believe this are just born with smaller brains for believing this sort of shìte, all they're doing is giving a certain cohort the beliefs they're the eternal victims in all of this

Fandymo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118136112#Comment_118136112

Bill Burr would like his material back.

https://www.google.com/search?q=bill+burr+pay+gap&rlz=1C1GCEU_enIE906IE906&oq=bill+burr+pay+gap&aqs=chrome..69i57.5064j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118137840#Comment_118137840

Women earn more than men in the under 30 age bracket. Should there be a campaign to pay men under 30 more?

Or should we look at what's causing the differences and work at that instead of daft point scoring and clickbait headlines? There needs to be proper paternity leave on the same scale as maternity leave in order to help reduce the gender earnings gap. That, and a change in work cultures which celebrate overwork and no work life balance.

Shao Kahn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118139779#Comment_118139779

Ha yeah, when you're right you're right.

I watch so many different comedians, I can never remember where I heard stuff.

Bill Burr is great. Says it way better than I ever could.

Checked with a few lasses, none of them are working for free today nor any day between now and end of year

Maybe im asking all the wrong women

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118139837#Comment_118139837

Women earn more than men in the under 30 age bracket. Should there be a campaign to pay men under 30 more?

The focus is wrong though. Women under 30 tend to earn more because children aren't part of the equation, with most people deciding to have children around that period. Whenever we hear about employment inconsistencies, the attitude is to look at parents, and how they should benefit from that status. But the reality is that the numbers of people who are single/childless are growing, and it is them who invariably are picking up the slack.. and typically, there are more males who remain single than women... hence the difference in salaries and benefits over time.

While I understand the logic that says we need people to have more children, I don't think anyone is really considering how single people fit in, and I suspect the singles (male/female) are losing out to those who get married and have children.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118139165#Comment_118139165

I mean over sexualisation of kids. Cardi B, Kardashians etc.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118140192#Comment_118140192

It's interconnected though. The rise of apps like instagram, ticktok etc all started with the respresentation of beautiful people, especially the sexualisation of women in photos or videos... which has since evolved into a similar application of young teens. The same can be seen in a variety of aspects within society.

If you look at American society, there is a rather large group of mothers/parents who push their female children into cheer-leading, beauty competitions, etc all with serious desire for them to "win". You can see competitions with very young children mimicking the competitions that adults have. All of that is going to affect society and the way that people perceive/treat each other. There have been similar competitions and fashion shows done in Europe with children competing in ways that are directly comparable with how adult shows do.

The point remains that women are just as involved in the sexualisation of their gender as men ever were, and these days, due to equality, probably have more influence in continuing/encouraging that sexualisation of the female gender.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118139837#Comment_118139837

The point of measuring the gender pay gap isn't to campaign for paying women more; it's for exactly the purposes in your second paragraph. Both those for and against tackling it seem to misunderstand this.

Unfortunately it's impossible to have a rational discussion about it on a public forum, because you get people citing the exact things that gap reporting is supposed to highlight as reasons for why "it doesn't actually exist". E.g. women more likely to be in part time work.

But it certainly exists! It's a number with a demonstrable calculation. People giving out that the gap isn't real because we have equal pay for equal work are missing the point entirely.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118140713#Comment_118140713

Working part-time, taking time out to parent, less likely to take senior roles because of raising children. This leads to less pay overall, but it doesn't mean a lower rate of pay, which it is dishonestly being presented as.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118140713#Comment_118140713

I think those stats should just be used to see where further investigation is required. Why do women earn less over 30? Probably children, but then we need stats broken down for having kids and not having kids, and both by gender. Just looking at the total result and blaming a manspiracy will never fix the difference, as it's not actually looking at the real reason for it happening.

thefallingman

makes up for the endless sick days then

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118140961#Comment_118140961

I'd agree with others here that RTE/WorkEqual have represented the stats very poorly, and that in an effort to gain support by dramatising the issue they've succeeded in alienating readers by not keeping to the facts.

But - they're not claiming a manspiracy. And other organisations, like the UN, are indeed looking at the reasons for it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118141288#Comment_118141288

Are they really? or are the looking for justification for their own policies?

Look at the UN equality commission, and invariably the focus is almost entirely on the place of women in society, and the discrimination they face internationally. However, there is very little attention given to the conditions of males, unless they're children, and even then, being female trumps in the amount of attention and funding directed towards the problem.

There is a rather strong emphasis from all government or similar type organisations on the plight of women, as a gender... as opposed to seeking genuine equality among the genders. Feminism is firmly established in most such organisations... and that's not going to disappear/decline any time soon.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118141600#Comment_118141600

Yep they do spend more energy on women, understandably so.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/107775755#Comment_107775755

I posted this a number of years ago. Still relevant today.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118141739#Comment_118141739

You've skipped over the point. All these organisations place the needs of females above the needs of males, which is why ideas like the gender wage gap, the supposed need for quotas, etc will continue to be pushed, because there is a inherent bias to continue that focus. Even in the west, where in many nations, the rights of women are equal to that of men, the agenda is continuing to be pushed as if the changes of the last thirty years hadn't happened..

Because the aim of feminism is not to create an equal society between the genders. The aim of feminism is women's rights, and improving the lives of women. It's not about equality and so, these claims of inequality will always be there, irrespective of the facts/statistics that show otherwise.

Oh, and I'm not expecting that to change... because it won't. Feminism has established itself too well in government, education, etc for it to be challenged in any serious manner. At least, not for a few more decades anyway.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118140237#Comment_118140237

Oh I never denied this is pushed by women. It absolutely is.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118140713#Comment_118140713

These reports, as they stand, are useless for setting any sort of policy to tackle the issue. They need to be further broken down to find out where the issues actually are. Once it's known where they are, the reasons for the issues can be investigated. It certainly isn't a gender pay gap. It's a gender earnings gap.

Some of the issues will be due to more men being in higher positions where they earn more. As people generally reach these positions later in life, it will reflect older work practices. The marriage ban in certain sectors will have cut off women from top positions, for example.

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118141988#Comment_118141988

This was true for a long time but the marriage ban is gone 50 years so it is quite impossible that any woman subject to it would otherwise still be in the civil service. Of course income data from surveys taken decades could still be cited.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118142140#Comment_118142140

I'm too young and too male to be aware of policies that deliberately kept women down (and I also realise I don't know any civil servants). I had no idea it ended so long ago.

The way people online and in real life still go on about the marriage bar, I thought it was more recent than that.

corny

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118139837#Comment_118139837

Sure don't shorter people earn less than taller people. Good looking people earn more than those less blessed. If I followed the way of the woke i'd scream discrimination but the sane part of me wants to understand the why.

What is the why in the examples above? Those earning more could easily have more confidence thus affecting their success. Not sure if that's the case but it's plausible at least.

We seem only concerned when women are affected though. Far from it being a patriarchy, men have been utterly defeated in todays times. We're being trampled actually with positive discrimination.

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118142270#Comment_118142270

I was quite surprised recently when, talking to a doctor in his 70s, who explained that when he studied medicine in the 1960s, women were not just present in his class, but compromised 30-40% or so of the students. 

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118142333#Comment_118142333

Nobody really considers all the men who don't succeed in gaining promotions and getting ahead in their careers. The focus is on women not succeeding and gaining those positions, to gain representation of them as a gender. The focus is entirely on the genders involved rather than what brought about success in the first place, with the area of pregnancy and motherhood automatically being thrust forward as the reason.

And now, when women are being represented in all these managerial positions, we find that it's not the kind of work environment they want. Articles abound about competitiveness in the workplace (as a negative), the long hours required, the marginal increases in salary vs the increased workloads, or even that the increases in salary don't matter (as they did for men) compared to the desire for flexible time to have a family, or simply not to be working. And so, the focus shifted to changing the environment away from what had succeeded, or what was needed previously to stay competitive in a tight marketplace.

Of course there is going to be differences in what people earn, because people have different levels of ambition, or their desires for the kind of life they want. The drivers that society conditioned men to have, are not going to match well with what women want, and that will affect the returns, especially when most women want less time working as they get older, whereas men are more likely to want more work as they get older.

But yes, the focus is mostly on the needs of women in the workplace, which makes sense since HR departments are generally populated by women, and HR specialists are the people who do most research into employment practices.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118142353#Comment_118142353

When I started working in Finance (AR/AP) in the late 80s, most of my colleagues were female, and all my managers until I reached 30 were female. Oh, senior management were mostly male, with a few women, here or there, but the industry itself was seriously dominated by women. There are many industries where women have been well represented for decades... except at middle and upper management. While discrimination was definitely a factor, the requirements for overtime which women wanting to have a family rarely would commit to. Besides the numbers of people (male and female) who never applied for such upper positions because they were comfortable where they were.

The girl at the McDonalds drive thru was pretty annoyed when I told her she wasn't getting paid again til the new year.

It turns out I was incorrect, one of the girls did some basic internetting and found out that since the 2 I was speaking to were under 30 and had no kids it was actually the lads who've been without pay since September.

Or maybe they're all getting paid roughly the same with some extra for experience, time there, seniority, extra pay for certain hours (I don't know McDonald's policy) etc.

In my limited experience the women I know who are on good money did the normal thing of college, job, promotion. The ones who could have done the same but didn't are the kind who'll talk for 2 months about maybe going for a promotion and then deciding against it despite plenty of encouragement. The women who advance tend not to. Same with the men who do well, funnily enough. Hell, me and my best mate talk about just about everything and a couple of months ago he drops "Yeah had a job interview the other day, got through to round 2".

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118142807#Comment_118142807

As if by magic today https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211109-why-millennial-managers-are-burned-out

BBC have 4-5 articles a week for "Worklife" and most are about how hard it is for women. The one above popped up today and quelle surprise.