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

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.

pleh

Just talking to a friend about the fact we two out of a bunch of women (30s to 50) are the only two full-time workers, rest are part time, 3 days or 4 days, or full time mothers or on disability.

Now this friend is going on long term leave due to a operation. So that just leaves me full time, the others must think im an awful dope!

cloudatlas

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

There are two female fire fighters in one of my friendship group. Christ you sound worse than the people you are complaining about.

Where can i get these free women?

c.p.w.g.w

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

Sure all the women in my social circle out earn the majority of the men...

So that 5 & 5

The lowest earner in the women's group is 38,500 p/a and highest is on 50,000(estimated)

In the group of us men, all bar 1 earns less than 36,000 while one of the lads is 45,000(but Christ does he earn it🤯🤯)

Mid West Region so it goes much further than say Dublin

Shao Kahn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118153670#Comment_118153670

Cool story bro!

So they like a bit of the old hose do they?

What's a friendship group btw? Is that like a support group for abandoned & wayward friends?

cloudatlas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118153765#Comment_118153765

I can't stand extremists on either side, both irrational and unhinged.

generic_throwaway

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

Just for balance, it's exceedingly unlikely that you will be in a situation where you are expected to sacrifice for a woman (unless you have reason to believe otherwise) whereas the pay gap affects every working woman.

There is undoubtedly a more complex picture at work here than straight up discrimination (and I think even the folks raising the issue will acknowledge this), but to dismiss the whole issue on such a fatuous argument is pretty stupid.

generic_throwaway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118153765#Comment_118153765

Watch out, we have an edgelord here.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118153876#Comment_118153876

Just for balance, it's exceedingly unlikely that you will be in a situation where you are expected to sacrifice for a woman (unless you have reason to believe otherwise) whereas the pay gap affects every working woman.

Actually, there's plenty of occasions that a man might be expected to sacrifice for a woman. Taking on extra work (without any promotion or salary increase), or losing a position because a woman has returned from maternity leave. Hell, there are initiatives in place for quotas in the workplace, and for panels, often which are used even when there is a balance in the numbers of women compared to men. I've known of guys who have lost out on training/upskilling programs because they felt they needed a woman to represent them. There are heaps of places in employment where a man could lose out to a woman, simply due to her gender.

Any time you provide benefits or treatment that is based entirely on gender, that will open up areas where a man could be made to sacrifice (for the good of the company), in favor of a female staff member.

And again, no, the gender pay gap doesn't affect every woman, because there have been studies showing women outpacing men in both promotions and salaries in a variety of professions, in addition to the research showing that women under 30 often get paid more than men. So... there are quite a few women who far outperform both, other women, and the men they work alongside.

There is undoubtedly a more complex picture at work here than straight up discrimination (and I think even the folks raising the issue will acknowledge this), but to dismiss the whole issue on such a fatuous argument is pretty stupid.

The area of discrimination against women has been covered for almost three decades now, during which a wide range of safeguards have been implemented at both company level, and that of our State laws. Does it continue to exist? Of course. It's never going to be completely removed, just as discrimination against men, based entirely on gender will continue to exist too.

The gender wage gap is worth being dismissed because every detailed probe into the arguments and statistics has returned data that show the claims of it's existence is false. People make choices, both in terms of choosing a career, and the development of that career. Invariably, that is what brings about the discrepancies in salaries and benefits received. People who work longer hours, take less holidays, and commit to their careers get paid more (talent and education being part of it). The opportunity is there for women, just as it is for men, to avail of that way of life... as shown by the women who are raking in the money, but working to the hilt to do so.

The problem for many women is that they've chosen low income careers. That was a choice. Just as many men have chosen to do the same with other careers that have a low income. If women want a higher salary, enter the industries that have a reputation for that kind of income, but the truth is that many woman don't want to enter that kind of competitive environment, and so they lose out. It's not discrimination... it's the consequence of making a choice.

Freddie Mcinerney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118139497#Comment_118139497

Majority section of the 66% could be children.