Final Thoughts: One Last Look Through Our Critical Gender Lens

For our final blogs, I'd like us to reflect upon the course as a whole and articulate some final thoughts and key take aways. The final chapter in CGD does this and may provide you with some inspiration. So what did you learn? What is important for future studies in gender and communication? Where do we go from here (which is of course my favorite question to ask)? I am going to ponder these things a bit more and get back to you, but I wanted to put the prompt out there so each of you can start thinking and reflecting on what a critical gender lens means to you.

Blog #4 Jamie

I think I would mostly support the No position, however the other one make some points that I think were valad, depending on how they were taken. like the part that talks about the unattractive jobs having to be higher paid than others. In some cases that is true, some of the nastiest jobs are the highest paying jobs.
I also agree with the fact that the pay gap is not just "white men" making more than women, men no matter the race generally make more than women.
I have seen this with a co-worker, she had at least 15 years in the company, the brough a man in to help her with the job, and he was making alot more than she was. When she confronted the management about that she was demoted and had to move to a different depatment. So yes I have seen this at is ugliest, and nothing happened, although I will say she is still there and he only lasted 6 months.
I am not sure where we will go from here, I am getting ready to join a job path that is dominated by men, and it has the Good Ol Boy syndrom bad across the board, I just hope that as more women join the feild that have been dominated by men for so long that the gap will close.

Blog #4 Stephanie

I think that it all depends on what kind of research is done and what groups of people are being studied. From typing the paper for this class, I have learned that research can be “all over the place” so to speak, and can really muddy the waters when trying to; find an answer. What I am about to say may be controversial, but I do believe that it is relevant: if we are looking at all the working men and all the working women, I do think that choices may have a little bit to do with the age gap. A lot of women do value their family time, therefore, they will pick jobs that don’t require as many hours from them so that they can spend more time with their children. The lack of hours plus the fact that jobs that don’t require many hours aren’t usually as high paying, are probably contributing factors to the wage gap. HOWEVER! One of the points in the No Position states that the wage exists in every occupational category and it exists in higher levels of education. This it itself is enough to make me take the No Position without a doubt. There is no excuse that the Yes Position could make for the fact that there is a wage gap between men and women working in the same position. However, I don’t think that there will be any sort of advancement as long as one side continues to claim that there are studies that prove a certain points while the other side says that there are studies to disprove it. It’s almost as if both sides will have to conduct joint studies in order to ever get real and answers and correct the problem.

Blog #4 - Melanie

I definitely support the “No Position”. Though I have never experienced wage discrimination personally I firmly believe that it does exist and it is not a matter of “the forces of supply and demand” but rather a matter of “the old boys club” – you are either a member or you are out of luck.
I believe that hourly workers in a structured environment are generally paid the same regardless of gender as they are paid per job description and pay scale. However once you move up the ladder a bit and get into the less structured “salaried” positions there is a lot more room for the “old boys club” mentality to come into play. This is where I see that there is the greatest opportunity for unequal pay practices to go unchecked. I have read many articles in other classes on this subject and they all seem to agree that women do not necessarily negotiate as hard for a higher salary nor do they press forcefully enough for bigger raises – men generally do not have any problems asking for or even demanding more money. Unfortunately, “the squeaky wheel gets the oil”. That definitly does not make it fair or even acceptable.

Certainly there are high paying jobs that are more dangerous and jobs that require more physical strength, or require you to be away from home for extended periods of time that are dominated by men. For example working on deep-sea oil platforms or covert special operations positions with the CIA. Men fill the majority of these jobs, but I would argue that more women are entering into even these lines of work and they should receive equal pay for taking the same risks as men and doing the same job as men.

I found some interesting facts on Newsweek.com regarding the wage gap:

8 months' worth of groceries
The amount a woman could buy for a family of four if she were paid the same as her male peers, according to data from the Institute for Women's Policy Research and the USDA.

58 cents
The average wage among Latina women in the United States. The number among African American women is 70 cents.

23 percent
The amount less than their male colleagues that full-time-working women who haven't had children make 10 years out of college.

$1.2 Million
The amount less, over a lifetime, that a female college graduate will earn, compared to her male peers.

$4,600
The amount less a female MBA (graduating from a top-tier school) will make than her male colleagues in her first job out of graduate school, according to a new Catalyst study.

1 in 4
The number of businesspeople worldwide who say gender parity is a priority at their companies. One in five say that their companies commit resources to parity initiatives. The result, according to consulting firm Bain & Company: "Women have yet to rise to leadership levels at the same rate and pace as their male counterparts. Women enter the workforce in large numbers, but over time steadily ‘vaporize’ from the higher echelons of organization hierarchy”.

$13 Trillion
The difference in total income between men ($23.4 trillion) and women ($10.5 trillion) annually, worldwide.

Wyoming
The state with the worst wage gap, at 63 cents for every $1 a male earns. Vermont has the smallest gap, at 84 cents.

3,168,000
The number of women employed as "secretaries" in 2008, still the most common job for women.

43 percent
The number of women who are employed in jobs that make a median income of $27,000.

"Patriarchal corporate culture"
The biggest barrier to female leadership, according to the findings of a new World Economic Forum report, which noted that "Leading companies are failing to fairly integrate women in the workforce."

9 percent
The amount by which the United States' GDP could increase if the gender gap were closed.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/19/tracking-the-wage-gap.html

Blog #4: Is the Gender Wage Gap Justified?

Few will dispute the claim that a wage deferential exists between men and women, but there is still much debate as to why women typically make 80 cents for each dollar a man earns. The gender wage gap is a global phenomenon. The UN Development Fund for Women found that "a sex gap in earnings exists across almost all employment categories."

There are two schools of thought regarding the wage gap. One school claims that while the wage gap does exist, it cannot be thought of as merely an issue of gender discrimination. They cite economic and financial matrices that explain and justify that women essentially deserve to be paid less than men. Frankly, this argument disgusts me, but more on that in a minute. The second school takes a socialization approach a la' Brenda Allen and claims that blaming women's choices for the gender pay gap is a problematic rationalization employed to maintain male dominated hegemonic standards.

Below, I will outline each of these positions in more detail according to two essays published in Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Gender. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to you that I prefer the latter argument that these economic and human capital rationalizations are oppressive and that women do not make choices that demand less pay for equal work, but I do encourage each of you to formulate your own opinions. I definitely welcome a debate on this topic. So as you read the following arguments think about your own stance. Which arguments do you support? Have you seen these arguments used in your own work experience? Depending on what side you take where do we go from here?

Yes Position: John Shackleton from the Institute of Economic Affairs in London:

• Pay differentials occur based on factors other than gender/sex
• Claims that a competitive market creates these differentials and if we are to remain competitive we must accept these differences. Due to the forces of supply and demand we cannon provide equal pay (What do you think about this notion of a competitive market?)
• Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations introduced us to the idea of compensating differentials - certain jobs particularly those that are deemed "unattractive" may have to be rewarded with higher pay to attract good workers. Furthermore, we must account for the difficulty and expertise of learning a job. Some forms of employment require years of training, education, and work experience, which is labeled human capital. The more human capital you posses the more money you should earn.
• Admits that there may be a taste for discrimination, but if we try to balance this taste by imposing laws that require men and women to receive equal pay, companies may push back by hiring more men and less women. (thoughts?)
• Believes that the gap has declined over time and expected to decline further. (What do you think about this in terms of a global context?)
• Most of the pay gap can be explained through residuals in economic analyses (high wages of a few white men and gendered patterns of occupational and educational experience), but is often falsely cited as discrimination.

No Position: Hilary M. Lips from Radford University's Center for Gender Studies:

• White men are not the only group that out earns women. These findings are consistent across all racial/ethnic makeups, which certainly lends credibility to the gender/sex wage gap as a global phenomenon.
• Even at the very highest levels of education, the gap is there and is in fact provides the largest discrepancy in pay.
• Gender related wag gap in every occupational category, which debunks the argument that women would receive equal pay if they did "man's" work.
• Wage gap may actually widen as the numbers of hours worked increase, which debunks the argument that women are paid less because they work less.
• The gender/sex wag gap is not about economics and not simply a issue of discrimination, its about a question of value between public/private work and the division of labor within the household.
• If women and men continue to accept the notion that the domestic and care taking work, i.e. "women's work," is not important enough for employers to accommodate, the gap will never close.
• The language of "choice" obscures and deflects from larger social forces. Yes positions claim that women choose lower-paid occupations, chose to work less hours, choose parenthood.
• According to Lips, the bottom line is that women's choices are not the problem. Women's choices occur in an environment that supports subtle sexism and discrimination.