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Letter to the editor: Debunking the myth of gender pay gap

Letter to the editor: Debunking the myth of gender pay gap
Ana Bicolli

By Mark Prakash, Guest Writer

This letter to the editor is in response to “Letter to the editor: Gender inequality still present in the workforce”

The gender pay gap is a myth and is not seriously brought up by either side of the aisle anymore, as upon objective inspection it clearly shows itself as a piece of leftist propaganda designed to create injustice that isn’t there, which by extension antagonizes anyone as immoral and backward if they dare to disagree with it.

Let’s look at the most obvious reason it’s a myth: Capitalism.

If I’m a small business owner, and women are truly paid less than men for equal work, why in the world would I ever hire a man? There is no logical reason for it. My business–and every other business–would hire women–and ONLY women. Capitalism doesn’t see gender, it sees money. If Stacy works the same job as Joe over there, and I have to pay Joe $9/hour when I can pay Stacy $8.50/hour, why would I hire Joe? Hiring Stacy makes much more sense. Heck, I’d probably stop hiring men altogether. It just makes fiscal sense.

Now, as for your anecdote, there can be several reasons why you were paid $.50 less than your Y-Chromosomed counterparts. Since we don’t know the business itself or the finances of the business or objective performance reports of any employee in the business, it is hard to say definitively that the reason for you being paid less is cold, hard, sexism. But perhaps it is sexism, in which case you should probably threaten a lawsuit, and make a bigger deal about it. It’s a competitive market, and no business likes lawsuits. Consider this also for a moment. No business likes lawsuits. So why would they pay women less for equal work? I have a hard time believing it’s solely because you have two X Chromosomes. But hey, I’ve been wrong before, and like I said, maybe you ought to examine legal options.

Now let’s look at that famous statistic (women are paid $.70 to the dollar a man makes). The statistic ignores job types and hours worked. Women on average work fewer hours than men, work safer, less risky jobs than men, and are less likely to ask for a raise (on average). Why is this? Motherhood.

Women take time off from work to child rear, whereas men generally do not have this opportunity. Men are generally looked upon as the “providers” of the family, so they tend to work more than women on average.  This makes sense, moms make sure the kids are healthy and doing their homework while dad takes the 9 p.m. train back after working extra hours so their daughter can go to a good school. This is generally considered the societal expectation placed on women and men. Riskier jobs mean higher pay, but this doesn’t mean a woman doing a risky job will be paid less. Men are more likely to pick a riskier job since their assigned role is making money for the family. Now whether or not you agree with gender roles is up to you, but on a macro level those roles exist, and this is the result.

The point of the matter is this: No one in their right mind believes that women should be paid less for equal work. You said it yourself, and you said it well: there is no reason for a woman to be paid less than a man. That concept doesn’t make any sense to anyone with a brain. If you meet someone who believes that, I strongly recommend buying them a 2016 calendar to inform them that they no longer live in the 17th century. The reason this concept is toted is for “feminists” to create a social narrative based on victimization, automatically antagonizing whoever decides to stand in their way. “If you don’t support our view”, they argue, “then you hate women”.

Consider this piece I’m writing. No doubt I’ll get an enormous amount of hate for this. Why? Because according to the logic of the “feminist” movement now, I’m somehow a chauvinist bigot hater who probably is phobic of everything under the sun. I’ve gone against their social narrative.

The Feminist movement (without quotations) has so much potential to be one of the greatest forces for positive change in our modern socio-political landscape, but unfortunately, it is being led largely by selfish individuals wishing to place themselves on a pedestal. The movement wastes time on social narratives that victimize them. The Feminist movement should be focused on the insidious human trafficking around the world, the exploitative porn industry, and the lack of education received by girls in third-world countries. Those are real and pressing problems that NEED to be solved if we seriously want to bring about a truly egalitarian civilization.

Your sisters, my sisters, OUR sisters, are being abused, exploited, and degraded at home and overseas. Maybe we should all be doing something about that.

 

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Comments (27)

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  • H

    HarryApr 4, 2016 at 9:59 am

    Mark Prakash, You are the man.

    Reply
  • S

    screw feminism and menenismApr 4, 2016 at 9:17 am

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDj_bN0L8XM this is why the pay gap is there but why its there and why its not 23% but consideraby less than that.

    Reply
  • A

    anonApr 4, 2016 at 9:07 am

    okay yeah but here’s the thing. let me start with your first point. sexism in america isn’t usually blatant, outright sexism. it’s not that employers hire women and consciously make the decision to pay them less. it’s a more inherent type of sexism where employers assume that a woman is less qualified for a job, that her appearance will be distracting, that she’s not as capable as a male counterpart for entirely stereotypical reasons that we don’t address here in america because we have this mentality that equality in the workplace has been achieved. of course women in third world countries have it worse but at least people understand that there’s an issue there. JFK signing a piece of legislation didn’t magically fix all women’s issues in America.

    Reply
  • A

    AnonymousApr 4, 2016 at 8:41 am

    I do have some issues with the whole simply blaming the mother/father figure argument as well- it leaves the argument a little shallow, because it is very similar to the tired claims of “women are meant to be mothers, men are meant to be the breadwinners” argument- it just doesn’t quite cross that line of being entirely condescending though. I do strongly wish more was added to the argument, because this very mildly condescending tone, combined with other, more noticeably condescending statements makes the article a bit harder to agree with- especially the third to last paragraph, which is passive aggressive towards “feminists”, but still lumps all feminists together. While this could be seen as one simply towards the fake, rude ones, but nonetheless it gives a feel of attacking all of them- especially the ones that didn’t think further of the pay wage, because your letter lumps those ones with the hateful ones.

    While I do have a handful of problems with this letter, I will say, you killed it in the last two paragraphs.

    Reply
    • M

      MarkApr 4, 2016 at 9:37 pm

      Hey there!

      So I think you thought I was being condescending with the whole gender role thing that I was getting at, but that’s not really what I was getting at at all. I tried using the word “on average” and “generally” to highlight the notion that these are overarching societal patterns that are observable. I’m not advocating or detracting from this pattern, I’m merely pointing out that it exists. That being said, I think a really fascinating discussion should be had on the existence on those roles, but this is more of a branching off of the main points in the article

      As for your complaint on my lumping on feminists, I agree maybe I should have been more clear. What I’m getting at is that “feminists” (I put it in quotations to set it apart from real feminists) are more focused on pushing a social narrative on the basis of victimization that generally ignores facts and true justice.

      In general though I do agree I should have written more, but alas this is a high school news site, and I’m just a guest writer procrastinating his homework…

      Reply
  • A

    AdamMar 25, 2016 at 11:43 pm

    The pay gap isn’t entirely fake, just misunderstood. Often people hear the words “pay gap” and assume they mean that women are all being paid less for the same work while a lot of this gap stems from women being less inclined to go into higher paying jobs. I’ll be the first to admit that this misunderstanding is mostly due to how many feminists have skewed this statistic to make it look like that; however, believe it or not, a lot of feminists are aware of this fact. When a lot of feminists cite the wage gap, they’re not trying to say that the evil misogynistic men are stealing their money, many times it’s used to point out the fact that women are encouraged significantly less to go into these jobs than men are. It’s to point attention towards a much deeper issue, not to act as though all men are evil.
    On another note, the whole “you don’t agree with us so you must hate women” straw man is getting old. I’ve yet to hear a feminist outright say that to someone just for saying the wage gap was a myth. Using these straw men only makes you look more immature and the condescending tone it gives off makes it difficult to have a real discussion about this issue. No, nobody is frothing at the mouth calling you a woman hater. You’re just saying that to demonize your opposition. By using this straw man, you’ve basically said “and if you don’t agree with me, you probably think that all anti-fems hate women.” I really hope I don’t have to spell out the irony there for you.

    Reply
    • A

      AnonymousApr 4, 2016 at 8:35 am

      Honestly, if these things were taken into account when writing the article, it would’ve been a lot better.

      Reply
    • S

      StevenApr 4, 2016 at 9:25 am

      Though there may be some feminists who view the issue in the way that you stated, there is certainly just as many who believe that the gender pay gap is a wrongful exploitation of women.

      Mark’s article did well to dispel this myth, and yet you take on an aggressive tone against him. His saying that people who speak against feminist ideology are often regarded as misogynists is NOT a baseless claim. You would not be hard-pressed to find an article like Mark’s, in which the comments accuse the author of misogyny.

      You attacked his article by portraying him as someone who thinks feminists go around accusing men of being “evil,” yet nowhere in his article does he say anything even close to this. By misconstruing his argument to attack it. you, in fact, committed a strawman fallacy.

      Reply
      • A

        AdamApr 4, 2016 at 8:18 pm

        “You attacked his article by portraying him as someone who thinks feminists go around accusing men of being ‘evil,’ yet nowhere in his article does he say anything even close to this.”

        First off, that’s not exactly right. I didn’t say he was accusing them of calling him evil, I said he was accusing them of calling him a woman hater (this might seem knit-picky, but it’s a pretty important distinction to make). And he does, very explicitly.

        A direct quote from the article says “…according to the logic of the ‘feminist’ movement now, I’m somehow a chauvinist bigot hater who probably is phobic of everything under the sun.” I honestly can’t think of any possible other interpretations for that quote, especially in the context of the post as a whole.

        And yeah, it’s not hard to find comments calling people misogynistic for no good reason. It’s also not hard to find comments from anti-fems saying that women “belong in the kitchen”. Does that mean that saying anti-fems are usually misogynistic is “not a baseless claim”?

        Reply
  • A

    AllisonMar 24, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    This is wonderful. As a woman who has often been accused of having “internalized misogyny”, it is refreshing to see a factual article that reveals the truth behind the pay gap.

    Reply
  • J

    Jason ZerafaMar 24, 2016 at 10:00 am

    Great evidence of one of America’s biggest problems created by liberals: lying and making issues that are irrelevant a real problem. Many bigger things we need to focus on.

    Reply
  • R

    RanaMar 24, 2016 at 9:48 am

    Very well written. One of the best articles I’ve seen in a while

    Reply
  • A

    ahmariMar 23, 2016 at 8:17 pm

    Right, okay, not to be the one annoying person who comments a whole essay in reply to your editorial, but not only are your statistics wrong (it’s supposedly $0.77 not $0.70), but you obviously didn’t do any research outside of your own lens. Obviously we can see what your opinion is on the subject but did you do any research on the side of the people who don’t see the wage gap as a myth? Or did you take in factors outside of gender such as race or socioeconomic background, because both of those things do play a large role in the gender wage gap. Also, your criticism of the feminist movement is so largely inconsiderate of problems that are important that it’s laughable. There are women who are being sold into sexual slavery and mutilated with acid, but that does not invalidate the problems women in 1st world countries have and to pretend like you actually care so much and are doing so much to raise awareness about women suffering internationally is so disrespectful to their struggle and those who are not going through the same thing. Just because women in the United States and other western countries are not having acid thrown on them in the streets does not mean they are not the victims of oppression in their own right. Instead of pretending like you are oh so educated on the ideals and perspectives of feminists, it would benefit you to actually do some kind of research instead of just running off at the mouth.

    Reply
    • M

      MarkMar 24, 2016 at 5:41 am

      Hey Amari! So I’ll go through your complaints real fast. Essay for an essay 😀

      The first one is concerned with how I said $.70 instead of $.77. It’s $.07, and that number doesn’t matter WITH REGARD TO the argument that I was trying to make. But I do apologize if $.07 really offended you.

      The second one is probably your only valid complaint. I haven’t explored the effects of race and socioeconomic background, and I think that would definitely be an interesting area to explore with regards to the matter at hand. However, I do feel these overarching societal themes of motherhood and fatherhood supersede race and socioeconomic background, as both of these categories do have mothers and fathers. But like you said, it would be good to examine those categories further

      Now your last complaint seems like an ad hominem to me, and I would assume this is because I’ve offended your worldview, and you are in general fed up with the fact that I don’t believe exactly what you believe. Your reaction actually proves my point that “feminists” have a social narrative that is more important than truth.

      Reply
      • S

        ShreyaMar 24, 2016 at 3:33 pm

        Hey, Mark!
        (Like Ahmari, I apologize, in advance, for the ESSAY)

        You know, I’m very impressed with how eloquent and well written this argument is. It shows you have a great grasp of economic policy, and the English language. However, your argument has a few flaws.
        In respect of airing out all the opinions, I’d like to make a rebuttal.

        Your first point in your essay, that it would make sense for a business owners to hire women instead of men, if women were really cheaper, you’re looking at this from the perspective of why businesses do outsourcing. But you fail to take in the fact that this is a different issue. As you said yourself, women take off leave for maternal reasons. Why would a business owner invest in a woman that could potentially leave? It’s this type of fear that stops business owners from considering women at the same standard as men, and from hiring them as often. It’s tough for women to enter the workforce for precisely that reason.
        Even taking off the two times (average amount of children per household in America) that women will, in their (again, on average) thirty to forty years of being in the workforce, women are also expected to make children their first priority. You said so yourself, that men are expected to be providers. If women were raised to that same standard, then wouldn’t it be easier for them to go into the workforce? Why should it be on them all the time to be the domestic side, to take off time for their children and ruin their opportunities for their careers? You yourself admit to this societal expectation being in place. How is it not unfair then, that we are made to sacrifice are dreams and aspirations in the workforce, due to societal expectations, and paid less because of it? If we have the capability, the want, to pursue riskier jobs, to pursue our careers, and are forced out of it because of societal expectations and then used to justify that as reason for our unequal pay, doesn’t that sound unfair?

        Second of all, I’m glad you admit that gender pay gaps is ridiculous, but so is racism, terrorism, and homophobia. Just because something is ridiculous, or does not make sense, is not adequate argument to support the fact that it does not exist.

        Third of all, as per your idea women are paid less because they work less. Statistically speaking, women work the same amount as men. They however, get paid for less hours than men do. And also, it’s basic math to say, even woman works the same amount of hours as a man, but gets paid less for each hour, it doesn’t matter even if the girl decides to never have kids and strives to work as much hours as the man, she will still be paid less, and that is the key definition of gender inequality.

        Also, for your suggestion that we also focus on rape and sex trafficking, that is also one of our causes! But just like we have doctors working to treat cancer, we do also have doctors working to treat the flu and the common cold. Just because something is not to the point that it does not cause physical or emotional trauma that could scar us for life, does not mean that it’s not a worthy cause to fight for. Being someone on the advantaged side of this pay gap, means that you don’t have a key understanding on how exactly it feels to work just as hard as the guy beside you, only to have less appreciation for it. Think of it this way. If you and a person next to you hands in the same report as you, and you get a B, and that guy gets an A, wouldn’t you want to fight for that? Or would you just say, “hey, at least my teacher didn’t stab me in the neck?”

        Lastly, I love your implication that all feminists are raving mad and can’t see the logic behind the causes we fight for, to even think about the causes we fight for and blindly believe leftist propaganda. And the implication that we don’t have enough people calling us “feminazis” to be able to understand that yes, there are people who don’t share our point of view. I was very interested in what you had to say until you decided to say that. I think you need to understand, that feminism does not mean the same for every feminist, and that yes, most of us do actually know and think about what we’re fighting for.

        Thank you, and have a wonderful day,
        Shreya 🙂

        Reply
    • M

      M. LindseyMar 26, 2016 at 10:40 am

      Check out this article: http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/ It debunks five different myths feminists claim, like the sexual slavery point you mentioned, and it will surprise you.

      Reply
  • A

    AdonisMar 23, 2016 at 7:25 pm

    Although I agree with the other article on this, this article is perfect. It’s well-written, and all the points are valid. The logic behind this is so simple and flawless.

    Reply
  • M

    M. LindseyMar 23, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    Fantastic article! I’m a woman, and I’m also a proud anti-feminist! Why? Because even before this article was written, I knew that the gender wage gap was a myth, like many feminist claims. Check out this article: http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/ The hypocrisy of modern feminist movement? They claim to love and support all women, yet they hate conservative and libertarian women, pro-life women, pro-gun women, and Christian women. They only care about liberal, atheist, pro-choice, anti-gun women. That is why I no longer consider myself a feminist.

    Reply
  • A

    AlexMar 23, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    Great article. Thanks for the read. Metea Media needs a lot more informed individuals writing

    Reply
  • M

    mattMar 23, 2016 at 1:09 pm

    Thank you for the first logical opinionated article in awhile

    Reply
  • J

    John McDanielsMar 23, 2016 at 11:08 am

    Dead. On. Thank you to Metea for bringing ideological diversity to this website, and to you for bringing common sense to the argument, an argument that has been irrelevant since JFK signed the equal pay act.

    Reply
  • C

    Colin PastoreMar 23, 2016 at 10:54 am

    Greatest article in metea media history

    Reply
  • V

    VyasaMar 23, 2016 at 10:52 am

    This was extremely eloquent and well-written. Good job.

    Reply
  • T

    Tom HayesMar 23, 2016 at 10:12 am

    There’s a fine line behind courage and stupidity

    Reply
    • T

      Tom HayesMar 23, 2016 at 10:19 am

      *between

      Reply
  • A

    AnonymousMar 23, 2016 at 10:08 am

    Amen

    Reply
  • N

    Nick HegerMar 23, 2016 at 9:22 am

    *Golf clap*

    Reply