On Sun, 13 Aug 2000, Caitlyn M. Martin wrote:
> You are citing anecdotal data about yourself. You are not typical,
> and the logical leap you are making, that since you aren't
> discriminated against in terms of salary that women as a rule must
> also not be, is not a valid one.
I was not extrapolating; you assumed I was.
> The point of the Working Woman survey was that, for the most part,
> women in the exact same job doing the exact same work as their male
> counterparts get paid less than men, all things being equal. The
> inequality is strictly in pay.
Is it really a comparison of equals though? I must confess I simply have
never truly believed that we were actually comparing apples and apples.
Any survey is bound not to be refined enough.
In the highest-paid areas of programming, you simply don't see many women.
When I worked at one company, I worked on a floor of engineers and two of
us were women. Most of the guys were doing kernel and device driver work
-- not the area that women go into. They openly welcomed women, but there
simply were no applicants that were female the entire time I was there.
In my current position, there are a handful of female engineers, but I'm
the only one in my group (of 12 people). Our group is very senior; the
average age is probably 35 and we all have more than ten years (several
more than twenty) in the field.
When I have done schlep work (MIS programming) that paid less, I've seen a
lot more women. This isn't meant as offense to people who enjoy it btw,
but I sure don't.
> That is besided the point. Women who do *not* exit the job market
> still get paid less, for the most part. Are you an exception? Sure.
> I've been one too. That doesn't change the fact that there is ongoing
> bias and discriminatory practices when it comes to salaries.
I do agree that there can be bias and discriminatory practices, however, I
think it still gets back to the math thing: those fields that are more
math-intensive tend to pay better and women tend not to go there. Any
"survey" will tend to lump people together and, imho, the salary
difference effects will be exaggerated.
Also, in this time of people having a difficult time finding candidates
(and then the relative ease of moving from one job to the next), I find it
difficult to believe that any sex differences in pay would tend to last.
In other words, I'm not convinced surveys are, because of categorization
and lumping, an accurate reflection of any sex bias.
--
_Deirdre * http://www.sfknit.org * http://www.deirdre.net
"We can always count on the British. Except for the Revolutionary War
they've been perfect." -- Mel Brooks, on the first Concorde flight since
the Paris crash.
_______________________________________________
issues mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
