And one more thing, 13ball, I think you are doing a grave injustice in misrepresenting how important it is for people to feel accepted. While I'm a dick I really feel bad for ugly people. I know what that feeling is like and it's awful. I've met plenty of smart people who were both successful and not successful, but comparing that to the utter loneliness and downright desperation from ugly people isn't even in the same universe.

You shouldn't disregard their feelings. I know I'm not big on feelings but I've had quite a few people confide in me about the deep, DEEP hangups they have about their looks and what it means to them. It's more important than you are admitting.

My post were not offensive and didn't not quote the offensive posts afaik.

If some posts with actual substance were deleted in the recent clean-up, that is an unintended consequence of requiring a bulldozer to clean up a mess.

Oh i didn't say they had much substance, just not offensive. But all right.

Worst Debunking Nomination, SEMIFINALIST MARCH 2017.

Dude whatever happened to that Milo guy? I thought the extreme right-wingers like wil and mongdingdong were super-committed to protecting his freedom of extreme speech. What gives guys? I haven't seen Milo around in weeks and I'm kinda starting to miss the stupid ****er.

About wage gap:

If this was still real, wouldn't there be huge scandals from time to time? Younger generations are very open about how much they earn and if a company consistently paid less to women than men in entry-level positions it would eventually be discovered. I have never heard anything like that, though.

Once a career is a couple years long it becomes almost impossible to take into account all variables.

I'm certain some discrimination still exists, stuff like young women who haven't had children yet being chosen less for important promotions. But it's impossible to proof in reality and while I agree it shouldn't exist I also have a hard time finding an argument why it should be absolutely illegal for a company to make that type of decision, since it can be in the best interest of the company.

There are huge scandals from time to time. The discrimination has a cumulative effect over the course of a career, so it has a much bigger effect on say a 40 y.o. mid level manager (who might be a CEO if white male) than a 22 y.o. just entering the field.

Right and this is one of the reasons it's very difficult to win discrimination cases in court.

Many companies even have policies openly banning discussion of salaries and compensation, something Democrats in Congress have wanted to address for awhile. No dice, says Republicans.

One thing can be in the best interest of The Company, another thing can be in the best interest of society. For one thing, by providing this huge disincentive for woman to become highly educated and advanced in their careers (the discriminatory effect is greater at higher levels on the ladder) it creates a huge brain drain of society. We're missing out on a huge productive pool of talent by providing this disincentive to females entering the employment market.

A lot of times discrimination takes place not in terms of direct compensation, but in terms of who and when to promote. What position to give someone who is doing the same role. And compensation packages can be very complex these days as well, making the whole situation even more opaque.

The bolded seems like a reasonable company policy.

Also, women aren't lagging behind in college education based on perceived discrimination. If anything, it's men who are falling behind in that area.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...ve-men-behind/

Right, which is impressive considering that they are actively being dis-incentivized from seeking higher education due to the discrimination they face later on in the job market. They are going out and getting degrees at a higher rate than men, even though those degrees are inherently worth more (but cost the same) to a man.

What seems reasonable on its face and what is most beneficial to society, especially if we want to incentivize education and advanced careers for women, might be two very different things.

What evidence do you have of widespread discrimination later in the job market?

I'll point out that the value of a college education goes beyond merely making more money. Isn't it possible women, on average, just look to get different things out of a college education than men do?

Women don't need special incentives to get more education if they earn degrees at higher rates than men. If we should expand educational opportunities for women, we should expand it for everyone.

You're still not getting it. We're not talking about giving them a special incentive, but rather giving them the equal incentive that their expensive-ass college degrees will be well-rewarded later on in their careers. Right now, men are the ones getting a special incentive, that's right, special treatment, to get a degree, because their college degree is inherently more valuable than the one a woman gets.

I totally agree that we need universal university education, but that's a separate issue. We're talking about the fact that women are specifically disincentivized from getting advanced educations because they face discrimination later on in their careers when they invest the time and big amounts of money needed to do so.

Wouldn't you expect to get paid a fair amount for the value of your education and the years you've put into your career? That's all we're talking about, nothing more. Women do want this, believe me. They are very very frustrated by the fact that they aren't getting it--many people just seem to be more interested in rejecting all the evidence rather than actually working towards a more equitable outcome.

The gender pay gap is widest among educated workers
Source: http://www.aauw.org/research/the-sim...ender-pay-gap/

You are still ultimately just asserting that the wage gap is due to discrimination. The fact that there is a wage gap isn't proof that the system is unfair.

Say that after spending an absurd amount of money on a college education I have the choice of two careers. One pays a lot but requires 60+hr work weeks while the other has a more modest salary but I would only work 40hr weeks. If I decide that I value the freedom afforded me by the second career or find the work more rewarding or whatever and choose the second career, does that somehow make my degree less valuable?

Isn't it possible that women, on average, choose some variant of the second career more often than men do?

The places where you can find qualified women aren't being offered that first job, that is where the government should step in and make sure they are able to get the higher paying job if they want it. (Evidence women are dissuaded from choosing STEM majors would be another form of this but, again, the fact that women happen to choose these majors less often isn't proof that there is any discrimination)

Wouldn't you expect to get paid a fair amount for the value of your education and the years you've put into your career? That's all we're talking about, nothing more. Women do want this, believe me. They are very very frustrated by the fact that they aren't getting it--many people just seem to be more interested in rejecting all the evidence rather than actually working towards a more equitable outcome.

That graphic is useless. Not all associate/bachelor's/advanced degrees are created equal. If you already have the truth on your side (an existing gender wage gap in the 5-7% range) then don't make an exaggerated or misleading claim that can easily be attacked.

It's real, like I said you can slice it up many different ways but it's real. Some people seem to be very very interested in finding any reason to make it magically go away rather than addressing the very real problem.

Source:
http://www.aauw.org/research/the-sim...ender-pay-gap/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/...-income-level/

http://www.aauw.org/2013/04/05/three...women-in-stem/

The problem here is we define the word 'value' differently. Using your very specific definition and talking just about $$$ the answer to your question is "not necessarily" as I tried to show in the hypothetical in my last post.

Louis is right, focusing on the ~6% unexplained gap is a better way forward.

Citation needed on the 6% figure, because it seems like it just got made up out of nowhere. The truth is its about 79 cents on the dollar.

Actual source with data: https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/...-income-level/

What a lot of people are missing is that even though women may get degrees more than men, they're still being dis-incentivized from seeking degrees because of discrimination they will face later on down the line. So if we removed that, we would get even more women getting degrees which would add even more value to society.

The truth is, women are subsidizing the cost of the degrees of men because they pay the same exorbitant rate for a degree (plus costs in taxes) that a man does while getting far from an equal return on their investment in the long run.

You're comparing different things. The key is Madcap's use of the phrase "unexplained gap".

The 79% figure is a simple comparison of median weekly earnings between full-time workers without controlling for any other variable. The "unexplained" gap in various studies is the part of that 79% which remains after controlling for various factors external to gender which impact wages.

If you read the AAUW report you linked previously it does a good job of explaining. Here's the part I snipped from it previously in this thread:

I believe other studies have found a similarly sized "unexplained gap".

See also my first reply to wil (emphases added):

I think the point that feminist consciousness-raising is concerned with factors beyond intentional wage discrimination is important.