This was a particularly good essay of yours. One thing that strikes me is that not only are we valuing women over men, we STILL seem to devalue the fields they used to dominate (teaching, nursing, caretaking, etc.)
It’s almost as if men are being devalued while simultaneously devaluing women who aren’t enough like men.
We are NOT valuing women over men! Men have never been devalued, except in the fevered imaginations of men like Reeves, who see all successful women as thieves who have stolen something from a man.
"One thing that strikes me is that not only are we valuing women over men," Yes, that is what you said. I do agree with the other part of your statement, which is "...we STILL seem to devalue the fields they used to dominate (teaching, nursing, caretaking, etc.)" If you were being ironic in the first part of your statement, I apologize, but I have to wonder why you think Haider's essay was particularly good, since she seems to believe some of Reeve's incel talking points without the slightest recognition that everything he says has been used to fight against women's attempts to level the playing field for decades.
the decline of male-only or male-oriented groups explicitly is something i'm now concerned about, especially with young men. i'm not talking about men's rights or whatever. i don't even care about women in this context, men need to stand up, and just take leadership instead of cowering. until we figure that out our culture will be out of balance. we're starting to become like the inverse of saudi arabia in some sectors IMO
It’s something I’ve been concerned about too. People undervalue the importance of male-friendships and male only spaces. I think, at least in part, the the reason so many men aren’t stepping up is because they are incredibly isolated right now. It’s hard to be motivated when you don’t have the support and friendship of the friends of your own gender.
i've only started realizing how different male-only groups are recently after being part of some implicitly male-only groups. it's not all "locker room" talk
That’s what I’ve heard. I know a lot of men who have a hard time opening up around women, so these male friendships become incredibly important for them.
No one has taken male-only spaces away from men. Women have lobbied for our OWN spaces for centuries, and only finally received them a few decades ago, just to have them ripped away --- BY MEN.
If you're referring to biological males self-ID'ing their way into women's spaces, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone 'round these here parts that supports those policies. This is TERF turf.
I'm a TERF. You're not a TERF because you're a man. Men can't be feminists at all, much less radical feminists. The problem here, is that you are trying to use one instance of not supporting male colonization to distract from the fact you support all other forms of male control. So thanks for nothing, and don't pretend to be any woman's ally.
Who the hell downloads porn? That sounds like a great way to fuck up a perfectly good computer with viruses. Plus, trying to put terabytes of anything on a PC would crash it.
I really love how well adjusted and thoughtful everyone is being in this comment section. Everyone is being so kind and persuasive and not at all weird.
Jan 2, 2023·edited Jan 2, 2023Liked by Sarah Haider
It's consistently driven by other non-gender factors, like amount of OT worked. Men statistically work longer hours, which one way or another leads to higher pay. Ever compared the timesheets along with the paystubs? When a woman is working 35 hours a week while a man in the next cubicle works 55 hours a week, it's not a "gender gap" that explains the man getting larger raises and bonuses.
FWIW, it was a woman named Claudia Goldin who did the most research into non-linear wage growth. (she won the 2016 IZA Prize by the Bonn-based Institute for the Study of Labor based on that research) If working a 40 hour week brings in a salary of $50k, an 80 hour week (i.e. double the hours) tends to bring in closer to a $120k salary (i.e. MORE than double the pay). Men statistically working the lion's share of longer hours also means men tend to get bigger raises, bigger bonuses, and more rapid promotions.
And that’s without considering socioeconomic factors. White educated women make significantly more, on average, than black men. It’s not a cut and dry issue with a clear solution as some would have it be.
When a person thinks their "personal experience" amounts to scientific research, that's the end of the conversation for me. But good for you for taking the time to explain lol.
That Pew one comes right out and says "Much of this gap has been explained by measurable factors such as educational attainment, occupational segregation and work experience.", which the others also agree on. A women making lattes at Starbucks and getting paid less than a man working as an electrical engineer isn't being discriminated against.
The closest they get to claiming actual confirmed discrimination is "overrepresented in lower-paying occupations", which is a combination of choosing shitty paying jobs like baristas and the self-inflicted glass ceiling effect of working less OT over their careers than men, who leverage that OT to get promoted. All other discussions of discrimination are heged in "may be a factor" terms, but there isn't even an attempt to quantify it.
So yeah, men getting paid more for equivalent work is fake news. If it worked that way, capitalists would exclusively hire women to save money and increase profits.
Fuck your blogs. Goldin is a ball-palming cunt, like our friend Sarah Haider here. Trying to score brownie points from dicks because they believe the hype that it's a post-feminist world, and no one will read her unless she peddles the narrative about "restoring balance".
Always heartwarming to see women supporting other women by calling them "ball-palming cunts" on the internet for being a prize-winning economist. Truly a win for feminism.
You have no idea how funny I find it that I, an accountant, am being called a knuckle-dragger. Accountants have plenty of stereotypes, but that generally isn't one of them.
I also think it's funny that you think I'd need Goldin to "protect" me. I'm one of those guys who worked 80+ hour weeks for 7 years to lock in the fat salary I'm currently getting paid. I met tons of smart women along the way, but they pretty consistently negotiated with employers in very different ways than I did. They prioritized work-life balance and boundaries, while I sacrificed those things for higher pay.
I have two white sons and this is my fear for them. In trying to level the playing field for everyone else they’ve thrown sons like mine off a cliff. It’s intentional and backed by bad statistics like the wage gap. I’m a woman in a STEM field. I’m not underpaid as compared to my male peers. Freakanomics did a podcast episode years ago about a wage gap study that Uber did and it was pretty interesting. It debunked that $0.75 for every $1 myth as well as showed that men pick risker and therefore more lucrative routes (early mornings, late nights and they drive faster) and that any wage gap (at the time something like $0.97 for every $1) was not due to discrimination but choices.
Taking things away from men intentionally to prop up women isn’t feminism, it’s revenge.
It's funny at my company (semiconductor industry) if I got a black woman hired I would get 5 grand bonus for no other reason then them being black and a woman. If they were merely woman it would be 4 grand.
The notion that stem is discriminating against women is laughable to me when they will pay rather large referral bonuses to get women hired. You think there might be other positive discrimination at play? like illegal quotas?
Refreshingly insightful article on gendered financial inequality. Your points about men being more likely to be given loans and investments due to their perceived financial stability and men being given gifts to demonstrate their value or worth are clear examples of how societal expectations and biases can lead to unequal treatment and opportunities for men and women.
It’s really interesting how the ways in which this gendered financial inequality can have long-term consequences on individuals and their financial stability. It's not just about receiving a one-time gift or loan, but rather the accumulated financial support and opportunities that can lead to greater financial success.
Your bringing attention to this important issue is appreciated, and I hope more will recognize and address these inequalities to foster a more equal opportunity and a more fair society for all.
Did we read the same article? I WISH your take was what Haider was trying to express. It looked to me like she was drinking Reeve's koolaid by the kegful. Your comments are excellent. I hope someone pulls her out of the rabbit hole before it's too late...
Good read. I have always been very intrigued in how far the pendulum of "Corrective Action" swings. For centuries, women were barred from going into certain fields, especially STEM. Now it seems that the corrective action isn't just to facilitate our entrance into the field, but it's beginning to feel more and more forced. More about signaling than actually caring. Thanks for pointing that out. If only people can see that.
Hi, I enjoy your writing and think this essay raises good points.
I wonder if the higher variance in male IQs explains some of the academic discrepancy between men and women. Males seem to have a higher proportion of individuals at both tails of the bell curve.
Also, men tend to do poorer in coursework but better on high-stakes test such as the SAT, which may be due to personality traits. On average, boys outscore girls on the SAT but are clobbered on the achievement-oriented GCSEs.
I appreciate this article and learned a lot from the comments, as well. I didn’t think about the wage gap being a flawed argument until I read a commenter share about how men tend to work more OT hours, leading to naturally higher annual wages. However, what’s missing from this point is something I’ve personally experienced and cannot walk away from this thread without mentioning -- and that’s the issue of career interruptions for women. More woman are impacted by career interruptions, which leads to lower earning potential overtime. Whether they take breaks from their career for childcare responsibilities or elderly parental care, women take on the brunt of this work in a society where universal healthcare or elder-care isn’t available. I’ve personally had to take off over a year from work between my two kids and have been told point-blank during hiring processes that my earning potential is based off of “traditional years in the workforce.” The years I’ve taken off to take care for my kids -- even tho I was writing, volunteering, building, oh and raising human beings -- means nothing for my earning potential and I’ve suffered because of it.
I haven't read the book but I did raise the following point to the author: why should men attend college in the same numbers as women as they have numerous career paths to the middle class that don't require a college diploma? On the flip side, women have few options - unless they want to work in male dominated fields - so a college diploma is almost a necessity to find a middle class position.
Why would someone invest 4+ years of time and accumulate debt, if they only needed at best an associate's degree?
Yes, men weren't always in the minority in colleges. But, far fewer people attend college too a generation or two ago.
Hi Sarah, just here for a request: could you suggest a link, a book, an article that you consider to have the best arguments against the myth of the wage gap, please? I need to understand more on this issue, thank you.
I banned her. Sorry guys—I thought I would open comments to everyone, obviously that was a mistake.
Perfect illustration of some of points above though, wasn’t it. :)
On a different topic, Sarah, Connor Friedersdorf featured this piece in his newsletter! I love it when two people I follow also are in conversation 😎
Got a link?
Mikes, scroll all the way down
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/01/are-sports-worth-the-risks/672643/
Maybe now she'll go touch grass after all lol
This was a particularly good essay of yours. One thing that strikes me is that not only are we valuing women over men, we STILL seem to devalue the fields they used to dominate (teaching, nursing, caretaking, etc.)
It’s almost as if men are being devalued while simultaneously devaluing women who aren’t enough like men.
We are NOT valuing women over men! Men have never been devalued, except in the fevered imaginations of men like Reeves, who see all successful women as thieves who have stolen something from a man.
Oh. Is that what I said? Huh...
"One thing that strikes me is that not only are we valuing women over men," Yes, that is what you said. I do agree with the other part of your statement, which is "...we STILL seem to devalue the fields they used to dominate (teaching, nursing, caretaking, etc.)" If you were being ironic in the first part of your statement, I apologize, but I have to wonder why you think Haider's essay was particularly good, since she seems to believe some of Reeve's incel talking points without the slightest recognition that everything he says has been used to fight against women's attempts to level the playing field for decades.
How helpful it is to have an expert in my own thoughts and opinions in the comments!
the decline of male-only or male-oriented groups explicitly is something i'm now concerned about, especially with young men. i'm not talking about men's rights or whatever. i don't even care about women in this context, men need to stand up, and just take leadership instead of cowering. until we figure that out our culture will be out of balance. we're starting to become like the inverse of saudi arabia in some sectors IMO
It’s something I’ve been concerned about too. People undervalue the importance of male-friendships and male only spaces. I think, at least in part, the the reason so many men aren’t stepping up is because they are incredibly isolated right now. It’s hard to be motivated when you don’t have the support and friendship of the friends of your own gender.
i've only started realizing how different male-only groups are recently after being part of some implicitly male-only groups. it's not all "locker room" talk
That’s what I’ve heard. I know a lot of men who have a hard time opening up around women, so these male friendships become incredibly important for them.
Yeah, some of it is rape-apologist talk.
No one has taken male-only spaces away from men. Women have lobbied for our OWN spaces for centuries, and only finally received them a few decades ago, just to have them ripped away --- BY MEN.
If you're referring to biological males self-ID'ing their way into women's spaces, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone 'round these here parts that supports those policies. This is TERF turf.
I'm a TERF. You're not a TERF because you're a man. Men can't be feminists at all, much less radical feminists. The problem here, is that you are trying to use one instance of not supporting male colonization to distract from the fact you support all other forms of male control. So thanks for nothing, and don't pretend to be any woman's ally.
I was actually referring to Sarah, not myself, since this is techically her turf, but do go off.
I'm going to go ahead and guess.......seven. Seven cats in your apartment.
LOL
I'm going to go ahead and guess....... ten. Ten terabytes of porn on your computer. Fucking incel.
Who the hell downloads porn? That sounds like a great way to fuck up a perfectly good computer with viruses. Plus, trying to put terabytes of anything on a PC would crash it.
So.....not a great guess.
Ah, so it's kiddie porn. Got it. Now fuck off.
You know, you're not exactly dismantling stereotypes of "hysterical women" here. Take a chill pill and maybe go touch some grass.
Interesting essay. Raising a boy, it is concerning to see these trends. I hope more research and attention is given to the subject.
Great article - counter-narrative and insightful. Thank you!
I really love how well adjusted and thoughtful everyone is being in this comment section. Everyone is being so kind and persuasive and not at all weird.
That’s what I get for opening up comments to all. Sorry! Should I remove our feminist friend?
Not that I don’t enjoy being called a “ball-palming cunt”….
I mean, it is a very colorful moniker!
It’s up to you, but I think it’s one of those situations where you might not want to interrupt someone who’s helping you make your point.
It's kind of sad that the same people who complain about "misinformation" also believe the wage gap is a real thing.
It IS real. I've had access to enough payroll records to personally verify it for myself.
It's consistently driven by other non-gender factors, like amount of OT worked. Men statistically work longer hours, which one way or another leads to higher pay. Ever compared the timesheets along with the paystubs? When a woman is working 35 hours a week while a man in the next cubicle works 55 hours a week, it's not a "gender gap" that explains the man getting larger raises and bonuses.
FWIW, it was a woman named Claudia Goldin who did the most research into non-linear wage growth. (she won the 2016 IZA Prize by the Bonn-based Institute for the Study of Labor based on that research) If working a 40 hour week brings in a salary of $50k, an 80 hour week (i.e. double the hours) tends to bring in closer to a $120k salary (i.e. MORE than double the pay). Men statistically working the lion's share of longer hours also means men tend to get bigger raises, bigger bonuses, and more rapid promotions.
https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2022/12/claudia-goldin-on-the-gender-pay-gap/
https://dataspace.princeton.edu/handle/88435/dsp01zc77ss46f?mode=full
And that’s without considering socioeconomic factors. White educated women make significantly more, on average, than black men. It’s not a cut and dry issue with a clear solution as some would have it be.
When a person thinks their "personal experience" amounts to scientific research, that's the end of the conversation for me. But good for you for taking the time to explain lol.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/19/women-are-still-paid-83-cents-for-every-dollar-men-earn-heres-why.html#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20a%20recent%20analysis,%2C%20geography%2C%20race%20and%20ethnicity.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/25/gender-pay-gap-facts/
https://www.aauw.org/resources/research/simple-truth/
https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/quick-facts-gender-wage-gap/
https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/gender-pay-gap
My sources are better than yours, and I can do this all day, penis. Die mad about it.
That Pew one comes right out and says "Much of this gap has been explained by measurable factors such as educational attainment, occupational segregation and work experience.", which the others also agree on. A women making lattes at Starbucks and getting paid less than a man working as an electrical engineer isn't being discriminated against.
The closest they get to claiming actual confirmed discrimination is "overrepresented in lower-paying occupations", which is a combination of choosing shitty paying jobs like baristas and the self-inflicted glass ceiling effect of working less OT over their careers than men, who leverage that OT to get promoted. All other discussions of discrimination are heged in "may be a factor" terms, but there isn't even an attempt to quantify it.
So yeah, men getting paid more for equivalent work is fake news. If it worked that way, capitalists would exclusively hire women to save money and increase profits.
Oh right, Forbes and Business Insider are all fake news. Fuck off, dick. The wage gap exists.
In the sense that baristas get paid less than engineers, sure there's a gap there.
Fuck your blogs. Goldin is a ball-palming cunt, like our friend Sarah Haider here. Trying to score brownie points from dicks because they believe the hype that it's a post-feminist world, and no one will read her unless she peddles the narrative about "restoring balance".
Always heartwarming to see women supporting other women by calling them "ball-palming cunts" on the internet for being a prize-winning economist. Truly a win for feminism.
I don't support women who protect knuckle-draggers like you.
You have no idea how funny I find it that I, an accountant, am being called a knuckle-dragger. Accountants have plenty of stereotypes, but that generally isn't one of them.
I also think it's funny that you think I'd need Goldin to "protect" me. I'm one of those guys who worked 80+ hour weeks for 7 years to lock in the fat salary I'm currently getting paid. I met tons of smart women along the way, but they pretty consistently negotiated with employers in very different ways than I did. They prioritized work-life balance and boundaries, while I sacrificed those things for higher pay.
I have two white sons and this is my fear for them. In trying to level the playing field for everyone else they’ve thrown sons like mine off a cliff. It’s intentional and backed by bad statistics like the wage gap. I’m a woman in a STEM field. I’m not underpaid as compared to my male peers. Freakanomics did a podcast episode years ago about a wage gap study that Uber did and it was pretty interesting. It debunked that $0.75 for every $1 myth as well as showed that men pick risker and therefore more lucrative routes (early mornings, late nights and they drive faster) and that any wage gap (at the time something like $0.97 for every $1) was not due to discrimination but choices.
Taking things away from men intentionally to prop up women isn’t feminism, it’s revenge.
It's funny at my company (semiconductor industry) if I got a black woman hired I would get 5 grand bonus for no other reason then them being black and a woman. If they were merely woman it would be 4 grand.
The notion that stem is discriminating against women is laughable to me when they will pay rather large referral bonuses to get women hired. You think there might be other positive discrimination at play? like illegal quotas?
Ugh, don't get me started on the advantages boomer men have over millennial/Gen Z men.
Refreshingly insightful article on gendered financial inequality. Your points about men being more likely to be given loans and investments due to their perceived financial stability and men being given gifts to demonstrate their value or worth are clear examples of how societal expectations and biases can lead to unequal treatment and opportunities for men and women.
It’s really interesting how the ways in which this gendered financial inequality can have long-term consequences on individuals and their financial stability. It's not just about receiving a one-time gift or loan, but rather the accumulated financial support and opportunities that can lead to greater financial success.
Your bringing attention to this important issue is appreciated, and I hope more will recognize and address these inequalities to foster a more equal opportunity and a more fair society for all.
Did we read the same article? I WISH your take was what Haider was trying to express. It looked to me like she was drinking Reeve's koolaid by the kegful. Your comments are excellent. I hope someone pulls her out of the rabbit hole before it's too late...
A related tangent: it is commonplace these days to see a list of finalists for annual book awards, or of "year's best" books, dominated by women, often nonwhite, together with some nonwhite men; see for example the National Book Award finalists at https://www.vox.com/culture/23437466/national-book-award-2022-winners-finalists-list, the NY Times list of ten best of 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/books/best-books-2022.html, or its recommended of 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/08/books/review/2022-reading-picks-from-times-staff-critics.html. And there are a variety of prizes for books by women, and none, I think, for books by men (only). It could well be the case that men, especially white men, don't write so many prize-worthy books these days, or that it's time to spotlight other voices, for some indefinite period. But it's a curious situation. Similar comments apply to music as well.
Good read. I have always been very intrigued in how far the pendulum of "Corrective Action" swings. For centuries, women were barred from going into certain fields, especially STEM. Now it seems that the corrective action isn't just to facilitate our entrance into the field, but it's beginning to feel more and more forced. More about signaling than actually caring. Thanks for pointing that out. If only people can see that.
Does our culture *hate* men? Our culture is certainly allowed to *signal* they hate men but maybe there's no difference in that distinction?
Exactly. Refusing to give scholarships to men born after 2000 but then only promoting older men in the workplace doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Hi, I enjoy your writing and think this essay raises good points.
I wonder if the higher variance in male IQs explains some of the academic discrepancy between men and women. Males seem to have a higher proportion of individuals at both tails of the bell curve.
Also, men tend to do poorer in coursework but better on high-stakes test such as the SAT, which may be due to personality traits. On average, boys outscore girls on the SAT but are clobbered on the achievement-oriented GCSEs.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886906000420?via%3Dihub
https://19thnews.org/2022/03/colleges-admissions-dropping-sat-exam-gender-gap/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/282484/gcse-pass-rate-in-uk-by-gender/
I appreciate this article and learned a lot from the comments, as well. I didn’t think about the wage gap being a flawed argument until I read a commenter share about how men tend to work more OT hours, leading to naturally higher annual wages. However, what’s missing from this point is something I’ve personally experienced and cannot walk away from this thread without mentioning -- and that’s the issue of career interruptions for women. More woman are impacted by career interruptions, which leads to lower earning potential overtime. Whether they take breaks from their career for childcare responsibilities or elderly parental care, women take on the brunt of this work in a society where universal healthcare or elder-care isn’t available. I’ve personally had to take off over a year from work between my two kids and have been told point-blank during hiring processes that my earning potential is based off of “traditional years in the workforce.” The years I’ve taken off to take care for my kids -- even tho I was writing, volunteering, building, oh and raising human beings -- means nothing for my earning potential and I’ve suffered because of it.
I haven't read the book but I did raise the following point to the author: why should men attend college in the same numbers as women as they have numerous career paths to the middle class that don't require a college diploma? On the flip side, women have few options - unless they want to work in male dominated fields - so a college diploma is almost a necessity to find a middle class position.
Why would someone invest 4+ years of time and accumulate debt, if they only needed at best an associate's degree?
Yes, men weren't always in the minority in colleges. But, far fewer people attend college too a generation or two ago.
Hi Sarah, just here for a request: could you suggest a link, a book, an article that you consider to have the best arguments against the myth of the wage gap, please? I need to understand more on this issue, thank you.
Really enjoyed this essay.