[nkkollaw]

"denialism", like it's an irrefutable fact?

From Wikipedia I read: "a substantial portion of the pay gap (12%) remained unexplained.". Pretty small, and a lot smaller than what feminists claim the gap to be.

Then, at the end of the same section you linked: "In 2018, economists at the University of Chicago and Stanford University, working with Uber analyzing the gender pay gap of Uber drivers demonstrated an average 7% pay gap in a context where gender discrimination was not possible and pay was not negotiated, showing the difference entirely explainable as the difference in average productivity between men and women".

Am I mistaken in interpreting this to mean that only 5% is unexplained, and that "unexplained" does not mean evil patriarchy?

Any group of people will be discriminated by 5%. For instance, I'm Italian. Are you telling me that in the States I won't find 5% (or even 12% or more) of people that think I'm dishonest, mafioso, lazy, etc..?

Give me a break.

[dstrohmaier]

I believe you are willfully misconstruing my position instead of trying to engage in the most charitable interpretation.

You original comment which has now been flagged suggested that 0 economists took the issue of the gender gap serious. By "denialism" I meant to refer to your position of denying that this is an issue at all. That it is an issue treated by serious economists is a fact. You have since reneged from that denial, which I consider a step forward. What you are now questioning is how big an issue it is.

Nowhere in my comment do I refer to any "evial patriarchy", although I do consider such an issue grave. If around half of the working population is discriminated against by 5% that would be a pretty huge issue overall. That other instances of discrimination exist, for example discrimination against people of Italian descent does not change that.

I am afraid you are also incorrect in picking out the end of the Wikipedia section I linked to. As this section I linked to points out, the Uber setting is very special because the pay is set via the Uber company without hiring the drivers in the usual sense.

[nkkollaw]

> I believe you are willfully misconstruing my position instead of trying to engage in the most charitable interpretation.

I don't believe so.

> You original comment which has now been flagged suggested that 0 economists took the issue of the gender gap serious. By "denialism" I meant to refer to your position of denying that this is an issue at all. That it is an issue treated by serious economists is a fact. You have since reneged from that denial, which I consider a step forward. What you are now questioning is how big an issue it is.

I have no idea why it was flagged because it was a normal comment, and not even a very controversial position to hold. You're saying "has now been flagged" like I called for all women to be killed while swearing and offending people (perhaps to discredit me/my opinions?).

As for changing my mind (or even "reneging from that denial"), I think you're overestimating yourself: you didn't present anything that made me change my mind. 10% of unaccounted "discrimination" would be proof that this is an issue? Even if it was (which we don't know), like I said you can find 10% of people that will discriminate against anything: Italians, women, attractive vs. unattractive people, blacks, blond people, fat people, skinny people.

This whole thing is overblown. There are certain people that want to see injustice everywhere and will use the 10% pay gap that is unaccounted for to prove that there is a problem of women being oppressed, while either there is no problem, or it's so little to be negligible and most importantly similar to other biases.

> I am afraid you are also incorrect in picking out the end of the Wikipedia section I linked to. As this section I linked to points out, the Uber setting is very special because the pay is set via the Uber company without hiring the drivers in the usual sense.

I think it's a perfect example. Even taking away human bias--so, removing the hiring process, men and women perform differently. That's why it doesn't make sense to compare men and women like they're exactly the same, or why when you do you'll get a 10% discrepancy.

You know what we could agree on? That we are human and will naturally be 10% biased towards anything. Not only women, but all groups of people I mentioned and more. Sometimes it's women, sometimes it's Italians, sometimes it's attractive vs. unattractive people. This obsession with equality of outcome creates a lot more problems than that 10%, considering that while you may lose 10% on your workplace because of bias/opinion X, you might gain 10% in other aspects of your life and at the end it just averages out. In first-world and second-world western countries people have equality of opportunity, which is what really counts.

EDIT: HN doesn't allow me to reply to your comment below (thread too deep), but it's not worth it anyway.

[dstrohmaier]

Here is a case in which I think you do not engage in the most charitable interpretation: 'You're saying "has now been flagged" like I called for all women to be killed' A more charitable interpretation would have been that I wanted to make clear that what I responded to can no longer be seen. I ask you to please interpret me as charitably as possible. I will try to do the same.

You said 0 economists study the issue. I showed you that multiple economists study it. You now also assert that I didn't make you change your mind. Do you still hold that 0 economists study the issue? If you do not, you have changed your mind. If you do still hold that opinion, then I am not sure how to proceed as that would indicate that you are impervious to argumentation.

You are using the number of 10% in two ways: 1.) About 10% of the gender pay gap are unaccounted for and therefore likely to be the result of direct discrimination. 2.) Every group is discriminated against by other people by around 10% of the population. But these are very different issues. If every group was discriminated against by 10% of the population, the resulting pay differences would (more or less) even out. The does not, which suggests that this a widespread and systematic phenomenon. For some people, although perhaps not you and I grant that it would need to be debated, this might make the problem appear more severe.

Much of your posts just questions the importance of the issue. That is a normative question, which I consider separate from the issue whether the gender pay gap can be partially traced back to discrimination. Here is what I hold in regard to that normative question: I do not want to tell other people that they should not care about the discrimination they experience when I am on the end that profits or at least does not suffer it. It is up to people subjected to this treatment to decide how big of an issue they want to make out of it. I suggest it is a good normative heuristic that one should be wary to question the severity of the problem if one is on the side who is not affected by it. If you are fine discounting discrimination you experience, then that is all well but I would suggest you should not extend that to other people so easily.

(I edited this post to more adequately reflect the position of the previous poster.)