That's a common argument to justify inequality.
If learning is the key, then why is there such a huge income disparity between men and women? Are women lazy and don't learn?
What you're arguing for is equity, not equality. We already have equal opportunity. As for the gender wage gap, if women are so disadvantaged - exactly how do they make up 85% of consumer spending?
Dude, we are faaaaaaaaar from equal opportunity. One of the largest predictors of one's ability to accumulate wealth is still the wealth of their own parents. The U.S. is one of the countries with the highest link between parents' and a child's wealth.
I recommend „Capital in the 21st Century“ by Thomas Pikkety, an economist who has deeply studied wealth and income equality using historical data spanning three centuries. This book has all the evidence you need.
Spoiler alert: income from wealth is on its way of becoming close to being as concentrated as it was in the 19th century (especially in the US), and the share of income from work in total national income is decreasing almost anywhere. So yes, increasingly you can only accrue significant wealth by already having significant wealth.
How do we have equal opportunity? Can you point me towards evidence of this?
I guess you're not arguing about the gender wage gap, as it's a well documented fact. What is the point you're trying to make?
And yet not everyone can agree on what the cause of said gender wage gap truly is. Is it because women take time off to raise children, thus setting back their wage advancement? Is it because women are less likely to be more vigorous in asking for wage increases than men? Or is just because men are keeping women down?
As an example... for my wife, her salary was depressed because her boss thought that I make good enough money that she doesn't really need it. I think a lot of women still receive extremely slanted peer reviews due to gender biases (she's really catty, while he tends to raise good arguments), relationship drama (I mean, she's a good worker, but she turned down a drink with me... I don't know how good her judgement is), straight up appearance judgements (Oh, don't give the raise to nancy, she'll have a cushy life with looks like that, barbara could use it more), and harassment (I don't know about that raise - hey what are you doing friday?).
I think that everyone feels like we've totally solved gender discrimination forever while it's still really deeply seated in our culture.
What is the point, _you're_ trying to make? If you're trying to show women are financially burdened you can cherry-pick wage gap data to show that, sure, or you can take a more holistic view of society and what do you see? You see women with significantly more purchasing power than men. So are women disadvantaged or is there no incentive to be high earners? For me it's fairly obvious. There will be men and women who become high earners. There will be men and women who are overlooked based on gender. What I see with the wage gap can be fully explained by lack of necessity to earn for women. Think about that for a minute - they earn less than men, but they spend vastly more money than men. Exactly where is the incentive to earn more for women? Should they continue to work and earn more until they make up 90% of consumer spending? 95%?
It's beyond me how anyone can claim a group that represents 85% of consumer spending is somehow financially burdened and suffers from inequality. It's almost unfathomable, but here we are.
So as a gender, women choose lower paid jobs and work less?
If this is true and it is a choice, that would mean that women as a gender are either lazy or less qualified.
If this is not true then it is evidence of inequality in the selection of employees.
I don't see either of the above making your point.
No one is saying that, it's more of a strawman you want to use to, I'm not sure, maybe accuse people who disagree with you of sexism. Or could you explain why you use those words rather than assume we think it's, let's suppose, just a choice based on differences in average values men and women have?
And as a society we need to understand that men are facing tons of difficulties women don't face too? Why are men killing themselves at a rate 4-5 times higher than women in the western world? Why is the life expectancy of a male always less than a female?
My argument is that -as a society- we don't really accept that women are facing tons of difficulties that men don't experience, because of their sex.
For example, sometimes it's because they might choose to have a baby in the future and a lot of employers don't want to have that risk, so they avoid hiring women after say 25.
I'm not saying that you're sexist, I'm saying that as a society we're comfortable saying that people who have less deserve it for some reason and we have more for just reasons.
If we accept that the society is unfair, and part of why we're better off than others is either luck of because the game is rigged (ie rich parents), we'll be more generous and fair.
Apologies if I insulted people, I was trying to make a point for generosity and I got carried away.
So you're writing on HN instead of working more because you're lazy and less qualified? Or do you voluntarily choose to spend part of your life not working and doing other things that you find enjoyable?