[etripe]

> men are going to believe they're more competent ... because they've been socialized to believe they're better at it.

That's one of the central dogmatic feminist talking points that are just spouted off uncritically, along with other things men are supposedly socialised for, like wage negotiation and preferences for violence, taking up space and technical subject matter. Included is the starting position that women and men are the same and if women are perceived to be behind, it's because something was done to them irrespective of their own agency and accountability as individuals and adults. It's a conspiracy theory, and an infantilising one at that.

In social sciences, this becomes social and/or (modern) historical determinism, leaning heavily towards assuming everything's a construct and caused by historical precedent, ignoring biology (other animals, hormones, sexual attraction, evolution), long-term history and global invariability of gender roles. Sure, that's a feel good narrative, but is it a rational stance supported by evidence?

> If they asked about cooking or cleaning, you'd probably get the opposite reaction.

If this is about socialisation, the simpler explanation is that men are socialised to project confidence, because that's what romantically/sexually rewarded. The link towards granular, per-topic confidence is more tenuous and requires you accept a lot of feminist baggage at face value or provide an alternate explanation.

> Of course men aren't inherently better at math nor are women better at cleaning.

No, but perhaps they are more interested in maths by virtue of the topic itself, or due to ancillary effects like future status and wages, like women are more interested in nesting than men. Similarly, men are generally more drawn to the concepts of service and duty than women are, which is why vastly more men work logistics, manufacturing, law enforcement, fire departments and the military.

Personally, I find feminist axioms to be a very poor predictor of reality because they fail to account for mating strategies, personal choice, responsibility and preference - which is ironic for a movement that was initially about women's choices in the reproductive sphere.

[Agenttin]

The issue at hand is that working women make considerably less money overall than working men. This is due to any number of factors including sexism, social effects, and the necessity of being present at, key, moments of the child rearing process. In the current iteration of our capitalist system it's required for nearly everyone to work, especially in the lower classes. Women have all the same needs that men have, and they have to cope in a society that, for many reasons, pays them 30% less.

Identifying those factors and working to minimize or eliminate their affect is a noble goal. But there are some factors that can't be eliminated, and we wouldn't want to live in a world where they were.

Feminists are right that there is a problem, this is a demonstrably unfair society. It doesn't matter what the reason is as much as it matters what the solution is. People spend a huge amount of time arguing about the problem, who's fault is it, what factors come into play.

I don't want to live in a world where women are men. Where they can't take time to start a family and properly care for their children, because keeping the money flowing is a more immediate need.

I want to live in a world where you can't just take time off to raise a child, but also to do art, or to travel, or to simply be a human who exists outside their office.

TLDR: Why matters very little, the income gap exists and we should fix it.

[etripe]

> The issue at hand is that working women make considerably less money overall than working men

When people tout the "30% less" statistic, it often refers to lifelong earnings, not hourly wage, in a study that didn't control for experience, sector, location or education.

It's 18% less when just comparing median wages. When controlled for the same job and qualifications, women earn 98 cents on the dollar (0). Women (as a group) work more part-time and in less profitable sectors like education, NGOs, government and nursing. They are less interested in high-profile and/or high status roles. Again, it feels good to say that women earn less due to discrimination and less so when it's because of their own choices.

You could argue (and I would agree) that some professions should be paid more. I think Covid has shown all of us which professions provide actual value, amongst whom definitely nursing and teaching.

> Women have all the same needs that men have

Women have the same basic needs, but there are differences in preferences, needs unique to women, needs unique to men and gender-specific dreams/wants that aren't needs.

> the necessity of being present at, key, moments of the child rearing process

Sure, but there is also a greater preference towards staying at home and having the man provide. It's simplistic to say "women are being forced" or "men aren't taking up their fair share" - this is a multivariate analysis. Specifically when it comes to a family, two thirds of the divorces are initiated by women. So not only are women staying home more often, they are choosing not to have a man be there at all. That might be for legitimate reasons, or it might not - but a divorce will impact your life balance.

> Feminists are right that there is a problem, this is a demonstrably unfair society

The problem, according to modern feminism, is different outcomes. As I see it, that's not a problem as long as opportunity is equal. Where women earn less on average per annum, they also have almost none of the workplace related deaths, lower suicide rates, homelessness, depression, incidence of burnouts, etc. In the younger generation, women outperform men both in wages and education. To me, it's not so clear if there is a better deal, and if so who has it.

> It doesn't matter what the reason is

I couldn't disagree more. If the claim is the problem lies with men or "the patriarchy", then the onus is on the claimant to prove that position, starting with a solid definition and falsifiable demonstration of patriarchy. That said, if you don't understand the reason for your outcome, you're powerless to change it. In a very concrete sense, you won't know what policy to implement when you topple the status quo and get to power. Among third wave feminists, I'm not hearing about how women architect their own fates and the importance of choices. I do among second wave feminists.

Would you say "it doesn't matter what the reason is" if all your relationships are short-lived, if you keep getting fired or if you keep failing your driving exam?

> this is a demonstrably unfair society

Yes, because of unequal access to money and genetics. Therefore there are class issues first and foremost, some sexism, some racism and the other forms of discrimination. To claim all (or even most) of women's problems are due to sexism, systemic or not, is a reductio ad absurdum.

> I don't want to live in a world where women are men. Where they can't take time to start a family and properly care for their children, because keeping the money flowing is a more immediate need.

Neither do I. But if that's what you want, you can't be opposed to earning less, either. Those are the consequences of your choices. Child rearing is unpaid, unless you're nannying as a service.

> I want to live in a world where you can't just take time off to raise a child, but also to do art, or to travel, or to simply be a human who exists outside their office.

Going out on a limb, I'm going to assume you mean where you can take time off. I'm fully with you there. That comes with a trade-off: you're going to be less "successful" in the conventional, square, monetary sense. You're sacrificing compensation for added fulfillment. That might entail any of: being less resistant to economic downturns, a smaller house, less of a pension, no or fewer kids, less social credit, fewer available/compatible dating partners, more limited career chocies, etc. It might also mean more laughing wrinkles, good moments, average happiness, life expectancy, better relationships, and so on.

That's why I said modern feminism is infantilising: it refuses to acknowledge that life is a struggle, filled with compromise and sacrifice. It's the Disney princess that won't grow up and the college kid that won't stop shouting from the barricades long enough to get on with writing their final dissertation. You have to pick and choose, mostly because no one owes you a damn thing. That is, until we've achieved fully automated luxury space communism à la Roddenberry. We don't live in a post-scarcity world yet by any stretch of the imagination.

> as much as it matters what the solution is

TL;DR: If the cause/reason is unimportant and the solution is key, what do you think is/are some good next step(s)?

[0] https://www.payscale.com/data/gender-pay-gap

[Agenttin]

I understand that women tend to make choices that cause them to earn less money. However, as a society, we benefit hugely from people making these choices for which we do not properly compensate them to the tune of $1.2 billion a year.

> For 2018 (the most recent data available), the dollar value of women’s unpaid work in the U.S. was equal to 86% of all the economic activity recorded in the state of New York. In other years—say, the late 1990s and late 2000s—the value of women’s unpaid work even surpassed New York state GDP. And keep in mind this value is at the low end of the possible range because we use the federal minimum wage and not, for example, higher state minimum wages let alone market wages that correspond to the specific work being done.

> The UNDP Women and Development Report of 1995 conducted a time-use study that analyzed the amount of time women and men spend on paid and unpaid household and community work in thirty-one countries across the world, including countries classified as 'industrial, 'developing' and 'transition economies.'[12] They found that in almost every country studied women worked longer hours than men but received fewer economic rewards. The study found that in both the 'developing' and 'industrialized world', men received the "lion's share of income and recognition" for their economic inputs, while women's work remained "unpaid, unrecognized, and undervalued."[12]

The fact that we don't pay as much for the things women tend to do is the problem. We've created a world where if you choose to spend your life sitting in a cubicle, you can support yourself. But if you spend your life caring for the people around you, you cannot, your labor still has value, it's simply not compensated. This is a really bad incentive scheme. We want parents to spend time with their children, not just because children with present parents perform better, but because of course we do. We want smart, capable people to become social workers and teachers and pediatricians without sabotaging their finances. To put another way, the world would be made worse, if 20% of the people who are currently working in their homes, decided to become software engineers instead. The world would become better if 20% of software engineers decided they'd rather contribute to their homes and communities.

https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2020/03/calculating-the-valu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unpaid_work#Gender_and_unpaid_...

[etripe]

I was talking about compensation in a professional capacity in the West. In that context, women are very much not paid unequally. Sectors compensate differently, but that's true for women and men. If you want to pivot to unpaid labour: sure, I'll go along.

> But if you spend your life caring for the people around you, you cannot, your labor still has value, it's simply not compensated. This is a really bad incentive scheme.

That's true, but that goes for any type of activity in the trade economy, whether you're raising kids, doing the shopping for someone, building their shed, teaching them to drive, troubleshooting their devices, fixing their flat tire, etc. That incentive scheme is evidence of a mercantilist attitude in society: social capital is just not valued in monetary terms.

Calling it sexism is reductive, because there are a lot of things men do for free, too. That's also my problem with your first link, which didn't examine men's unpaid labour at all as far as I could tell. I'm unable to tell what the picture looks like on balance.

> We want smart, capable people to become social workers and teachers and pediatricians without sabotaging their finances.

Public sector jobs will always be subject to government budget whims, "cost saving" initiatives and the like. What's needed there isn't feminism but collective bargaining and lobbying. It's also worth remembering that the rest of the West isn't like the US: in Europe, teachers can make median income or above.

As to pediatricians: I see no evidence of them being paid badly across the West. In fact, here in Belgium gynaecologists make more than ER doctors, and pediatricians make more than neurologists and oncologists, but less than ER doctors.

Sadly, the recurring theme everywhere seems to be nursing, which is just undervalued, micro-managed and thankless in general. Nurses can generally get somewhat better wages when they get some extra certificates. Of all examples I know, this one is the most suspiciously low across the board. Then again, I don't think it would be considered less menial or low-status if men did most of it.

> We want parents to spend time with their children, not just because children with present parents perform better, but because of course we do.

When a woman stays at home taking care of the kids, does she not enjoy the same lifestyle as the man? How is that not being compensated? When they get divorced, is she not entitled to half the money and how is that not getting paid? Is she not entitled to child support? Women aren't being disadvantaged simply because they don't get a payslip every month. Now that definitely isn't true everywhere else yet, so globally there's an argument for change towards our current status quo. That also seems to be what your second link is referring to: there is more yet to be done in the Middle East and beyond.

If you think parenting for free (as a couple) is unfair, what would be fairer? Parents already get tax cuts and benefits by virtue of having kids, so there's already a wealth transfer going on from childless people to parents. What would you do instead/additionally? In concrete terms: who should be paying what? I'm not asking for an exact solution, but would like to know what principles or policy levers you're thinking of.

> To put another way, the world would be made worse, if 20% of the people who are currently working in their homes, decided to become software engineers instead.

I agree on that too, but that is also not evidence of sexism but of a machinistic, homo economicus kind of collective philosophy. It's admirable to dream of and take action in order to create a better world, but I'm not sure how we'd get there, in terms of re-evaluating what's fundamentally important. Perhaps restructuring money creation itself (pivoting from loan-based to UBI based) would get us there, but I don't think that movement is anywhere near critical mass.

> The world would become better if 20% of software engineers decided they'd rather contribute to their homes and communities.

The assumption being that they don't, right? There's more to it than raising kids. Let's also please not pretend like men do none of that, or that being a stay at home parent is a full-time job at all kids' ages. I mean: do professional women not contribute to their homes and communities?