Made for Dawn (Commentator) after watching a viral video!
There has been a video making the rounds of social media over the last few days starring Sarah Silverman. She's a funny lady. and she uses humor to bring awareness to the fact that women are not paid equal amounts of money for the same jobs that men do. It seems silly to even think that women aren't equal to men, and yet we couldn't even get the states to vote a constitutional amendment stating that fact here in America.
That made me think that I should do my part as a limited voice in a subculture that usually elevates women to a power OVER men in general, so of course everyone is probably on this side socially anyway! Just doing what I can to raise debate in society!
I tend to view my beliefs in society on society on how they affect my daughter. Would I want her to get shafted financially if she is every bit the equal of a male employee? Hell no! So this must be changed!
How? by using the technique described in the caption. It worked well back a few thousand years ago when some Greek or Roman playwright wrote about ending war by denying the leaders nookie. Lets get a groundswell of support telling all the females out there that are married or dating powerful men, like congressmen, CEO's, and judges who rule on constitutional and employment laws. Women .. you need to make your men grovel for the good of the cause. I understand you have needs too, but equality demands sacrifice .. and you can always go to an appreciate sissy who'll worship the ground, and the shoes you walk upon that ground with. Hell, perhaps you'll never WANT to go back to that macho chauvinistic pig!
I understand its a bit insensitive to the TG community, but its for the greater good I believe. I don't think anything said here was meant maliciously by her.
I have to admit that nowadays I don't address this issue much anymore, but in the first decade at my current job I've had more than one discussion with my superiors about this, well discussion might be an understatement, but I had success with this. In our company we have equal pay for equal work. It would have been nice if I would have gotten more support from the girls, who got paid less at the time. I didn't mind being their spokesperson, but at times I did feel I was standing alone, like they were OK with the situation. I guess that is were part of the problem lays. They didn't mind because they didn't have the primary income in their household.
ReplyDeleteSo if women don't stand up for themselves and unite, nothing will change. Currently over here, young women are higher educated than men of the same age, but if they don't claim their place, they will see lower educated men in higher places getting better paid than they ever will.
My experience is probably not representative for the whole world, but I've worked in mainly male environments, in mainly female environments and in mixed environments. From what I learned over the years is: Men WILL put their differences aside, if they have the same goal. For women it takes a lot more than "just" a common goal. I've seen on more than one occasion that they let their personal aversions against others with the same goal get in the way of achieving that goal.
If anyone has different experiences please let me know. I would love to be wrong about this.
By the way, making men grovel, the way you suggest, might not work in the long run. With some men, yes, but take a good look around and count the "All Bundys." Ed O'Neill may have blown guys like All Bundy out of proportions, but they exist. They won't be impressed.
To be honest, I don't think what Sarah Silverman does here is insensitive to the TG community as a whole. As you said, it is for the greater good, although I have no doubt some within the TG community will be offended. No matter how just a cause is, there's no avoiding stepping on others peoples toes in the process.
In the last few jobs, I don't think equal pay has been an issue, mostly because I work in places where each person has their own area of expertise and our skills only somewhat overlap, and that is in case someone is on vacation, sick, etc ... Before that, lower paying jobs seem to have more of an equal pay slant, since the positions being filled are listed at "$7.75 an hour" as opposed to, "pay negotiable depending on experience, training, etc .." and even then, there is only so much flexibility. I remember at one of my mental health positions, the only variable in starting pay was a 25 cent an hour bonus for having previous experience in the field.
DeleteI’m really REALLY torn on this issue of fair gender pay. I do firmly and whole heartedly believe that gender should in NO way influence pay. If a person can do a job, then they should be paid as another equally capable person. The only thing that should enter into it is negotiation…. If a woman can negotiate her pay higher than her male co-workers, then so be it.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think that legislation is going to fix this problem. We already have large far reaching bills and laws that should force equal pay. The more specific these laws get, the closer we get to the government dictating what ‘fair’ pay is. At the low end of the spectrum (minimum wage) I can see the government’s role. But most industries aren’t that. Being a teacher, nurse, business person, fire fighter, solider or so on shouldn’t involve the government dictating what your pay is in the vein of fairness.
My personal situation is skewed on several levels. First, I work in a female dominated profession. Men are the stand outs, and often because of this get special attention. Many of my female coworkers claim that I and my other male coworkers get perks that they don’t simply by being a man. While they may honestly believe that, our pay, paid days off, vacation, seniority and other factors are forced upon us by our Union contract. The only wiggle room our supervisors have is in our annual assessments. I should add that all of my supervisors are women and to say that they have any bias toward men is just false. If they have ANY bias, it’s toward hard honest workers.
Anywho… I want there to be no gender pay diversity. I think that as time progresses and we get more and more people that believe in gender equality it will solve itself. Sadly, that will also take generations.