[Jewelry making - Article 00371] - Re: [Orchid] Self taught Vs Formal training

[Suzanne Wade]

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    Part of what has made wage disparities so lasting is the reasons
    behind them are so complex. If it were simply a matter of equal pay
    for equal work, I suspect the disparity would be very small, as the
    individual experiences related in this thread attest. Now, this is
    the viewpoint of a Gen X woman, who has benefited mightily from the
    Baby Boomer women who forced the issue and produced my generation,
    which simply expects equal pay -- male and female. I pretty much
    could take equal pay for granted, but that most assuredly wasn't
    true for my mother's generation. We've come a long way, and we should
    be incredibly grateful to the women in the '70s who forced the issue
    and proved that women could in fact do the job as well as men, and
    who demanded equal wages to do so. So, thank you! 

    But I think we also need to recognize that a good portion of the
    remaining disparity is not a matter of "she's a woman so we can pay
    her less." It's often due to institutional and cultural issues,
    which can't be changed by passing a law or filing a discrimination
    lawsuit. 

    1. Women remain the primary caregivers in most families. It's a fact:
    women are more likely to take time off from working to care for
    children and elderly parents. In fields where seniority is valued,
    this is a huge detriment to wages. It also means that many women are
    out of the workforce during the years of largest wage gains -- your
    20s and 30s. in addition, when women return to the workforce, they
    often must take jobs at a lower level than their skills might
    dictate because employers do not always value the "time off" for
    raising a family. (This is beginning to change, thanks to lots of
    high-profile and talented women "off-ramping" and then "on-ramping"
    successfully. But there's still a long way to go.) 

    2. Women are more likely than men to negotiate for more time off in
    lieu of higher wages. See above for the reason. :-) It's a matter of
    differing priorities and cultural expectations. Women are also, by
    report, less likely to be tough negotiators for higher wages. I know
    that's true in my case: my husband is a much tougher negotiator than
    I am. It's probably a cultural thing -- women are taught by our
    culture to be less confrontational and more cooperative. A great
    asset in successfully managing a team of professionals, a negative
    when it's time to negotiate a raise. :-) 

    I am sure there are other non-bias sources of the disparity as well.
    None of which is to say that the discrimination experienced by the
    women on this list didn't happen and doesn't happen -- even 10 years
    ago when I became editor of AJM, everyone called my male co-editor
    instead of me because they assumed he was the real authority. But I
    do think women do themselves a disservice when they attribute all
    the causes of inequity to deliberate bias, and fail to understand the
    impact the culture has, as well. In some ways, I think we're at a
    stage where true equality depends on women convincing the world that
    *men* should have equal rights! Women will only overcome the
    barriers of being caregiver, for example, when men take advantage of
    things like parental leave in equal numbers. That's what we need to
    work to change now -- and it is happening. I currently know more
    stay-at-home- dads than moms. Some of the men in my husband's office
    have actually taken time off when their children were born. It's
    still not common, and it's still viewed as detrimental to their
    careers -- but it's a start. I'm optimistic that my children will be
    closer to that type of genuine equality than I am, just as I am
    closer than my mother was. 

Suzanne

Suzanne Wade
Writer/Editor
suzanne AT rswade.net
(508) 339-7366
Fax: (928) 563-8255
www.rswade.net
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