Although I've seen and experienced really strong gender discrimination, it most definitely is not always the case.

There was a really good point made about women asking for raises/higher salary. Then, there was also a study mentioned that suggested it works against women. My experience is to the contrary. I started at a higher wage than a man in an equivalent position already working for a company simply because I asked for it and received it based on the fact I had more experience. I'm not disputing the study but I certainly won't let it stop me from arguing (ahem..negotiating) for the salary/compensation I deserve.

I think women need to take some responsibility. Pay gaps are the result of many factors - yes some are straight-up discriminatory ones but others stem from choices we make (or don't make). So in the meantime, there's no need to sit back and accept this pay gap under the assumption you can't influence it in your own life. In the worst case, you may indeed suffer from discrimination but in the best case, you might get exactly what you want.

Hopefully some of the people here have calmed down and can discuss things like adults without personal attacks.

I agree with what has been said about the gender wage gap, this is primarily due to these reasons:

1. Women aren't as aggressive at negotiating salary or pay rise
2. Women take more time off to have children (this is a choice)
3. Women choose careers that aren't as dangerous or highly paid

The first reason is pretty self explanatory.

In regards to the second point, many women take time off (sometimes a few years) to raise children. When they return to work, obviously they aren't going to be on the same level as a man who has been progressing in the meantime. There are also more women who work part time or fewer hours than men, due to children. So tell me, is it fair to give a woman the same rate of pay as a man who has been working/progressing more within the same period of time? If I chose to take time off work for a few years, then I certainly wouldn't expect to come back and be earning the same amount as my colleagues.

In regards to the third point, women usually choose careers that have less pay, and/or less dangerous. If the stats are comparing on a wide scale between all careers, obviously this is going to lower the average for women.

As I said before, the reason why women get paid less MOST of the time is due to their own choices. Sure there may be a few cases where they are paid less in the same job, with the same experience, and the same qualifications, but this is pretty rare these days.

It's a choice?

So, if women don't make the choice to have children (assuming they're healthy and able to have them if they want), who is going to have them?

Why penalize the women for their biological ability? (And the societal need for this ability - I'd love to see how many perks the men get if all women made the choice to stop having children altogether.)

Of course its a choice. Thanks to modern science we now have many forms of contraception. Not everyone needs to have children.

Because our planet is already over populated as it is. Personally I don't think having children should be encouraged.

Unfortunately men experience this all the time. This is part of the problem. When men try to speak up about men's issues they are often ignored, called "wimps", told to "toughen up" etc. The responses to my post are a clear example of this.

I could understand this many years ago when women didn't work, but why now? Women now have money, so why do most of them still expect the man to pay?

Whenever I go on a date, I like to be equal from the very start. Either we go dutch, or agree to take turns in paying. If she has a problem with this then she's not worth my time anyway... its also a good way to weed out the gold diggers and the cherry picking feminists*

*By this I mean feminists that pick and choose the equality they want, while leaving out less desirable things. For example, wanting equal pay but expecting the man to pay for dates.

The real world stats are actually about equal for violence against men and women from the opposite sex. Women tend to use objects more, which can cause a lot of damage. About 7 years ago I was in an abusive relationship with a woman. Not only did she hit me (which left nasty bruises), she would use objects such as her high heels, etc. Why didn't I report it? Because I knew nothing would be done. The police would be likely to say "oh she's just a woman, its only a few bruises, big deal". This is why so many cases go unreported with men who are victims of domestic violence. It is simply a waste of time reporting it because you won't be taken seriously. If a woman can get away with murder, surely she can get away with giving a few bruises.

For arguments sake though, lets say the percentage of men who are victims of domestic violence is only 10% (its much higher). Are you suggesting we give less resources to those men because they only make up 10%?

Also I fail to see why separate training is required for male/female violence. Violence is violence, why do you need "specialised training" for different genders?

In Australia, there are hardly any women in IT at all. When I went to school they actually handed out pamphlets to all the girls in grade 12 about the benefits of choosing a career in IT, trying to encourage more women into the field.

Despite being told about this (and even encouraged), most girls still chose not to do IT.

You can try and tell girls about careers all you like, but they'll still choose not to do them.

In fact, I have probably missed out on a few jobs before, because they were an "equal opportunity employer for women". This means they have quotas on the number of women they must hire. Therefore, if a few women happened to apply with poor qualifications/experience, they would be hired over a well qualified man with a lot of experience. In Australia you see this quite a bit for male dominated jobs, but I have never once seen it for female dominated jobs such as nursing and teaching.

While on the front of it, I agree - I never actively "tried" to have children (and due to biology, don't have any and don't want them enough to make a medical issue of it), one of my brothers and his wife have medically altered themselves to make having children impossible for them. So, out of 5 kids (myself and four siblings), we're at neutral population growth for our family, only five in this newest generation (1, 2 and 2 for my other siblings).

BUT, it's a bit of the "Henny Penny" story, isn't it? In order for perpetuation of human species, someone has to have children. Due to biology, it has to be the women. No choice about it, not collectively, as society. It can't always be "not me" and "not me" for EVERYONE, someone has to.

So, the women are penalized for it. Trust me, the biological penalties already are big - men can already be thankful you've not experienced "mittelschmerz" AND actual period cramps since around age 12, not to mention the pain of child birth itself. On top of that, men can count on being first picked for best jobs with best pay in part because they aren't biologically "required" to have some time off (even if only for a day or three) when the birth of their child occurs.

Why not? Children are necessary to perpetuate our species. Even maintaining neutral population growth means that every couple "should" have two children to replace themselves as they age and die off. While some may make some argument for negative population growth, on the whole, that's an unrealistic ideal which goes against our basic natural drives. We suppress enough of those as it is by not having children as soon as we are physically capable in favor of higher education and more work productivity ... in which women are still disadvantaged anyhow, even in Western society.

I think (and some studies have shown - here is one) that there are many factors which occur long prior to grade 12 (age 17'ish typically) that influence the type of career someone will seek out. Children are taught very early what roles are acceptable for girls and which for boys. How many times do you see fathers buying "dollies" for their sons, or women buying "Bob the Builder" toy tool kits for their daughters? What about cross-wise, mothers buying dollies for sons and fathers buying tools for daughters?

By the time children are 17, it's already "too late" in many ways. Boys told how smart and strong they are, girls how pretty they are and delicate they should be. Boys being squidgy about getting dirty is seen as odd but if a girl enjoys getting dirty that too is seen as odd.

So, even with someone from some company coming to try to recruit and / or encourage female students toward IT (or other typically male dominated) work areas, it's not surprising to see that the outcome is still disappointing. Girls should be equally encouraged toward those jobs starting much, much earlier, before even entering school to begin with, likewise, boys should be encouraged in equal ways toward "people oriented" interactions which will allow them to more comfortably follow a path toward nursing, social work, teaching and other similar career paths.

__________________
The Joys of Opticianry

Can you please provide a reference? I've never seen this as equal and would be surprised given that men aren't commonly raped by women. Since you also mention that men don't come forward, can you please explain?

Sometimes you will, sometimes you won't. I agree here and my experience both from a counseling/crisis perspective and that of male friends is that yes, they fear going to the police. As I've said, law enforcement is critical to address here.

Of course. If the stats were flipped, I'd say we should funnel more resources to men. For instance, there is little value in having 200 shelters for men and 200 shelters for women if the hypothetical stats you provided above are correct.

Keep in mind "less" does not mean we shouldn't provide medical, emotional and legal care for a man who is abused. But we don't want unused services. Here's another example. Imagine even a generalized crisis line for abused women and men in a particular city. The crisis line decides to open up another line in a second city but not a third. Why not the third? There isn't a need for it there. In the third, violence against both men and women occurs, but on a significantly smaller scale than the other two cities. Or maybe they do open a center in the third but it has 75% fewer staff. By your approach, this is inequality.

What about we leave gender for a moment and consider yet another example. What about a specialized center for the Aboriginal community, who show higher stats in many areas such as alcoholism. Is this unequal in your eyes?

Remember that many of these groups working in the area of violence are non-profit ones and operate on grants and fundraising. They have limited resources but they arise based on a particular need they want to meet.

Where to start!!! I think you already answered this yourself though. You said it yourself above with your comment where you emphasized that it's so hard for men to come forward but not as much for women. There's one good reason right there by your own opinion. Violence isn't just violence. Women and men respond in different ways. Women of sexual violence will respond in ways different than even other women of non-sexual/physical violence. A woman who has just been raped needs different medical, legal and emotional care than a woman who just had her nose broken. Women are more likely to be the main caregiver and when you bring children into the mix, you have to approach the situation in a specialized way.

All violence is wrong. But not all violence is experienced the same way nor is it viewed by outsiders in the same way. As someone who spent years in the voluntary sector counseling mostly women (and a limited number of men) who are victims of sexual and other forms of violence, I can tell you that there's no single response to violence that fits both sexes. There are some common threads but as a whole, society treats both issues in different ways. As a result, this affects the impact. And also, the level of physical damage impacts it too; so where a woman may sustain greater physical injuries, this impacts recovery. Women who bear the scars of physical violence can struggle to move forward, in part, because they have visual reminders of the experience.

And if we go back to the example above, even something like race/culture for both men and women can justify specialized services, particularly if the numbers warrant the need for it in a specific area. If you look at the social work university programs in Canada, you'll see a very heavy focus on the Aboriginal community. Is that racist?

Back to an earlier post I made, we received specialized training for men who were the brunt of violence b/c of their sexual orientation. We didn't for women because it didn't occur nearly as much. The organization has only so much money and they have to invest in specialized training/services if there is 1. a need and 2. the resources. In another area, however, these numbers could be flipped and we'd perhaps have received no specialized training for either or only for gay women based on the need.

Hope this helps to elaborate a wee bit.

Are there really gender quotas in Australia? I can only find articles that this has been proposed, not that there is anything currently in place.

Hey, i was recently in a meeting where the Mega Big Boss Man quite proudly said that 35% of recent hires were female!
Apparently this is an improvement on the past.
Its all in the marketing of your message i guess... Think about it.

The trick is, whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother, staying alive..

This all brings to mind the position I was in when living in Savannah, Georgia. I needed to hire some folks and get them trained, hopefully with an eye toward shifting out some folks who weren't meeting performance standards.

The trick of it though, and what made it tough in many ways was that our staff was predominantly black females so I had to actively seek out white males to hire. So, "Affirmative Action" can (and does) go both ways, depending on circumstance.

__________________
The Joys of Opticianry

Well, why I have nothing against this, I did once have a girlfriend who insisted on always paying half, which was a problem as I could afford much better restaurants than she could, and so would balk at going restaurants she couldn't afford!

Tom

Yeah.. but that is a bit of a different issue.

See, i have heard that there are men out there that think, just because they buy you a burger, that they are entitled to sex.

Ah, the whole American style dating scene. I believe I even made a thread about it a while back because I never understood it. It's not a question of feelilng "entitled to sex" after buying food, but there's the American pre-relationship tradition of dining and wining a woman on several official "dates", all working to get a kiss on date 3 and maybe get lucky once the number of dates hit double digits. It certainly doesn't make one feel entitled, but does shift the balance of power so far in the woman's favour that you might as well be a beggar asking for scraps. Thankfully Europeans (and most Americans these days) are much more chill about it, although I believe in my old thread there were still few defiantly-old-fashioned ladies saying that unless the man respects the proper wine and dine protocol he stands no chance.

I'm not criticizing too much, I'm sure there are plenty of guys who are unrelenting gentlemen and prefer that route, too, and end up in couples who are happy together. But some take it too far, and an alarming number do it under false pretenses, as brought up earlier in this thread as some kind of sad reality to be pitied. "Women who like superficial men paying for their stuff eventually get old and their superficial partners replace them with better looking women and pay for things no more! Woe is them!" Sorry, can't conjure any pity.

I don't think seeking out, say, female candidates for a position in IT or male candidates for teaching positions is such a bad idea. Or encouraging such people to apply. I think we all here agree that people should be encouraged to broaden their options and that they should not be restricted in their career choices purely because of their gender.

It is very different from statement "poorly qualified women are being hired over well qualified men because of quotas" - in US, states have passed legislation that forbid affirmative actions that promote a less qualified applicant over a better qualified one (see Initiative 200 in Washington, Proposal 2 in Michigan, Proposition 209 in California, Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative 424, Proposition 107 in Arizona and so on. Those all forbid preferential treatment on the basis of gender). That's why it would be interesting to find out if Australia really has legislation that not only allows, but actually demands it.

First, I want to say I'm sorry you experienced this.

I think it does allow some insight as to why you seem so motivated to discuss women's issues and the bluntness and particular slant to your arguments. It's a good discussion topic, and if I may, just a little more diplomacy on your part in how you present your views would go far to eliminate some of the harsh reactions- which keeps the discussion going and fruitful.

Reasoning with people in this thread is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good anyone is at playing chess, the pigeon is gonna knock over the pieces, crap on the board and strut around like it's victorious. I let you decide who is the chess player and who is the pigeon in the current discussion.

Sure, as long as they do the same for men in careers such as nursing, teaching, and childcare. No such "positive affirmation" exists for men in these careers.