Equal Pay

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@SacredWarrior I don't think anyone here is going to argue that men and women should be free to explore/express what they want, and take on what parenting role they want. However, cultural bias and wage gaps are two different matters. We can agree that cultural bias is bad, but it's still around today.

As a result you're going to see more women on average do one thing than men and vice-versa. And this will naturally have effects in the workplace pertaining to elements such as pay, that's not someone choosing to pay men more, that's just cause and effect.

Hell even if we did eliminate said cultural bias, we'd still see some level of variety.
We didn't evolve into men and women for no reason, millions of years of evolution and natural selection has gone into creating the two sexes, there are clear chemical and biological differences as a result.
And that also isn't sexism, that's mother nature at work.

Nature & Nature are both elements in what make's human beings what they are, they're two sides of the same coin.
Essentially at the end of the day what we need to pushing for isn't dead on the same amount of men and women doing the same things, but make sure there's equal opportunity to do so.
Just like it's bad to tell women "Stay home with the kids because you're a woman!" even if they don't want to, isn't it also bad to tell them "Go be the breadwinner! Because there's not enough women doing it and we need to even the numbers!" even if they don't want to?

+As a side note, it's not always the Parent with the bigger income staying at home.
When I was 3 and diagnosed with Autism my Mom was running multiple stores, while my Dad worked at an oil refinery.
My Mom has much bigger potential income than him, but choose to sell the stores and become the stay at home parent because she was more dedicated to the therapy that would be needed.
 
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Alright. I got an hour to kill before I need to get ready for an interview, so I'll hammer out as functional and polite a response as possible.
I think that some of the points you raise are valid, but I feel that some things are not addressed.
Disclaimer: My objective wasn't to address all facets of life, because no set of laws or procedures really can. Even a concept as dead simple as taxes have seen tens of thousands of amendments and modifications because people have always found and exploited loopholes in the law, or because of other reasons. (Ex: Charities & non-profits getting tax exemptions.) No one law can possibly hope to curb or control all situations uniformly. Ergo why there's a difference between equality, and equity. I have all the same human rights as any of my other neighbours (near perfect equality), but some are richer or poorer than I am because of circumstances of birth, and because of the choices made in each of their lives (imperfect equity).

The balance between equality and equity is a fine one and often varies wildly depending on each individual circumstance, so I can't make any broad law to acceptably create more equity without impeaching equality as a result in most cases. Ergo why I cited the 1964 equal pay law as the beginning and core of my point of view: That's a law of equality, not equity. While its objective is to produce equity, it does so under a fine set of guidelines that don't impede anyone else's individual liberties.

My views tend to also be highly individualistic, which means I'm typically against collectivist thinking if it would promote one group over another group.

Alright. Now I can get to the fun bits.
Yes, discrimination based on gender in the workplace is illegal, but only if it can be proven. One only needs to look at how much men outnumber women in certain positions (as you’ve pointed out) to show that men are often picked for higher ranking jobs – sometimes it’s because they’re better for the position, but sometimes it’s because they’re judged as being better for the job due to certain prejudices. For example, men are often still chosen for leadership positions over women, like directors and producers (here are some more statistics for you that follow this – most notable of which is that only two women directed one of the top 100 films last year), while women are more likely to be chosen for “artistic” or “emotional” positions like screenwriters and dance choreographers. There is no way to fully prove all of these cases of prejudice because of how tragically deep they infiltrate our society. Hell, why do you think so many girls’ toys still focus around child-rearing and playing house, and boys are encouraged to bottle up their emotions and “act tough”? And sadly there is plenty of data showing the wage gaps that exist between male and female workers that share the same positions. Please look at these statistics compiled by the American Association of University Women – it starts in 1974, which was when the bill you discuss was passed, and it does show improvements, but there are still plenty of progress left to be made.
The first site which cites those statistics cites itself. This is typically a faux pas, but I'll assume they were 100% factually correct, because I have no reason to believe they were lying, and I'll get on that shortly. :ferret:

However, the second site still cites a faulty statistic. It cites median earnings--IE, the total that all men made, versus the total that all women made, without consideration as to any other factors. In other words, it's a facetious, discredited statistic. This would be like comparing the salary of a male doctor to a female school teacher: Of course the male is making more money. He's in a job that requires eight years of grueling post-secondary education, in a job that has a much higher demand than the teacher's job does! And, it notes that "education is not an effective solution to the pay gap." Well, that shouldn't be surprising when more men than women voluntarily take courses that will end up paying more down the line than the courses women typically take, like Sciences & Engineering. This is also in spite of the fact that more women than men go into post-secondary in the first place, meaning the only discrimination at work here is individual choice! (Seriously I would love to see more women dumping Gender Studies to take Sciences & Engineering. That would ironically improve their situation more than any Gender Studies degree ever could. It's kind of the same conundrum as taking philosophy as a major: You learn just enough philosophy to realize that philosophy will not get you a profitable career.)

Where it concerns Hollywood and movie studios...

I actually don't have any doubt that they're lagging behind in the progressive department--they traditionally always have fallen behind the curve, just look up the Hayes Code--but I don't think it's from any intentionally malicious practices on the part of the writers and directors. Take writers here on Iwaku as an example: Most white people create white characters without a second thought. Most males write males as well. You've probably heard it expressed as an author port, but it's also simply writing what you best know. If you wake up every morning and look in the mirror and see white, and your family is white, and most of your friends are white, then when you imagine a fantasy character, they'll probably end up white by osmosis. It's a subconscious thing and it's not inherently wrong by any stretch.

It also means that the majority of films, by osmosis, will have white male protagonists in the lead role, and that outside pressures (ex: The LGBT community, blacks, women, et cetera) will affect change here slower than anywhere else in society if it's done peaceably. Because while it might be justifiably wrong to put in your job search ads for, say, burger flippers or accountants, "seeking white people only", because of how stories work, that's actually acceptable in Hollywood. If your protagonist is written to be a white male, then it's actually acceptable to post a job search for white male actors. Forcing the writer to create nothing but rainbow casts would infringe on their own personal liberties to create as they wish. This, however, does limit the number of roles that PoC and women can take, which inherently limits the number of major actors, directors, and so on, since a lot of directors start out as screen writers or actors.

It also probably doesn't help that character writing can be summarized as "take stereotype/archetype/role, stick in situation X/Y/Z." There's been a dearth of actual creativity in Hollywood (just how many goddamn remakes and sequels and prequels are there again?) It shouldn't be surprising that the clowns running the show wouldn't want to turn Beowulf black, or update their roster of nonsensical crap archetypes for people of colour and women. (And even some men, but I won't pretend they get as many stupid, shitty stereotype roles as PoC do.) I mean, come on, that takes effort, and why change anything if the common idiots flooding the movie theater will shovel popcorn into their mouths and enjoy it anyway? Look at how much the Transformers movies made. They're some of the dumbest, most poorly written, most stereotypical movies ever put to film, but if the common idiot enjoys it, then Hollywood will keep producing it.

That being said, movies like Star Wars Episode VII, the new Fantastic Four, and Fury Road, and more, are forcibly putting more variety into the big screen. When you get more acting roles for PoC and women, over time, you'll get more screen writers, and more directors taking the seat as well.

So, basically: If you can convince the average popcorn-eating fucktard to watch something a wee bit more sophisticated than Transformers, we'll see change happen quicker. As it stands though, refer to the free market economy: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If bog standard, bland, plain, white and male protagonists, with no personality beyond "I hit the thing until it stops moving" constantly sell, then the onus is on the studios to provide more of it to get more money.

I'd argue though that at the end of the day, movies are just fiction, and it doesn't really matter who directs them or what they're about. It's just a fantasy. Though I would like to see more women take directing roles if for no more reason than that the numbers do seem oddly skewered. Yet, I wouldn't push Hollywood to fire perfectly good directors to replace them with women just for an equity quota: That produces inequality. Hrm. No easy answer.
But I don’t particularly like the idea that a woman choosing to be a working mom should halt her career or stagnate her income, particularly when men being fathers does not have the same effect. You say so yourself that…

“If you’re a man, you’ll probably have to be the main breadwinner and you’ll end up giving up a lot of fun toys and vacations to give your kids diapers and access to education. If you’re a woman, you’ll probably have to be the one who has to take time off work or even temporarily leave their career to spend time with and nurture their children, especially in their infancy.“
Like the idea or don't, it's the prevailing one because of biology. If a woman has to take anywhere between 1-2 months off anyway for child birth and safe physical recovery, it only makes logical sense that the man continues working. Again, it doesn't have to be that way, you can flip it on its head and have a stay at home dad with a working mother.
Why is this still an assumption on so many peoples’ parts? This whole idea of one parent being the “bread winner” is antiquated. It came from a time when men were the only ones working, the only ones bringing in money, or at least most of it since the most women could be in the olden days was a secretary. The only reason men do often bring in more money now is because…well, as shown by those statistics, they often do get paid more, whether because they’re encouraged to move up in the ranks more or because of some unspoken bias. In my family, my mother was the “bread winner” – she was the educated one, she was the older one, and yet she was the one who mostly took care of me too. And to be blunt, I wish my father had been more active in my life that just throwing money at me. PARENTS SHOULD RAISE A CHILD, REGARDLESS OF THEIR GENDER, and I mean in all ways. Fathers should have to take time off work or leave their career to spend time with and nurture the children just as much as mothers do. I know you address that roles can be switched, but I’m saying that they shouldn’t have to be – parenting should be a two-way street, and I’m sick of the old-fashioned notion that only one should stay at home and take care of the kids and one should be focusing on career. If one chooses to stay at home, fine, but that is a joint decision by the parents, and it is certainly not an assumption that the parent’s boss should make. The workplace has no business trying to guess which part of a couple is the one who deserves more money. Why must they decide to give more money to anyone because they’re married or because they have a kid? Why must they decide to give more money because they assume that the man must provide for a family? If companies truly want to be equal, then they truly will focus on the quality of the work – not their gender, not their marital status, and not whether or not they have children. And if they want to provide more because they want to help their worker raise their family, then they must do it across the board – no presumptions about the man being the “bread winner” and any of that nonsense.
It's just a logical formula. One should go out and make mad dosh to pay the primary bills. The other should stay home and care of the kids. Whether you assign that to "male" or "female" is unfortunately irrelevant. As it stands though, yes, fathers should spend time with their children. Even in antiquated times, it was seen as something that fathers should do: Care for their kids. You know, the classic "teach your kids how to play ball and flirt and care for themselves in the world." It was seen as strange, even back then, for the main breadwinner to not interact with their children. Oh, and yes, that decision is and should be made between the parents. Again, I can't judge every single individual situation with the same brush, and that's why we have equality laws like the equal pay act of 1964.

Also, in my household, it was reversed in a sense. My father raised me and was the main breadwinner. Mainly because my mother took 100,000 bucks, the car, and sped off after separating, leaving my ass homeless for three weeks. Since you shared your household stuff, figured I'd share mine. :ferret:

And you're right, the workplace has no place deciding which gender should make more money. That is why it's illegal. Multiple times over. It also doesn't make any sense: If you could pay women 20-30 cents less per dollar than men and easily get away with it, there would be more women employed than men. You'd save 20% on your employment bills right there. Supply and demand economics, it'd show in the free market if it was cheaper to employ one over the other. :ferret:

For clarity, I used the "male = breadwinner, female = child-rearing" dichotomy because it happens to be the prevailing one. Not because I think that should necessarily be the prevailing one, but simply because it is the prevailing one. So statistically, if you're a male, you'll probably be the breadwinner, and if you're female, you'll probably be the child-rearing one. It has nothing to do with individual circumstances though: That could, again, be flipped on its head, and work perfectly fine as a result, if a couple wishes to circumvent the usual biological roles they've been assigned by nature.
I also think bringing estrogen and testosterone into the mix is a little unnecessary. Yes, men are from Mars and women are from Venus and all that, but I would really say that the whole idea of gender roles is one that is taught by society at large, not by genes. Sex and sexual orientation are genetic, yes, but gender is an idea. The dictionary definition of gender is this –

“Gender – the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones).“
Alright, fine, instead of gender, it's the sex. The male sex and the female sex each have biological differences, changing the word doesn't really change the fact that testosterone and estrogen affect behaviours that men and women have. I actually wrote a guide on this for role plays, so I'll just refer to this to save time. While exceptions exist, exceptions don't make the rule. There is a reason, beyond social roles, why men tend to prefer aggression, and why women tend to be more emotionally acute. Note the key words: "Tend to be." There are women who work in the oil fields, and men who work as daycare workers, and nothing should stop individual men and women from pursuing their own personal interests, because we are more than the sum of our parts. I'm more than just a male, you're more than just a female. We're human first, sex second. However, sex does have biological influences on men and women. Which does account for some differences in hobbies and pursuits and expressions and so on. These biological impulses are what we built the foundations of masculinity and femininity on. There's a reason that countries and peoples as far flung and isolated from each other as the Japanese, the aboriginals of Australia, the Aztecs, the various European cultures and peoples, the Indians, the Africans, the Slavic peoples, and so on, all largely came to startlingly similar conclusions as to what men should be and what women should be. Even if their expressions of these conclusions differ, the core principles remain the same.

While exceptions exist, they don't break the rule. Men tend more to aggression and rituals of proving themselves in one way or another, and women tend more toward child-care and compassion. These beliefs didn't just "appear" out of thin air: They appeared because we, as humans, all have impulses, and based on our sex, some impulses are statistically likely to be stronger than others. You take a group of cave men and throw them on an alien planet and they will develop startlingly similar views of masculinity and femininity to our own cave men ancestors, because that essentially happened on Earth thousands of times over. That doesn't just happen by chance.

I'm willing to give ground on points like Hollywood directors, because those skewered numbers seem odd. Also because Hollywood is fucking slow at changing, especially if it means risking formulas that consistently give them money. However, to say that everything men and women are is solely the byproduct of society's views, is to rob mother nature of her part to play, and ignore four billion years of evolution. It ignores basic, scientific facts that anyone can look up, right now. It also requires a worldwide conspiracy that has lasted for thousands of years.

That last bit makes it difficult for me to accept without a profound level of evidence. Of which, none is present: Only conjecture that attempts to defy commonly understood biology.
After all, not all cultures in history had women as subserviant to men. In most ancient religions before Christianity and the like, there were many powerful goddesses, and most started with some variant of Mother Earth – a female deity. In our culture, we are taught about gender through media that is then reinforced by our parents’ and societies’ prejudices. For example, we are taught that men shouldn’t cry, because if they do, they are weak. We are also taught that women should not have a lot of sex, because they’d be seen as “easy.” We are taught that men should be strong, competitive, and aggressive; we are taught that women should be nurturing, gentle, and passive. This isn’t to say that our culture isn’t getting better at creating more balanced role models in the media for boys and girls, but these ideas still persist. Yes, men have testosterone – but it is society that tells them it is okay to act out on the aggressive impulses that the testosterone encourages in them. And it is society that teaches us that that kind of aggressiveness automatically makes for good leadership, rather than the “gentle,” “nurturing” aspect that is promoted amongst young girls. Rather than making the argument that men are just better suited to or tend to prefer these jobs…why not just say, “Screw it, let their work speak for itself!”?
It should also be noted that the vast majority of goddesses before monotheism were depicted as beautiful, and were often representative of fertility, child-rearing, compassion, mercy, and other good but otherwise typically feminine qualities. It's apparent both in Norse and in Greek pantheons for Europe, and in the Japanese pantheon for their ancient Shinto beliefs. Also, fun fact about Christianity: Its foundation didn't start out as a monotheistic religion, but that's a topic for another time... :ferret:

It also makes sense that we considered Earth "mother" in our ancient times. Something had to give a proverbial "birth" to humanity, after all. Women give birth, ergo, mother Earth. Kind of the same reason people attributed volcanos to God being angry.

Also, one last thing I have to protest, actually, society generally frowns upon males who act on sheer aggression to take leadership over things. We call those people "dictators", and "tyrants." They're generally shown in even ancient tales as being murderous, violent, and needlessly cruel. They're pretty much the poster child of evil. It's why other virtues, like loyalty, honour, and respect, are considered virtues for men. It's why knights in shining armour don't just murder-rampage and threaten everyone they come across: They help the poor, the needy, those who have nothing. Whether you're a man, or a woman, if you're a vicious, power hungry bastard, society will revile you, not adore you. Nobody tries to promote their children to power for the sake of power, at least, nobody of any good moral standing.
I promote equality amongst the genders, but I would never say “that someone who works part time at a starbucks should make as much as a doctor who spends eight years in medical school and works overtime at the hospital.” I just think that if a woman and a man are working at the same hospital and they both work hard, they should have equal pay and equal consideration for moving up the ranks. I, as well as many others who discuss the wage gap, simply want equal pay (and equal opportunity) for equal work, and sadly there is a gap between genders, races, etc. when it comes to both.
They do already get equal pay and equal consideration for moving up the ranks. Equal pay and equal opportunity already exist. The issue is equity, not equality. If this wasn't at thing, you would have to explain how your theory can account for tens of thousands--if not hundreds of thousands--if not millions of examples of exceptions of women obtaining six digit paychecks, or prestigious jobs. When your theory has so many exceptions that you could fit your arm through them, you should reconsider your theory.

As for applying that to the biology argument, there's a reason I put "human" before "sex." Sex influences, it does not strictly control your destiny. You do that, as an individual.

If you want to talk inequality in the US, though, the justice system there is completely fucked. Black men get retardedly awful sentences. Pay gap though? No. It's a myth. :ferret:
 
@SacredWarrior I don't think anyone here is going to argue that men and women should be free to explore/express what they want, and take on what parenting role they want. However, cultural bias and wage gaps are two different matters. We can agree that cultural bias is bad, but it's still around today.

As a result you're going to see more women on average do one thing than men and vice-versa. And this will naturally have effects in the workplace pertaining to elements such as pay, that's not someone choosing to pay men more, that's just cause and effect.

Hell even if we did eliminate said cultural bias, we'd still see some level of variety.
We didn't evolve into men and women for no reason, millions of years of evolution and natural selection has gone into creating the two sexes, there are clear chemical and biological differences as a result.
And that also isn't sexism, that's mother nature at work.

Nature & Nature are both elements in what make's human beings what they are, they're two sides of the same coin.
Essentially at the end of the day what we need to pushing for is dead on the same amount of men and women doing the same things, but make sure there's equal opportunity to do so.
Just like it's bad to tell women "Stay home in the kids because you're a woman!" even if they don't want to, isn't it also bad to tell them "Go be the breadwinner! Because there's not enough women doing it and we need to even the numbers!" even if they don't want to?

+As a side note, it's not always the Parent with the bigger income staying at home.
When I was 3 and diagnosed with Autism my Mom was running multiple stores, while my Dad ran an oil refinery.
My Mom has much bigger potential income than him, but choose to sell the stores and become the stay at home parent because she was more dedicated to the therapy that would be needed.
Point taken. That's something else I've noticed people doing. Disgracing others just because they wanna stay at home. Freedom of choice remember?

Yes that's true but in most cases, the parent with the larger income is working which was why I brought it up.
 
Alright. I got an hour to kill before I need to get ready for an interview, so I'll hammer out as functional and polite a response as possible.

Disclaimer: My objective wasn't to address all facets of life, because no set of laws or procedures really can. Even a concept as dead simple as taxes have seen tens of thousands of amendments and modifications because people have always found and exploited loopholes in the law, or because of other reasons. (Ex: Charities & non-profits getting tax exemptions.) No one law can possibly hope to curb or control all situations uniformly. Ergo why there's a difference between equality, and equity. I have all the same human rights as any of my other neighbours (near perfect equality), but some are richer or poorer than I am because of circumstances of birth, and because of the choices made in each of their lives (imperfect equity).

The balance between equality and equity is a fine one and often varies wildly depending on each individual circumstance, so I can't make any broad law to acceptably create more equity without impeaching equality as a result in most cases. Ergo why I cited the 1964 equal pay law as the beginning and core of my point of view: That's a law of equality, not equity. While its objective is to produce equity, it does so under a fine set of guidelines that don't impede anyone else's individual liberties.

My views tend to also be highly individualistic, which means I'm typically against collectivist thinking if it would promote one group over another group.

Alright. Now I can get to the fun bits.

The first site which cites those statistics cites itself. This is typically a faux pas, but I'll assume they were 100% factually correct, because I have no reason to believe they were lying, and I'll get on that shortly. :ferret:

However, the second site still cites a faulty statistic. It cites median earnings--IE, the total that all men made, versus the total that all women made, without consideration as to any other factors. In other words, it's a facetious, discredited statistic. This would be like comparing the salary of a male doctor to a female school teacher: Of course the male is making more money. He's in a job that requires eight years of grueling post-secondary education, in a job that has a much higher demand than the teacher's job does! And, it notes that "education is not an effective solution to the pay gap." Well, that shouldn't be surprising when more men than women voluntarily take courses that will end up paying more down the line than the courses women typically take, like Sciences & Engineering. This is also in spite of the fact that more women than men go into post-secondary in the first place, meaning the only discrimination at work here is individual choice! (Seriously I would love to see more women dumping Gender Studies to take Sciences & Engineering. That would ironically improve their situation more than any Gender Studies degree ever could. It's kind of the same conundrum as taking philosophy as a major: You learn just enough philosophy to realize that philosophy will not get you a profitable career.)

Where it concerns Hollywood and movie studios...

I actually don't have any doubt that they're lagging behind in the progressive department--they traditionally always have fallen behind the curve, just look up the Hayes Code--but I don't think it's from any intentionally malicious practices on the part of the writers and directors. Take writers here on Iwaku as an example: Most white people create white characters without a second thought. Most males write males as well. You've probably heard it expressed as an author port, but it's also simply writing what you best know. If you wake up every morning and look in the mirror and see white, and your family is white, and most of your friends are white, then when you imagine a fantasy character, they'll probably end up white by osmosis. It's a subconscious thing and it's not inherently wrong by any stretch.

It also means that the majority of films, by osmosis, will have white male protagonists in the lead role, and that outside pressures (ex: The LGBT community, blacks, women, et cetera) will affect change here slower than anywhere else in society if it's done peaceably. Because while it might be justifiably wrong to put in your job search ads for, say, burger flippers or accountants, "seeking white people only", because of how stories work, that's actually acceptable in Hollywood. If your protagonist is written to be a white male, then it's actually acceptable to post a job search for white male actors. Forcing the writer to create nothing but rainbow casts would infringe on their own personal liberties to create as they wish. This, however, does limit the number of roles that PoC and women can take, which inherently limits the number of major actors, directors, and so on, since a lot of directors start out as screen writers or actors.

It also probably doesn't help that character writing can be summarized as "take stereotype/archetype/role, stick in situation X/Y/Z." There's been a dearth of actual creativity in Hollywood (just how many goddamn remakes and sequels and prequels are there again?) It shouldn't be surprising that the clowns running the show wouldn't want to turn Beowulf black, or update their roster of nonsensical crap archetypes for people of colour and women. (And even some men, but I won't pretend they get as many stupid, shitty stereotype roles as PoC do.) I mean, come on, that takes effort, and why change anything if the common idiots flooding the movie theater will shovel popcorn into their mouths and enjoy it anyway? Look at how much the Transformers movies made. They're some of the dumbest, most poorly written, most stereotypical movies ever put to film, but if the common idiot enjoys it, then Hollywood will keep producing it.

That being said, movies like Star Wars Episode VII, the new Fantastic Four, and Fury Road, and more, are forcibly putting more variety into the big screen. When you get more acting roles for PoC and women, over time, you'll get more screen writers, and more directors taking the seat as well.

So, basically: If you can convince the average popcorn-eating fucktard to watch something a wee bit more sophisticated than Transformers, we'll see change happen quicker. As it stands though, refer to the free market economy: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If bog standard, bland, plain, white and male protagonists, with no personality beyond "I hit the thing until it stops moving" constantly sell, then the onus is on the studios to provide more of it to get more money.

I'd argue though that at the end of the day, movies are just fiction, and it doesn't really matter who directs them or what they're about. It's just a fantasy. Though I would like to see more women take directing roles if for no more reason than that the numbers do seem oddly skewered. Yet, I wouldn't push Hollywood to fire perfectly good directors to replace them with women just for an equity quota: That produces inequality. Hrm. No easy answer.

Like the idea or don't, it's the prevailing one because of biology. If a woman has to take anywhere between 1-2 months off anyway for child birth and safe physical recovery, it only makes logical sense that the man continues working. Again, it doesn't have to be that way, you can flip it on its head and have a stay at home dad with a working mother.

It's just a logical formula. One should go out and make mad dosh to pay the primary bills. The other should stay home and care of the kids. Whether you assign that to "male" or "female" is unfortunately irrelevant. As it stands though, yes, fathers should spend time with their children. Even in antiquated times, it was seen as something that fathers should do: Care for their kids. You know, the classic "teach your kids how to play ball and flirt and care for themselves in the world." It was seen as strange, even back then, for the main breadwinner to not interact with their children. Oh, and yes, that decision is and should be made between the parents. Again, I can't judge every single individual situation with the same brush, and that's why we have equality laws like the equal pay act of 1964.

Also, in my household, it was reversed in a sense. My father raised me and was the main breadwinner. Mainly because my mother took 100,000 bucks, the car, and sped off after separating, leaving my ass homeless for three weeks. Since you shared your household stuff, figured I'd share mine. :ferret:

And you're right, the workplace has no place deciding which gender should make more money. That is why it's illegal. Multiple times over. It also doesn't make any sense: If you could pay women 20-30 cents less per dollar than men and easily get away with it, there would be more women employed than men. You'd save 20% on your employment bills right there. Supply and demand economics, it'd show in the free market if it was cheaper to employ one over the other. :ferret:

For clarity, I used the "male = breadwinner, female = child-rearing" dichotomy because it happens to be the prevailing one. Not because I think that should necessarily be the prevailing one, but simply because it is the prevailing one. So statistically, if you're a male, you'll probably be the breadwinner, and if you're female, you'll probably be the child-rearing one. It has nothing to do with individual circumstances though: That could, again, be flipped on its head, and work perfectly fine as a result, if a couple wishes to circumvent the usual biological roles they've been assigned by nature.

Alright, fine, instead of gender, it's the sex. The male sex and the female sex each have biological differences, changing the word doesn't really change the fact that testosterone and estrogen affect behaviours that men and women have. I actually wrote a guide on this for role plays, so I'll just refer to this to save time. While exceptions exist, exceptions don't make the rule. There is a reason, beyond social roles, why men tend to prefer aggression, and why women tend to be more emotionally acute. Note the key words: "Tend to be." There are women who work in the oil fields, and men who work as daycare workers, and nothing should stop individual men and women from pursuing their own personal interests, because we are more than the sum of our parts. I'm more than just a male, you're more than just a female. We're human first, sex second. However, sex does have biological influences on men and women. Which does account for some differences in hobbies and pursuits and expressions and so on. These biological impulses are what we built the foundations of masculinity and femininity on. There's a reason that countries and peoples as far flung and isolated from each other as the Japanese, the aboriginals of Australia, the Aztecs, the various European cultures and peoples, the Indians, the Africans, the Slavic peoples, and so on, all largely came to startlingly similar conclusions as to what men should be and what women should be. Even if their expressions of these conclusions differ, the core principles remain the same.

While exceptions exist, they don't break the rule. Men tend more to aggression and rituals of proving themselves in one way or another, and women tend more toward child-care and compassion. These beliefs didn't just "appear" out of thin air: They appeared because we, as humans, all have impulses, and based on our sex, some impulses are statistically likely to be stronger than others. You take a group of cave men and throw them on an alien planet and they will develop startlingly similar views of masculinity and femininity to our own cave men ancestors, because that essentially happened on Earth thousands of times over. That doesn't just happen by chance.

I'm willing to give ground on points like Hollywood directors, because those skewered numbers seem odd. Also because Hollywood is fucking slow at changing, especially if it means risking formulas that consistently give them money. However, to say that everything men and women are is solely the byproduct of society's views, is to rob mother nature of her part to play, and ignore four billion years of evolution. It ignores basic, scientific facts that anyone can look up, right now. It also requires a worldwide conspiracy that has lasted for thousands of years.

That last bit makes it difficult for me to accept without a profound level of evidence. Of which, none is present: Only conjecture that attempts to defy commonly understood biology.

It should also be noted that the vast majority of goddesses before monotheism were depicted as beautiful, and were often representative of fertility, child-rearing, compassion, mercy, and other good but otherwise typically feminine qualities. It's apparent both in Norse and in Greek pantheons for Europe, and in the Japanese pantheon for their ancient Shinto beliefs. Also, fun fact about Christianity: Its foundation didn't start out as a monotheistic religion, but that's a topic for another time... :ferret:

It also makes sense that we considered Earth "mother" in our ancient times. Something had to give a proverbial "birth" to humanity, after all. Women give birth, ergo, mother Earth. Kind of the same reason people attributed volcanos to God being angry.

Also, one last thing I have to protest, actually, society generally frowns upon males who act on sheer aggression to take leadership over things. We call those people "dictators", and "tyrants." They're generally shown in even ancient tales as being murderous, violent, and needlessly cruel. They're pretty much the poster child of evil. It's why other virtues, like loyalty, honour, and respect, are considered virtues for men. It's why knights in shining armour don't just murder-rampage and threaten everyone they come across: They help the poor, the needy, those who have nothing. Whether you're a man, or a woman, if you're a vicious, power hungry bastard, society will revile you, not adore you. Nobody tries to promote their children to power for the sake of power, at least, nobody of any good moral standing.

They do already get equal pay and equal consideration for moving up the ranks. Equal pay and equal opportunity already exist. The issue is equity, not equality. If this wasn't at thing, you would have to explain how your theory can account for tens of thousands--if not hundreds of thousands--if not millions of examples of exceptions of women obtaining six digit paychecks, or prestigious jobs. When your theory has so many exceptions that you could fit your arm through them, you should reconsider your theory.

As for applying that to the biology argument, there's a reason I put "human" before "sex." Sex influences, it does not strictly control your destiny. You do that, as an individual.

If you want to talk inequality in the US, though, the justice system there is completely fucked. Black men get retardedly awful sentences. Pay gap though? No. It's a myth. :ferret:
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Well I have been slain.
 
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Christianity: Its foundation didn't start out as a monotheistic religion


See also; Summerian/Babylonian myth and polytheistic Proto-Judaism. Fascinating subject! But for another thread!

I just wanted to say its always fascinating to look at this issue. And that I have been rather impressed with the civility. Good on you all.
 
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Well I have been slain.
Being completely fair? Yes. The argument against Hollywood has some valid grounds and should be investigated further. Because those numbers are skewered to an utterly stupid degree. So. You got me there, to be fair. :ferret:
 
Being completely fair? Yes. The argument against Hollywood has some valid grounds and should be investigated further. Because those numbers are skewered to an utterly stupid degree. So. You got me there, to be fair. :ferret:
So we're both dead? XD
 
Need CPR? xD
 
A Necromancer could do the job too. :P
 
Or well cooked bacon.

Seriously, the smell of fresh bacon totally brings back almost anyone from the dead.
 
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