I wasn't talking about actual, physical apples, obviously. C'mon, man, they're metaphors.
Then I didn't get that it was a metaphor, sorry.
I'm not sure I entirely get it either. Who's supposed to be the orchard owner in this scenario ? The government ? Does he give big companies more apples but lets them pay less, or even gives them for free ? How much did we each pay for these apples ? If we both paid the same price and got different numbers of apples, then the orchard owner is clearly being unfair, especially if we're strangers to them.
Um, no, because women on the whole are more naturally attracted to other professions. Take a look at other professions like Police, Firefighters, and construction. Sure, more women are entering those jobs than in the past, but it's not a huge explosion. The number of applicants for those types of jobs are not commensurate with the number in white collar jobs. Females are also more reluctant to apply for promotions. You know why that is?
More women are focused on families than careers.
I guess by "naturally attracted to other professions", you mean "discouraged by society from pursuing careers in male-dominated career".
And why would women be reluctant to apply for promotions ? Maybe because women are socialized from birth to not put as much emphasis on their accomplishments as men ?
"
More women are focused on families than careers"
Are they ?
And if this is indeed true, why could that be ? Could it be that women are socialised and encouraged from a young age to become "homemakers" through gendered toys, unconscious biases of the parents, etc. ? (same goes for boys and being encouraged and socialised to be "bread-winners", btw).
Doesn't it seem weird to you that your genitals at birth/your presentation encourage people to perceive you and expect you to behave a certain way ?
I NEVER SAID THAT. Nothing even close. What I said was, fewer women apply for jobs like airline pilot. Let me break it down for you:
I own my airline. I have positions for 100 pilots. The government says I have to have an equal amount of male and female pilots which limits me to 50 of each. I have 400 male applicants and only 100 female applicants . I only want the top 20% of all applicants to fly for me.
That means I have 80 males and 20 females, but the government says I need an equal amount of each. That means I have to tell 30 top male pilots to hit the bricks while hiring 30 females that qualified below my top 20% threshold.
THIS is what quotas get us.
That's assuming there's the same mean level of competence in both groups, which is unlikely:
Due to societal sexism, there's a selective pressure that women face that men don't. Which means that women who do make it out of pilot school in our example are "more talented", "hard-working and persistent" than their male peers.
There's only so many ways to say that women in male-dominated fields have to be way better at their jobs than their male counterparts to be taken seriously and make a living.
That may have been so 20 years ago, but the end result holds true today for different reasons. Women pursue jobs that have been historically male-dominated at a greater rate today than 20 years ago, but not by much. The fact remains that the vast majority of women in the US don't pursue male-dominated careers AS A MATTER OF CHOICE. These women would rather sacrifice work time and money to stay at home and be the primary caregiver for their children. It's a biological and scientific fact, Women need time off from work to carry, birth, and care for their young. In the US, 70% of women report taking time off following pregnancy with an average of 10 weeks off for maternity leave. You think that doesn't factor into how much the average woman earns versus the average female?
It is a cold, hard fact that the so-called "gender wage gap" is a fallacy on EVERY level.
Yeah, because societal attitudes towards women pursuing careers in male-dominated fields haven't changed that much.
Choices can be influenced in myriads of ways.
If you faced endless harassment and being constantly underestimated by pursuing a specific career that would probably otherwise suit you, then chances are you'll have to be really, really good at it or really, really determined to pursue it anyway.
That's a pretty prejudiced way of thinking. Not all women want biological children, or at all. And some straight up can't. Why assume all women will want to breed at some point in their life ?
Besides. The average number of children per family was slightly less than 2 in 2019. That's around 20 weeks of leave for an entire career.
When not pregnant, a woman performs the same work, with the same number of hours and competence, as any male coworker. The fact that she might take (usually unpaid) leave for family and medical reasons should be not reason to not compensate her fairly for her work.
And some men want to take care of their children and be the "homemaker" of their family, become househusbands or stay-at-home dads. What about them ? By your logic, shouldn't they get paid less as well, since they intend to stay at home to take care of their kids anyways ?
Here are a bunch of English-language scientific studies on the topic of the gender pay gap.
Again, absolute BULLSHIT. It is just as easy to make a living BECAUSE IT'S AGAINST THE LAW TO PAY SOMEONE LESS BASED ON THEIR SEX, GENDER, RACE, ETHNICITY, RELIGION OR DISABILITY.
It is also extremely difficult to PROVE that you're paying an employee less than their male, white, christian, able-bodied and neurotypical coworkers BECAUSE of their sex, gender, race, ethnicity, religion or disability. There's also the fact that people tend to shy away from disclosing to their coworkers how much they're making (
here's a funny video explaining why it's important to tell your coworkers your salary).
So employers are pretty much free to do whatever they want.
SO many more factors come into play when we're talking about opportunities in the workforce, but the common misconception and popular argument these days is "You're a white male, you're the problem AND the barrier!" Yeah? Well FUCK YOU. I didn't create these problems, I never owned a slave, and I never rallied against womens' rights.
You're right. You, an individual, didn't create these problems. You never owned a slave, and never rallied against women's rights. From what I've seen, I believe you are a more than decent human being. That's not what we're saying the problem is.
Being a part of a privileged group isn't the problem either. Plenty of people are marginalized in some ways, yet privileged in others. For example, white women: oppressed for being women, but privileged for being white.
The problem is that we're living in a society that hugely benefits rich cis straight white men. This society created these problems that you, an individual, didn't create.
The problem is that too many cis straight white men pretend that this society doesn't benefit them and/or didn't create these problems, and they often actively oppose any change that minorities ask for out of a misguided perception that they're "under attack".
In short: we're not accusing all cis straight white men of having committed a nebulous original sin in the past, we're accusing some of them of denying the current reality lived by marginalized people and opposing our political fight for change and equality.
Sorry if I appear snarky in places. I tried not to be. Overall, I'm still glad we're having this discussion.
